Politics – Page 10 – Robert Bettmann

I’m packing for a trip and I’m bringing an apple, and a beet, and a camera, and a diary…

In my role as Chair of the DC Advocates for the Arts I’m a funnel for activity, and a participant. (Makes me the think of the hair club for men.) Leadership in activism pretty much works that way.

Activism is a group activity. From earlier experiences (in environmental advocacy) I’ve seen that the more people you involve, the more chatter or vibration you tend to get in programmatic focus.

If it’s a hassle, or useless, to be involved, people tend not to get involved. If it’s worthwhile, and people can make a difference, they tend to. How can you encourage participation, while not losing too much focus? One consideration is how you build a team. Should it be a dictatorship, or is there a better way?

I wrote in an earlier post – about dancing contact improvisation – that no-one dances the same with every person. To translate from Somatic (body) metaphor: we are all responsive to one another. As an organizational leader I not only dance with folks, but help arrange/frame dances for others. How can I encourage the most fulfilling dances – for myself, and for others?

When I was in college I was President of the Outing Club, and in that capacity organized regular weekend day trips, as well as three term-break trips.

The first time that I led a group on a week trip to the southwest, I enrolled the trip first come, first served. The second time I did that trip, I created a one page survey which asked questions about experience, perspective, and goals.

The first trip we encountered few problems, but had lots of conflict. The biggest issue was that three members pretty much refused to be on a group agenda, and ended up heading off to do their own thing. As the ‘person responsible’ I was quite uncomfortable, and it also fractured the experience for everyone else. We weren’t one group.

The second trip I picked the people who I thought would be both cooperative and interesting participants. The trip was awesome. On the first day hiking we got completely lost. We headed into a canyon, but we think we dropped in one ravine early, or one ravine late. We were supposed to have two days hiking around ruins, with a stream, and beautiful campsites. Instead we had little water, uneven gravelly campsites… and an amazing, joyful, peaceful time.

My involvement in advocacy is about process. I think activism requires a certain inefficiency (like art.) And as an organizational leader I’m reminding myself that we will rarely be hiking single file. We’re gonna cut a broad swath if we do this right. You do what you can to get/keep people on the same page, but that’s just the way it goes. I realize that is the opposite of the message from my outing club experience. In the real world things don’t work like an outing club trip.

The Oberlin College Outing Club wasn’t a big organization. We didn’t have a major campus presence like similar clubs do at other schools. It was ohio… not much nature. Big music school. I can remember running into a friend at a party who was very involved in GLBT activism. He asked: “so, what have you been doing?” and I said, “well, I’ve been doing some stuff with the Outing Club.” I think we might not have been on the same page about what the outing club did, cause his response was: “That’s terrible! Why would you do that?!?!” (Glad to reconnect with you, M. : )

Citizen Artistry

About the support necessary for artists to make enemies and influence people

Dance critic Claudia La Rocco published a piece on her WNYC performance club blog recently exploring the notion of Artistic Citizenry. The topic is trenchant; from Shepard Fairey to the White House it seems that Americans are engaging with political issues through art. Nothing particulary new, but for this generation the energy is rising toward artistic political engagement.

Many artists today – including Fairey – clearly work from a personal sense of activism. La Rocco’s post, titled The Art of Citizenship, explores some of the issues raised with that type of engagement. She notes, “We tend to have broad stereotypes of what it means for an artist to be a good citizen: making work that protests Vietnam, doing community workshops for impoverished children, etc. … For me, bound up in the idea of being an activist is a certain form of resistance, of re-thinking our assumptions.” La Rocco’s words express her understanding of the potential for artists to influence the issues of their day; citizen artistry as counter-culture, independence, and progress.

On the same day that La Rocco published her piece, the Boston Globe published a visual celebration of the People’s Republic of China’s 60th birthday celebrations. Included in that set of images is the image to the left, which carries the description: “Dancers from the National Ballet of China performs the “Red Detachment of Women” ballet at the Tanggu Great Theater, part of the celebration of China’s 60th anniversary, in Tianjin, September 26, 2009. The “Red Detachment of Women” is a full-length Chinese ballet depicting a peasant woman’s journey into the PLA, combining Western dance style with Chinese cultural elements. (REUTERS/Jason Lee)” These two items represent two sides of the spectrum of Artistic Citizenry. On the one side is independence, and on the other, direct service to political power. The recent NEA scandal shows that even in the United States we may be vulnerable to artistic citizenry directly harnessed by political power.

The La Times Culture Monster blog has done a nice job tracking the recent NEA scandal which focused around an Aug. 10 teleconference “in which the NEA’s communications director urged members of the arts community to help Obama’s efforts to spur volunteer community service.” Analyzing the scandal, conservative journalist/novelist Andrew Klavan wrote,

“Lets just talk about art. It’s hard out here on us creative types right now. When times are tough, truth and beauty sink pretty low on the national shopping list. The NEA, according to its own website, is the nations largest annual funder of the arts. It gives tens of millions of dollars a year in grants to artists and art organizations. It does this, according to the legislation that established it, to help create and sustain not only a climate encouraging freedom of thought, imagination, and inquiry but also the material conditions facilitating the release of this creative talent. It is there, in other words, to protect artists freedom from the corrupting influence of financial deprivation… It doesn’t matter that [the NEA] didn’t actually offer these artists money in exchange for propaganda; its very presence on the line constituted an implied offer of access.”

La Rocco cites a risk for citizen artists of “being shrill or didactic, of circling the wagons to such an extent that you can’t see what’s on the other side, that no one gets in and out.” Another risk is becoming pawns in the chess games of politicians. Modern artists are dependent on foundations – government and private – to make their work. And while a liberal sensibility may naturally emanate from modern art, many artists feel a reasonable pull toward patronage of funder ideas. I wrote in a piece about arts earmarks a while back that,

“Everyone likes people who give them money. We’ll bring you flowers if you let us… [But] if you make the arts community a petting zoo, that’s all its gonna be. You have to take yourself out of the equation. The work we’re doing isn’t meaningless. You need to respect it beyond politics. It’s like religion. It’s art. Please participate, and get out of the way.”

A choreographer I worked for a few years ago told me a story about when Yvonne Rainer came to perform in Washington. She was planning to do a piece in which her dancers wore the American flag. The producers had some qualms about the production, and Rainer was called to a meeting. I was told that Rainer wore an American flag – only – when she went to the meeting, and that when told she couldn’t wear it, she took it off and conducted the rest of the meeting in the buff. The compromise that was reached allowed a flag to be placed on the floor of the dance space; Rainer purchased a flag that filled almost the entire floor, including the entry-way, forcing performers and many audience to walk on the flag.

The story reminds me that independence is a choice for each artist. Still, independence of thought – as understood by all types of citizens – is a value that needs supporting. Artists’ careers grow secure fostering their connections with like-minded groups. Artistic citizenry can be nurtured not just by critics, but by the funding community.

The Accidental Advocate

As is clear from prior posts, I’ve been thinking about artists and arts administrators lately. Largely, I’ve been thinking about this through the lens of arts advocacy. Additionally, I’ve been thinking about it from the business perspective… i.e. artist as entrepreneur. Not to over-emphasize un-necessarily, but there really is a difference between the successful professional artist and the successful professional arts administrator. We need each other like my cat needs food, – constantly, and with a passion, – but we aren’t the same. The distinction really only becomes clear contrasting the needs of the dedicated arts administrator, with the needs of the artist/arts administrator (entrepreneurial artist.)

The job of arts administrators – for which they get paid – is to support the work of artists. Because the non-profit world is very competitive, successful arts administrators do everything possible to fund art making. Doing so is their job, even if they don’t work in development. Arts administrators, being professionals who make their living supporting art, are necessarily concerned with preserving what exists.

The job of being an artist is necessarily entrepreneurial. Part of the role of being an artist is to be an arts administrator. Our work has to be funded or we can’t be artists. Our work has to be promoted, or we can’t be artists. Our projects have to be organized or we can’t be artists. Still, the exigencies of arts administration and the exigencies of being an artist are distinct.

Arts advocacy is a meeting-ground for the interests of artists and arts administrators, but the interests are not identical. One might imagine that the voices of artists would be primary in arts advocacy. In reality, the voices of arts administrators are equally important. Without the vision and commitment of arts administrators, the arts profession would collapse. Artists and arts administrators need to work together with policy-makers to ensure the viability of the arts profession as a whole. All arts professionals have interests in arts advocacy.

Back to today’s to-do list.