NEA Leader Wanted
Comments in a recent post, MEMO: To Barack, Hillary and John, have led to an interesting discussion about the need for a new Chairman of the NEA.
A list has been started - add on:
Maya Angelou
Bill T. Jones
Alec Baldwin
Michael Eisner
Diane von Furstenberg
Bette Midler
Ann Bogart
Steve Wynn (yes, the Las Vegas hotel developer)
Azaro (April 19th, 2008 at 5:37 pm)
An odd little assortment of names, though I well see the wisdom of positioning a big-mouth entertainment executive or movie star as spokesperson for all the arts, since the innate modesty or decorousness of “finer” artists might not afford enough political firepower on the national level.
(I guess Steve Wynn– a developer, right?– qualifies because he brought Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Picasso to the Bellagio. Yikes, but OK.)
But why, a day or two after you posted this, has no one responded? Does no one really care? And do we wind up with the leadership we deserve?
Wilson McGrory (April 21st, 2008 at 11:12 pm)
I would argue that nothing will change in the United States in regards to the arts and arts funding if we continue to follow some model of spokesperson value based upon entertainment executives or movie stars or real estate executives.
They will not save us.
They will not change the system.
Nominate an artist who is poor as hell and can’t get their work seen or heard.
Azaro (April 22nd, 2008 at 9:49 am)
Wilson, with all due respect, I can’t help thinking that naivete like yours is part of the problem.
It’s kinda pointless to seek to be “saved,” or to replace “the system” with something more utopian. Yet within the existing framework, lots of improvement is possible, if people in the arts think strategically and optimistically– as in seeking commonality with powerful others who espouse enough of the same values.
Nominating a poor artist who can’t get her work seen might give us lots of righteous pleasure– but we’ve got to think beyond that, if we really want to get anywhere.