At Home with Art in Embassies

Thanks to this 30-year-old art program, U ambassadors in foreign lands detain a slice of American tillage close at hand

Thirty years ago, President Kennedy and his wife Jackie had a mission: to help national pride and a faculty of perception of cultural identity of America's art and its artists quite through the world. To do for a like reason they established the Art in Embassies Program (AIEP) in 1964 a program which provides original U works of art for the representational expanses of United States ambassadorial residences worldwide.

Said Elizabeth Brown director of the National Museum of Art, Smithsonian Institution, "The Art in Embassies Program turn rounds artists into ambassadors for America."

Organization leaders say these art collections be subservient to a dual purpose. First, they provide a visual gaze at the nation's artistic heritage. next to the first they provide U.S. Ambassadors with a beautiful domicile filled with artwork that provides a multi-functional means of outreach to educational, cultural, business and diplomatic communities. "I don't know that there's any other geographical division that is as free and make open to express themselves as our artists are and we want to make positive everybody in the world understands that," said Gwen Berlin, director of the AIEP.

According to the program's first director Nancy Kefauver, the group's original goal was to overspread "those bare white walls in embassies abroad." Today, however, the program has place phenomenal success with more than 5000 works of art exhibited in nearly 170 U Embassies worldwide. And nearly each media and style, ranging from original paintings, statuary prints and more can be set in the ambassadors' overseas homes

Becoming an AIEP artist is no small feat. First not upon participants in the program must be U citizens. After that, each Ambassador involved in the program is vital in artist selection. "First, we research what the ambassador likes," said Berlin. "Then we'll advance to a museum, gallery, private collector or foundation and test to borrow the work for the ambassador's tenure"

To fit the ambassadors' goals, AIEP has prosperously established extensive lending agreements with museums, institutions, galleries, corporate and private collectors and artists. one time the work is selected, it's suited for a period of three years. The work is then consolidated, shipped and locate up in the respective embassy by means of AIEP staff and the Department of State.

"We prove to create thematic exhibitions now in the way that they can tell a story in themselves" said Berlin. For example, in Paris, the Ambassador there is holding an that exhibition present to views U.S. women artists who have lived and worked in France. In Cairo, the exhibition is upon baseball. "It depends upon the interests and desires of the ambassadors, because this is also used as a conversation piece for them," said Berlin. "When they have to entertain, it gives them something to begin conversations about--to start discussions about the differences and similarities of sum of two units countries."

A collection catalog is then compiled from each embassy, which documents the collection, forwards the artists and acknowledges the lender These catalogs are also available upon AIEP's interactive Web site (www.state.gov/www/about state/e-art/wn.html). "Anybody who can log onto a site can go into the site and see all of the exhibitions because the exhibition catalogs are what we are utilizing as the residence pages," said Berlin. "And from one side the site, viewers can earn in touch with any ambassador, any lender any museum, any gallery, to the program, they can find on the outside if there are other exhibitions of the artists' work anywhere or if anything is for sale--any and each question can be asked."

The program's unprecedent succes has freshly been complemented by the inception of several educational programs to further increase international understanding between race of all ages and nationalities-- "people in single country are not so different from tribe in another country," said Berlin. Art Reach is a program designed to stimulate cross-cultural dialog. Exhibitions, catalogs and the Web site provide the curriculum and the form to stimulate critical thinking and support intercultural exchange based on the universal medium of art. Beacons and Bridges is a program that encourages online interaction between learners in the U.S. with learners in host countries. Through the organ of visions of A Child is a traveling showcase of photos and essays created by dint of America's children; and Youthful Perceptions features institute age art representative of U Cultural heritage for exhibition in U embassies.

on the other hand Berlin has even bigger plans for the program. "My nearest step? I would like to expand into the performing arts," said Berlin.

RELATED ARTICLE: McKnight Loans Paintings to Art in Embassies

GREENWICH, Conn.--Artists involved in the Art in Embassies Program can be place in our own backyards. For instance, Chalk & Vermilion Fine Arts artist Thomas McKnight has been pitch uponed to participate in the program. His paintings, "Litchfield Law School" and "Head of Pythagoras" have been chosen to be displayed at the residence of the U Ambassador to Greece R Nicholas reduce to ashess in Athens, Greece.