Cultural Policy

February 1998, appx. 40 pages, Arts International, 809 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017, 212-984-5370, fax 212-984-5574, ainternational[at]iie.org

"It takes thirty leaves to make the apple."
— Thich Nhat Hanh

1998, 82 pages, SPUR, 312 Sutter Street, Suite 500, San Francisco, California 94108-4305, 415-781-8726, fax: 415-781-7291, spur[at]well.com.

Produced by San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, this report provides details and insights from a three-day community workshop that addressed the following concerns:

• the ability of cultural institutions to meet their full audience potential, to educate needy individuals, to attract new donations, and to secure major traveling exhibits

Lance T. Izumi is a senior fellow in California studies at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy. The following text is based on a transcript of Izumi's remarks at a symposium sponsored by the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF). The topic of the two-day symposium was the support of visual artists. It was held in Seattle on December 4 and 5, 1997. The remarks are published here with permission of Izumi and WESTAF.

The Arts and the Public Purpose 92nd American Assembly

From May 29 through June 1 of this year, seventy-eight individuals interested in the arts in the United States came together for the 92nd American Assembly at Arden House in Harriman, New York to debate "The Arts and the Public Purpose." The American Assembly was established by Dwight D. Eisenhower at Columbia University in 1950. Each year it holds at least two nonpartisan meetings on topics related to United States policy, each of which gives rise to a book on the subject discussed.

Classical musics are comparatively rare; they seem to need for their existence not only a leisured class able to command a quantity of surplus resources but also a situation where that class is to some degree isolated from the majority of the people and possesses the social power to represent its own tastes as superior.

Intersections
This report began as a standard travelog, factual, but listless. The GIA conference title, Intersections, seemed appropriate, but irritating as it pricked at some memory I could not grasp.

The NEA has been mired in controversy for most of the past decade, during which time it has lost much of its appropriation and even more of its autonomy, as Congress has directed larger chunks of its annual appropriation to the states, earmarked other moneys for special purposes, and effectively placed off limits NEA fellowships for most kinds of artists.

On March 7, 1997, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, in conjunction with Community Partners, ARTS Inc., and the California Assembly of Local Arts Agencies, convened a workshop titled "Arts Incubators: Building Healthy Arts Organizations and Healthy Economies." The seventy-plus participants included representatives of arts organizations, local arts agencies, municipalities, and foundations.

Like program officers everywhere, I spend a lot of time immersed in the minutia that pours from one proposal folder after another. How, then, can I keep my eyes on the big picture? Individual programs are evaluated, of course, but how can my colleagues and I measure the overall health of the city's arts and cultural sector? And what about the rest of the city? Where do the arts and artists fit into the city's economy? Our public school system? Housing? My search for the big picture reminds me of the Gauguin painting at the Museum of Fine Arts which asks “Where Do We Come From? What Are We?