|
Please don't forget to Support our Underwriters!
But, if you shop on Amazon go through our website.
Amazon will give back 8% to WAMC.
|
|
Mary Schmidt Campbell
September 29, 2008: Why Public Funding for the Arts and Humanities
Election season seems like the perfect time to ask ourselves if public funding for the arts is still a viable idea. During the culture wars in the late 1980's, members of congress called into question the value of both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. On the senate floor, some lawmakers were moved to denounce individual artists and individual works of art as well as institutions and their leaders for making use of public funds to create or present work which clashed with the values of the lawmakers' constituents. A decency clause was added to all grants from the NEA, eventually grants to individual artists were eliminated and the NEA and the NEH saw their allocations diminish in subsequent years. A decade ago, even in a city as progressive and liberal as New York City, a former Mayor threatened to withhold city funding from a major museum, when the museum displayed a painting the Mayor felt demeaned Catholicism.
The net effect of these assaults has been greatly reduced visibility and, in many cases, reductions of funding for public agencies that fund the arts.
With a majority of the country's congressional seats up for re-election and a presidential campaign in full swing, and, in light of past controversies, what case should the arts community be making for public funding of the arts? To help answer that question, I went back to the origins of the New York State Council on the Arts, the agency I chair and to the words of the politician and art lover who was the driving force behind the legislation that established the council on the arts, Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Looking over some of the statements he made during the early years of the council, I came across his introduction to the 1970 annual report of the New York State Council on the Arts. An astute politician and someone who had an intensely meaningful relationship to the arts, Nelson Rockefeller established the council on the arts understanding that public funding served multiple purposes.
In the 1970 annual report, for example, he writes that "the ultimate test of a democracy lies in the quality of the artistic and intellectual life it creates and supports." Depending as they do on freedom of speech, the right to debate and dissent, the arts are the most visible sign of a democracy's capacity to realize its ideals. Rockefeller considered the arts not only a litmus test of a robust democracy, he recognized their intrinsic value as well. He goes on to write, "the arts… teach us to hear when we listen and see when we look. They help make us more complete human beings." As if to underscore his belief in those words, Rockefeller included in the statute that called the New York State Council into being a provision that required the agency to make grants to individual artists.
Finally ever the political pragmatist, Rockefeller wrote that "the arts can also contribute to the quality of American life in everything from highway construction to graphic design from urban planning to education…." Those words anticipated the successful economic development projects all over the country, anchored and often led by cultural institutions.
I personally believe that as a country our distinct advantage has always been the outrageousness of our imagination. Our inventors have insisted that man can fly; that electricity can heat and light your home; that you can invent a world wide web of communications and put it inside of your cell phone. Political leaders who can see the possibilities and creative capital that we stand to gain by supporting art, science and the humanities are the politicians who have our country's best interests at heart.
Mary Schmidt Campbell has been dean of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts since 1991. Previously, she was New York City Commissioner of Cultural Affairs in the Edward I. Koch and David Dinkins administrations, after having served as executive director of the Studio Museum in Harlem for ten years. In the fall of 2007 she added the voluntary position of Chair of the New York State Council to her duties.
Back to the Top
June 26, 2008: Summer in New York State
Summer in New York State: who needs to travel abroad, when the entire state of New York is chocked full of festivals, concerts and special summer events? This summer, my first as chair of the New York State Council on the Arts, with a map of the state spread out on my kitchen table and an inventory of cultural events supported by the New York State Council on the Arts at my finger tips, I set out to construct some possible "cultural tours" of the state as if I were from out of town and just looking to have a great summer vacation.
One thing strikes me right away and that is the number of free events throughout the five boroughs and all over the state. For example, summer dancing appeals to me and I can take a twirl in the Bronx during First Fridays at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Or I could enjoy what's billed as the country's hottest outdoor dance party-- Lincoln Center's Midsummer night swing-- in full force from late June through the month of July. Later in the season, I could exercise my craving for free outdoor dancing in August at Moondance, under the stars on the Hudson River at West Street and North Moore.
On the banks of the Hudson River, just north of New York City, the village of Haverstraw is shutting down the streets and turning up the music on July 11th so if I want free salsa or meringue lessons, I know just where to go! Once I have mastered Latin dancing, I can travel upstate to Binghamton for an evening on July 12th of swing dancing at the " Southern Tier Celebrates" Free Concerts series in Binghamton. By the end of the summer, I could be a dancing diva-and all for free.
Shakespeare is another love of mine and the number of free Shakespeare events could almost get me through the entire canon this summer! The largest and probably the oldest summer Shakespeare is in Central Park. The Public theater's New York Shkespeare Festival has been offering free Shakespeare for over 50 years at the Delacorte Theater, where Hamlet is currently playing.
A younger free Shakespeare in the Park is the New York Classical Theater's summer season first in Central park where Cymbeline just closed and then in Battery Park where "the Scottish play" will be presented, the last week in June and the first two weeks of July.
The second largest Shakespeare festival in New York State is Shakespeare in Delaware Park, a Buffalo summer tradition since 1976. Shakespeare in Delaware Park takes place in a historic park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. A grand Tudor-Style stage on a sweeping hill of green is the setting for this year's productions of King Lear and Merry Wives of Windsor, both free. From July 17th to the 27th the Theater Company at Hubbard Hall presents an out doors touring production of Two Gentleman of Verona. Last but not least Delaware County's Franklin Stage offers, free of charge, Shakespeare's Measure for Measure which opens next week and later in the season Berthold Brecht's Galileo.
As if the free opportunities were not enough, Shakespeare comes in the form of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, choreographed by Mark Morris, which launches Bard College's "Summerscape" program on the 4th of July. That same weekend, Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown presents Kiss Me Kate, Cole Porter's musical version of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew.
This exercise of trying to come up with cultural tours has made me realize that it will take more than one commentary even to begin to scratch the surface of what New York State has to offer this summer. I'll be back next month for part II!
Mary Schmidt Campbell has been dean of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts since 1991. Previously, she was New York City Commissioner of Cultural Affairs in the Edward I. Koch and David Dinkins administrations, after having served as executive director of the Studio Museum in Harlem for ten years. In the fall of 2007 she added the voluntary position of Chair of the New York State Council to her duties.
Back to the Top
May 22, 2008: Individual Artists and the State of the State
What are we going to do about the state of New York State's economy? One strategy might be to make the state more attractive to artists. Experience tells us that the presence of working artists can radically transform a community. Countless neighborhoods in New York City, for example, as diverse as Soho and tribeca in Manhattan, Long Island City in Queens, DUMBO and Williamsburg in Brooklyn have been re-imagined by the presence of working artists. Once derelict buildings have been brought back to life made vibrant by artists who use them for live/work space. Communities of working artists can fill a region with creative capital, becoming a magnet for shops, restaurants, small businesses, and, eventually more residents.
What are the possibilities at the state level? The question is by no means rhetorical. Many regions in New York State contain the same kind of old manufacturing infrastructure as many of the New York City neighborhoods that were so successfully transformed by residential working artists. As manufacturing dies in regions around New York or as once major public institutions close their doors, many times the architectural structures left behind with their high ceilings, big windows with lots of natural light and large interior spaces, make for ideal spaces for working artists. Two outstanding examples are Art space in Buffalo and the Near West Side Initiative in Syracuse, affiliated with Syracuse University. A statewide inventory of these structures might be a useful first step to determine which structures might be recyclable and turned into studio space for the visual arts, new media, film production, dance, performance space, music. A statewide offering of space in return for a modest investment or sweat equity might be enough incentive to attract artists to migrate from down state to upstate.
Making it attractive for artists to move into available unused state owned space might also help with another serious New York State problem and that is the state's current brain drain. According to a study conducted by the New York State Department of Economic Development and Cornell University, from 1995 to 2000, although upstate New York attracted a total of 235,000 young adults, the region also lost 303,000 young adults. This number is especially shocking, when you realize the record numbers of young people who come into the state to study at the state's extraordinary network of world class colleges and universities. Many of those students who come to New York are artists in training. What would make more of them stay in the state? The opportunity to live in the state with space to work would be a powerful attraction to stay after college.
But why take that risk now, you might ask? New York State is in deep economic distress. Already this year, $800 million dollars was cut from the state's budget and next year that figure will surely be larger. Urban areas throughout the state are experiencing a seriously depressed economy. Economic growth in the state has slowed almost to a standstill. In times like these shouldn't the state of New York focus on the bare essentials like education, economic development, creating jobs?
Indeed, New York City was facing the same dilemma 30 years ago, when on the brink of bankruptcy, the city had to decide whether it would continue to provide funding for its cultural institutions. Utterly impoverished, the city decided that a key to the city's revival was the continued vitality of its cultural infrastructure. Partnering with a range of agencies in federal and state government from the department of labor, to Housing and Urban Development to state economic development, the city, its artists and its cultural institutions became a vital part of the effort to impact education, spur economic development and create new jobs. Can New York State afford to invest in attracting and retaining its most talented artists? The real question is: can New York State afford not to.
Mary Schmidt Campbell has been dean of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts since 1991. Previously, she was New York City Commissioner of Cultural Affairs in the Edward I. Koch and David Dinkins administrations, after having served as executive director of the Studio Museum in Harlem for ten years. In the fall of 2007 she added the voluntary position of Chair of the New York State Council to her duties.
Back to the Top
|
|
|
