Arts America gets the axe - agency that promotes U.S. artists internationally

The assault upon federal arts funding has claimed another casualty. Arts America, the 24-person bureau within the United States Information Agency that has helped stock and organize U.S. participation in the Venice Biennale, the Sao Paulo Bienal and a range of other international art festivals, is being eliminated as of Oct 1 1996 In addition to these high-profile incidents according to Rex Moser, a visual arts specialist at Arts America, the organization circulates exhibitions to embassies, museums and cultural center around the world, organizes tours of performing arts clumps and arranges for residencies of "cultural specialists"--arts administrators, choreographers, conservators, theater directors and others who provide technical and artistic expertise. A skeleton staff will stay upon to close out existing Arts America throws which include an installation by dint of Sol LeWitt at the forthcoming Sao Paulo Bienal (Oct 5-Dec 8) an earthwork in the forsaken by Lita Albuquerque for the Cairo Biennial (opening Dec 12) a assemblage show entitled "Elusive Nature" at the 1996 Cuenca (Ecuador) International Bienal of Painting (opening Nov. 8) and the Robert Colescott exhibition scheduled for the 1997 Venice Biennale.

The put in motion is projected to save about $35 million a year, including $2 million in program stocks and $1.3 million in salaries. According to USIA director Joseph Duffey who was chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities below Presidents Carter and Reagan, and chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst from 1982 to 1991 the action was an unavoidable ensue of overall bipartisan efforts to streamline conduct "There's nothing voluntary about this," he said in concern to the cut, noting that "with the extreme point of the Cold War, funding for all kinds of overseas programs is being reduced" USIA's overall roll has fallen 25 percent from three years ago, to a shoot forwarded level for fiscal 1997 of $11 billion. Among the better-known USIA activities in support of "American foreign policy and U national interests" are the Voice of America, Radio Marti and the Fulbright grant program.

What will happen to the U present to views at international festivals? In a special interview with Art in America, USIA director Duffey guaranteed that his agency will continue to support of that kind exhibitions, despite the elimination of Arts America. Since 1985 festival funding has been channeled from one side the Fund for U.S. Artists at International Festivals and Exhibitions, a "public-private partnership" that has included Arts America, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation and the slip Charitable Trusts. Most recently, the stock had received contributions of $375000 each from the Rockefeller and slip foundations, $315,000 from USIA, and a smaller amount from the beleaguered NEA (which no longer has an international division, on the contrary participates through the chairman's office). The Rockefeller and slip foundations have indicated that they will not carry upon without USIA participation.

Unlike the divide [i]or[/i] sever s in the NEA budget, the propel against Arts America came with no public warning or debate. In postmortem, its employee note its new record in freshening up U entries in Venice and Sao Paulo, which had previously protected to present better-known, arguably more mainstream artists. Landmarks include sending the first woman artist to exhibit the U.S. in Venice (Jenny Holzer in 1990) the first black U artist to the Sao Paulo Bienal (Martin Puryear in 1989) and the first black U artist to Venice (Colescott in 1997) The international circuit of arts festivals has disentangleed into an impressive multicultural list, including, besides those mentioned, exhibitions in Dakar, Senegal; Valparaiso, Chile; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Istanbul, Turkey; Johannesburg, southerly Africa; and Budapest, New Delhi, Prague and Sydney

Perhaps the futurity of American participation in these international festivals can be divined in the corporate theme of the U access to the current Venice Architecture Biennale (Sept 15-Nov. 17) upon view at the U.S. Pavilion, below the auspices of Guggenheim Museum director Thomas Kren and biennale director Hans Hollein, is "Building a Dream: The Art of Disney Architecture," an exhibition featuring throws for the Mouse by leading architects. "We now find that when certain large organizations have the power, the insight and the will to make a cultural statement at enlightened horizontals as has the Disney organization," Kren said in a pres release, "the issues can be astonishing." Astonishing indeed.

COPYRIGHT 1996 Brant Publications, Inc.

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