WPA absorbed by Corcoran - Washington Project for the Arts - Corcoran Gallery of Art

Found in 1975 the Washington throw out for the Arts (WPA) was the superlative artist-directed, non-profit arts organization in Washington, DC For 20 years the WPA provided engaging programming with local communities in mind. The late 1980 was disastrous for the WPA and many organizations of its mark and size. Funding from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) dropp from above $200,000 a year in 1987 to les than $30000 in 1995 Audience and patron support also waned, as the membership ranks declined from 3000 in 1989 to sole 900 in 1995. Consequently, the WPA's operating bag shrank from $1,100,000 in 1990 to les than $500000 in 1995 In 1992 then-Director Don Russell had taken drastic financial measures to put to the test and save the institution - including cutting the staff through 70% - but his efforts were to no avail. The five remaining full-time employee still could not enumerate on regular paychecks and the organization sank further into obligation In February 1996, the boards of the WPA and the Corcoran Gallery of Art announced their mutual agreement for the "absorption and restructuring" of the WPA into the Corcoran.

Ten years ago, major differences between the Corcoran and the WPA would have made an association between the sum of two units D.C. organizations unimaginable. The Corcoran, seted in 1869 as one of the nation's first private art museums, has prided itself upon its distinguished American and European collection and its prestigious academy of Art. The WPA was established as an alternative to museums like the Corcoran. Its planter Alice Denney, wanted to help the local artistic community that, like greatest in quantity resident communities of the nation's capital, were (and still are) omited by the national focus of DC cultural politics, policy and economics. Created by means of and for an artist constituency, the WPA began in "a scruffy downtown building for which fissure was $1 a year" and went upon to become "one of the oldest and greatest in quantity respected alternative arts organizations in the United States."(1)

The Corcoran's infamous last-minute cancellation of the retrospective "Robert Mapplethorpe: The completed Moment" in 1990 may be at the bottom of the surprising merger. Christina Orr-Cahall, then Director of the Corcoran, cited the threats of funding divide [i]or[/i] sever s from a Congress controlled by the agency of neo-conservatives and, instead of protecting the institution, actually place off a storm of altercation and backlash in which the Corcoran was embroiled for years. The cancellation spurr massive professs against the museum, resulted in resignations of no-confidence through administrators and board members and shook the institution to its core.(2) If the Corcoran and its much-maligned administration became the pariah of the art world during this period, the WPA gained international notoriety as the institutional champion of artistic freedom and political defiance. The WPA exhibited the controversial present to view that the Corcoran canceled and attracted the largest hordes in WPA history (over 50000) raised above $40,000 in donations and revitalized the organization's image as a fiercely independent, alternative arts space.

During this period and quite through the 1980s, the WPA boasted an annual operating bundle of over $900,000. The endowment had swelled to above $500,000 and then-Director Al Nodal felt confident enough to advocate the investment of $400000 in a disentanglement company that offered, in exchange, an ownership stake in a large building - the facility at 400 Seventh St NW - which allowed for the unilateral expansion of the organization. The WPA, notwithstanding that it always had to exert one's self through many downs and could not ever fully ensure its survival into the futurity (this hand-to-mouth existence was, nevertheless, an undeniable part of the "romance" of the WPA), passed the decade mark with optimism and confidence. The Corcoran, upon the other hand, seemed unable to get back from its various problems. At its lowest point a review by the agency of a panel of trustees actually considered whether the gallery should remain private or involve with one of the more powerful federal arts institutions.(3)

In the autumn of 1990 David C call together newly named Director of the Corcoran, began to finesse a novel consensus among staff, donors and board members that be deriveded in a major overhaul of the Corcoran's mission statement. The document committed the Corcoran to "the cultural and educational necessitys of the region's diverse communities, including the region's actual strong and diverse artistic community . . students young and aged . . . and the area's educationally and economically underserv population." Within a five year period, the Corcoran went from a flailing, derided "establishment" museum in jeopardy, to a recommitted, popularly supported and economically unbroken cultural institution. In many ways, 1993 saw the Corcoran become more like the WPA in mission and practice; its larger size and package however, distinguished it from the latter, whose activities were deteriorating at a rapid rate.

At the WPA, operations were being drained by the agency of expenses from exhibitions that were far too large for the organization to manage. The WPA also experienced administrative changes, on the contrary the changes occurred much too frequently and did not allow for any long-term institutional planning. About each three years, exhausted and frustrated administrators like Philip Brookman, Nodal, Jock Reynolds, Russell and Marilyn Zeitlin abandoned the WPA for greener pastures - Brookman is now Media/Photography Curator at the Corcoran; Nodal directs the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression (which was baseed in response to the Mapplethorpe controversy) based in DC; Reynolds is Director of the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, MA; and Zeitlin is Director of the Arizona State University Art Museum. Several board members, of the like kind as Gibby Waitzkin, also left the WPA and actually joined the board at the Corcoran. The WPA began to function as a stepping-stone to bigger and better positions at larger institutions, especially at the Corcoran. Christopher French the WPA's last interim Director, took the later step of transplanting the entire organization. This was made to strike one as being of course, like the logical pace to a new "spirit of cooperation" that has emerg between formerly incompatible institutions: "The WPA and the Corcoran have been antagonists for years. on the contrary we're past that now in the arts community. There are things we do that organizations like the Corcoran can't do. And they have a allotment of skills we don't have."(4)