Category: issues

Patriotism isn’t just about jingoism and flag-waving, writes Frank Rich. “Patriotism needn’t make us so weary. Look around our culture, and it isn’t hard to find a faith in America that is not defined by government-commissioned flag-waving, political demagoguery or cable news’s jingoism-as-marketing-strategy. The most telling American fables don’t come in the blacks and whites of our current strident political and cultural discourse, which so often divides Americans into either flag-draped heroes or abject traitors. The great American stories, from Huckleberry Finn’s to the Dixie Chicks’, have always been nuanced; they can have poetry and they can have dark shadows. They can combine a love of country with an implicit criticism of it.”

California legislators are deciding whether to eliminate the California Arts Council. The state has a huge budget deficit, but doesn’t the state have a compelling interest in investing in culture, too? “Not as a matter of deciding what pictures get painted, not as a matter of supporting this or that artist, but as a matter of promoting excellence, the ‘common wealth.’ We certainly pay enough lip service to these ideals…”

A proposal before Congress would increase the amount of money foundations are required to give away each year. The foundations are opposed. “At root, the bill exposes the conflict over whether foundations exist to make an impact quickly and divest themselves of assets, or whether they exist to perpetuate themselves—and enrich the executives who run them.”

While other American cities have been cutting back their cultural initiatives, Indianapolis has been putting together a new $10 million plan for the arts. “The thing I’ve been most struck by is the intense emotion everyone feels about this initiative. Right or wrong, individual or organization, there is a very strong conviction that this is our chance, and we’d better not blow it.”

The National Endowment for the Arts has decided to let the state of Colorado keep this year’s NEA grant of $613,000. “The funding was at risk after the Colorado legislature reduced next year’s funding to the CCA from $1.9 million to $200,000, leaving the agency with just one full-time employee. In the past, the NEA has not funded states lacking a fully functioning state arts council.”

Colorado has all but eliminated its arts council, reducing funding to $200,000. The NEA has come across with another $600,000, but things are bleak. “The dismantling of the council has been slow and insidious, and painful to watch. Though some legislative support exists, there also has been a certain disinterest, if not scorn, for the agency’s role in bolstering the state’s cultural profile.”

The California Arts Council is in dancer of going out of business next week. “The arts council is listed on a seven- to eight-page document totaling $11 billion in cuts, and it includes things like hearing aids for people with hearing disorders – so when you’re looking at things that are sustenance for the elderly, the blind and the disabled, you have to keep that in mind when you’re looking at the arts council.”

“The 27-year-old agency is best known for its grants to local organizations, and much of the funding is used to send artists and performers into public schools. In the fiscal year that ended Monday, the Arts Council spent almost its entire budget of $18.2 million on grants.”

It’s not easy being in charge of a big museum in the middle of a major expansion while, all around you, budgets are being slashed and legislators are calling you an expendable piece of the state funding puzzle. Eugene Gargaro, Jr is a month into his new job as board chair at the Detroit Institute for the Arts, and after only a few weeks, he’s feeling the legislative pinch. “There’s been a significant change in state funding. Ten years ago, the museum received about $16 million. It’s possible that we’ll only receive $2 million or less next fiscal year. We’ve come a long way since the early 1990s, and yet we still need that vital state support, and we have to get better at making our case.”

“They’ve already called off operas and foiled film festivals. On Wednesday, thousands of France’s performing artists took their strike on the road, puffing into tubas or waving puppets as they marched through Paris’ streets in a demonstration. Now that spring strikes by transport workers, teachers and trash collectors have ended, a standoff over unemployment benefits for artists is threatening to ruin France’s summer artistic season. Dozens of performances… have been canceled. Actors, musicians, filmmakers and theater technicians are worried about changes to a unique French system that protects performers with an unemployment plan that takes into account their downtime between projects.”