Art – Page 23 – Robert Bettmann

Is Government Transparency an Arts Issue?

More than one person has questioned me about why the DC Advocates for the Arts included Government Transparency in our issues on our Arts Advocacy Day March 3rd, 2010. I recently received the following from the Sunlight Foundation by Jerrol LeBaron, and think it does a great job outlining what advocates locally, and across the country, are working for regarding transparency. In doing that, the piece clarified for me why government transparency is a public policy issue for the arts.

“Transparency is key to keeping legislators, agencies and politicians in line. But there are two types of transparency:

1. Transparency after the fact.
2. Transparency before the fact.

Transparency after the fact is something we have to some degree in the US. For example, we know about the final versions of laws that are passed, after they have been passed. Well, that is better than nothing. However, the law has been passed and it is too late to reverse it.

Transparency before the fact is something that hardly exists at all at the state and congressional levels. Transparency before the fact would mean that the final, final version of the bill is available to everyone several days in advance of the vote.

Now, that is real transparency! This provides a way for citizens to find out about legislators who are serving special interests before the law is passed. This provides us with the opportunity to get our voices heard before the law is passed. Now that is a much better form of transparency.

Imagine if each government agency was required to display to the American people their final, final versions of rules and laws and budgets many days before they were allowed to make them official.

Transparency before the fact creates and inspires community activism and unity. It also helps to increase proper representation and accountability.

Transparency after the fact helps in those areas and is needed, but it also contributes to apathy and is less important than transparency before the fact. — because it is already too late — the damage has been done.”

———-

I think that transparency is an arts issue because the numbers really are where the rubber meets the road. We should know where the government is planning to spend our money, as well as where they have spent it.

Living with a Coyote in a Gallery

There is just something interesting about a Nazi living in a New York gallery with a live Coyote for three days… Thanks to Kriston Capps for pointing out in his Whitney Biennial review. Photo and photo caption from here.

“This photograph by Caroline Tisdall is from Joseph Beuys: Coyote, a 1976 book recently published in a new edition by Shirmer/Mosel. The book documents Joseph Beuys’ 1974 performance art piece, Coyote: I Like America and America Likes Me, in which the artist spent three days and nights caged with a wild coyote in René Block’s New York Gallery.” To see a not-quite-interesting-enough-to-make-it-worth-watching-such-a-long-video documentary about the artist and the project, click here.

[Note: in response to the first comment I added attribution for the quote below the image. In response to the 2nd comment I fixed apostrophes in my own comment.]

This land is your land – part II

I’d be an irresponsible blogger if I didn’t log on about the recent Sprite Step Competition which crowned a WHITE women’s fraternity from Arkansas (ZTA) champion. The Washington Post article by Neely Tuck does a nice job summing up the issue:

When the team finished — to wild applause — emcee Ryan Cameron, a local radio personality, rushed onstage: “Whoa! Wow!” Then he playfully admonished the sold-out crowd of 4,600 fans, nearly all of them black, not to be so surprised that the evening’s only white contestants were that good.

“Close your mouth! Close your mouth!” he said with a laugh. “Stepping is for everybody. If you can step, you can step.”

But later, when it was announced that the Zetas won, the feel-good vibe evaporated. Large sections of the crowd starting booing. Then Internet and radio-call-in warfare broke out when the videos were posted on YouTube. There were allegations of cultural theft and reverse racism, not to mention race-based taunting and name-calling.

Late last week, Sprite officials said they discovered the scoring discrepancy. This was odd because the show’s host, rapper Ludacris, assured the crowd that the judges’ scores had been “double-checked.”

Here for your enjoyment – and I don’t know if it should have won but it is cool – are the ladies of ZTA:

The responses on this have been really interesting in the blogosphere I track, including backlash against Sprite for double-championing, and “reverse-racism” (on ESPN no less…) In a social media conversation I wrote, “I know white people who do indian dance, and play jazz music, and I know black people who dance ballet. In judging performance – do the apparent cultural roots of the performers matter? I think our perception and judgment of performance is closely tied who the “our” is in this sentence. Who owns our art forms? All successful (read:compelling) art forms evolve over time, as do the people who practice them. In this performance the audience and judges made a decision which reflects their mores as judges, and as audience.” That was within a conversation that was beautifully heart-felt and open… As a white person it is not my culture being assimilated (again.) There are real issues of cultural appropriation in the not-so-distant past within the originating Step community.

It seems like most people are really owning their issues in discussing this. Sprite just wanted some publicity from a Step competition to market toward hip urban consumers, not a boycott on charges of racism.. Who says there should be an easy answer? By the by — the last post I wrote titled This Land is Your Land is about Israel, and the Palestinian conflict.