President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will host "Jazz at the White House," airing on International Jazz Day, Saturday, April 30 (8-9pm EST), on ABC. The one-hour primetime television special will feature an extraordinary array of artists from around the world paying tribute to the truly American art form of jazz.

‘Soft power” refers to winning people over on the basis of cultural appeal and ethical values [...]. It’s by no means a novel concept, but it has particular contemporary relevance in a fractious, crowded, pluralistic world. MuseumNext is a peripatetic series of conferences on the future of museums that begins its Dublin iteration today. Among the subjects it will address is the idea of museums as agents of soft power.

Swedish Ambassador to Nigeria Svante Kilander says the embassy will collaborate with Nigeria to enhance works of arts and cultural relationship between both countries.[...] He noted that works of arts, especially poetry “is a strong tool for preaching culture and societal issues.

The latest U.S. delegation planning a Cuba trip since the thaw in relations is a government cultural mission that will include Usher, Smokey Robinson, and Lourdes Lopez, artistic director of the Miami City Ballet. [...] The delegation hopes to identify more opportunities for people-to-people artistic and cultural collaborations.

In the latest sign of heightened cultural diplomacy between France and Russia, Manet’s Olympia (1863) will travel from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris for an exhibition at the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow that opens to the public on 19 April.

Since democratic elections officially signaled the end of apartheid in 1994, South Africa has taken pride in describing itself as a ‘Rainbow Nation,’ filled with people of diverse races, cultures, and sexualities [...] Digital artist Tiger Maramela wanted to try and contribute to this activism through art, producing a colorful, striking collage series that examines the South African narrative of post-apartheid unity.

The culture and education organization of the Yunus Emre Institute has laid out a 15-article road map for its 2023 goals during a recent advisory meeting in Ankara. The meeting [...] set forth that the institute will strive to establish 55 centers on five continents by 2017 in efforts to strengthen communicative ties with the international community. 

The artwork, called Solar Reserve (Tonopah, Nevada) 2014, was created by Irish artist John Gerrard and illustrates the changing views of the solar arrays from day to night. The actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who has used his fame to publicize the perils of global warming, bought and donated the work to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.