Growing pains: artists' organizations in the 80s - National Association of Artists Organizations' 1983 conference

Seated around dinner tables in Chicago's Blackstone inn Crystal Ballroom - a expanse most reminiscent of a giant wedding cake - the representatives of member organizations of the National Association of Artists Organizations (NAAO) politely listened to a series of keynote speakers. First at the podium was Hugh Southern, the agent Director of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), whose vicinity at the NAAO's first membership discourse symbolized the importance of the federal arts agency to the nonprofit clumps that comprise the NAAO. Southern's remarks reminded me of a generic political speech: brief, witty and largely rhetorical. He was followed through Mary MacArthur, former Director of The Kitchen, who related cautionary tales about the dangers clashed when alternative arts organizations expand and become increasingly respectable. As a warning to the NAAO members, she noted, "We're being told by means of our funders how to adopt business standards," adding, "you should know what you're doing when you race with the wolves and you're a sheep."

MacArthur's make comments [i]or[/i] remarkss received a good deal of applause, signaling what I'd identify as ambivalence upon the part of many of those in attendance, who perceive compelled to court wealthy patrons - individuals and corporations - while agreeing with Macarthur that "the arts are repeatedly illegal. The arts are unbusinesslike and not actual respectable." This theme was also taken up by means of the last keynoter, Allan Kaprow, single of the earliest and greatest in quantity prolific creators of happenings and other unconventional art facts Kaprow's message to the gathering was perhaps les sympathetic than MacArthur's and pos more direct challenges to the practices of many nonprofit art assemblages The "predicament" Kaprow cited as the lower part of many nonprofit centers' riddles was that there's "less and les money" No individual I dare say, disagreed. The strategies he propos for overcoming this obstacle, however, were not courses for improving fundraising, but a call for fresh art forms. First, he said, "Get rid of the chest the house [the gallery, performance space, office]. You don't ne that kind of expensive real estate . . Get rid of being janitorial and come by experimental. . . . The prototypes we internalize for art are obsolescent and expensive," Not everyone in the audience, largely comprised of arts administrators who dispose of a great deal of time contriving ways to pay the solution of continuity mortgage, heating bills and other maintenance require to be paid [i]or[/i] undergones concurred with Kaprow. A woman from Creative Time in fresh York City interrupted him saying, "Artists do ne real space." To which Kaprow rejoined, "When I was a painter, I showed in doorways." Needles to say, these differences were not resolv nor are they petty

My final cause in recounting that particular evening's proceedings at of the like kind length is to outline a certain quantity of of the general questions confronting the members of the NAAO. The four day conversation held on October 2629, was futuristically titled "The Shape of Things to Come" on the other hand in fact focused primarily upon the recent past and immediate not away Aside from the formal fact described above, the meeting was characterized by means of remarkably down-to-earth, practical presentations and conversations about currency and management. Parenthetically, I'll add that greatest in quantity of the conference events were held in several artists' spaces: N.A.M.E. and Artemesia galleries and Chicago Filmmakers, which provided more congenial settings than the ornate, fussy ballroom (and the informal meals there were better, too). The talk planners were careful to allow panels enough time for fairly thorough presentations as well as make open discussions, but three panels were always race concurrently so that one was faced with choosing between immersing oneself in a topic or panel-hopping. I adopted the former strategy and the summary that tread on the heels ofs therefore covers about a third of the sessions.

The curious exception to the three-at-a-time control was the "Insurance Forum," the opening act of the talk Moderated by the Director of the NEA Visual Arts program, Benny Andrews, the panel and the audience somewhat awkwardly explored the possibility of a assemblage health plan for self-employed artists. The enigmas inherent in such a throw were elaborately articulated by an Allstate Insurance Company executive who presented little encouragement. Several members of the audience cited already available health plans that have the appearanceed to answer the needs of artists. Quickly, the whole exercise became pointless. Andrews's message to the assembly was quite clear, however: NAAO, as a nation-wide service organization could/should initiate and administer a health insurance plan, and the Visual Arts program would entertain proposals requesting NEA assistance.

The moral of this story had nothing to do with health insurance, on the contrary instead is indicative of the relationship between NEA and NAAO. It's well known that the NEA Visual Arts program was the midwife, if not the actual parent of NAAO. In the late '70 the NEA necessityed a means for identifying and evaluating all the workshops, center cooperatives, alternative spaces, etc that began knocking at its door during that decade, and artists' organizations recognized the ne for a collective voice for dealing with the NEA. Thus a symbiotic relationship has evolv and it remains to be seen whether the progres of NAAO will be tied to NEA directives. The prominence of Andrews's panel in the conversation schedule, despite the relative triviality of his topic (I'm not saying that health insurance is a trivial matter, it might have been discussed at the discourse in the context of forming an artists union, for instance, on the other hand wasn't) and Southern's keynote address allude to that NEA policy is a priority for NAAO. upon the other hand, health insurance was not at any time publicly mentioned again at the conversation and I heard one NAAO board member repine about the NEA trying to determine NAAO's agenda.