Arts Wire CURRENT is a project of Arts Wire, a national computer-based network serving the arts community. Arts Wire CURRENT features news updates on social, economic, philosophical, and political issues affecting the arts and culture. Your contributions are invited. Contact Judy Malloy, editor.
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This week's Current is sponsored by Delaware Division of the Arts -- http://www.dca.net/artsdel
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GUARDED OPTIMISM ABOUT NATIONAL ARTS FUNDING AS BUDGET PROCESS BEGINSWASHINGTON, DC -- As the annual appropriations process begins again this month with the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee scheduled to hear testimony from witnesses regarding the federal arts budget for FY00, the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. (NASAA) reports that because the White House and Capitol Hill differ on budget priorities, the process of turning budget proposals into appropriations bills could "get messy."NASAA reports that the budget resolutions passed by the House and Senate on March 25, though different in parts, share an agenda around tax cuts, more military spending and less money for domestic programs. On the other hand, the president's budget proposal focuses on smaller tax cuts and more spending on a broad range of domestic programs. However, a few signs suggest a more favorable environment for NEA funding than has been the case in the past few years. According to NASAA, because National Arts Endowment (NEA) Chair William Ivey has made numerous visits to members of Congress on Capitol Hill to explain the work of the arts endowment and the administrative changes that were made in response to congressional concerns about the agency's grant making, the agency enjoys a wider circle of friends and supporters, and the strength of the NEA's opponents seems to have been diminished. NASAA notes that "The strong votes in the House and Senate last year in support of NEA funding have shown clearly that the federal arts agency enjoys the backing of a solid majority of representatives and senators. The issue then becomes less one of pitched opposition to the agency's work and more a question of funding priorities in a season of tight money." "The White House, at least at the start of the legislative season, is emphasizing an interest in cultural programs with a bullish position on cultural funding," NASAA states. "Continued support from OMB and the White House during the course of the appropriations schedule can help to move the arts funding issue along." President Clinton's budget has proposed $150 million for the Arts Endowment -- $52 million more than the current funding level of $98 million. According to the American Arts Alliance, (AAA) if Congress approves this level of increased funding, Ivey would like to focus on the Challenge America program and on seeking ways to bolster the infrastructure of arts organizations by assisting with their financial stability. The Challenge America program is a new initiative which will address community arts concerns such as arts education and youth at risk, and access to the arts for all. At their Winter Board meeting, Ivey also told AAA that he hopes that the arts endowment can eventually focus more on the creative aspects of art making. He has also expressed the hope that eventually the NEA would once again be able to support individual artists. Sources/resources:
"Budget Plans Forecast Funding Fights"
"NEA Chairman Presents Year 2000 Plan to American Arts Alliance
Board"
"President's Budget Includes $150 M for the Arts Endowment"
Ivey Places Arts "at the Center of Community Life";
CHICAGO ARTS STUDY IS TOOL TO DEFEAT GAMBLING MEASURE IN PENNSYLVANIAPHILADELPHIA, PA -- A measure to introduce gambling in Pennsylvania, which would have included slot machines, video poker and riverboat casinos on the Delaware, was killed last month by the State Senate. According to the PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS, one of the tools used by the Coalition of Philadelphia Neighborhood Associations, an organization formed to fight the proposed riverboats, was a study done by the Chicago Better Government Association which showed that tourists who came for the arts were much more beneficial to the economy than gamblers."We're trying to get the word out . . . that you get true economic development without the horrible social ills from gambling by focusing attention on the cultural attractions we have here right now," the Daily News quotes Colleen Puckett, a founder of the Coalition of Philadelphia Neighborhood Associations as saying. The Better Government Association (BGA) study, THE TOURISM INDUSTRY IN CHICAGO: IT'S THE ARTS, STUPID, published in 1997, concluded that "It is time to stop and smell the roses - admit the obvious. We should support our core institutions and nourish the new ones from the beginning rather than casting about for pie in the sky solutions like casinos." In 1994, the BGA had engaged Bill Thompson and Ricardo Gazel from the University of Nevada to survey 785 Illinois riverboat gamblers. Gazel and Thompson found that almost none of them spent any money on anything but gambling -- "Maybe a beer on the boat but nothing in town". In 1997, on behalf of the Chicago Metro Ethics Coalition, BGA commissioned Professors Thompson and Gazel to survey the "real tourists". They surveyed 1194 people at the Art Institute, Navy Pier and the North Michigan Avenue Shopping District. Free music and arts events as motivations for coming to Chicago were ranked by 85.2% respondents as "high" or "very high". 83.4% ranked new museums high or very high. As opposed to the gamblers who were mostly local or from within a 50 mile radius, 56.9% of the Art Institute visitors came from outside the Chicago Metropolitan area. Of the 223 Art Institute visitors who lived over 35 miles away, 72 came to Chicago especially to visit the Art Institute. They stayed overnight, spending an average of $225.11 per person per trip in a combination of food, lodging, shopping, transportation, sightseeing, etc. "Based in these findings, visitors of the Art Institute alone are responsible for an addition of nearly $160 million to Chicago's economy each year," the study states. A spokesperson for the BGA told Arts Wire that it's figures were similar to those found by a similar study by Illinois Arts Alliance. "Our direct numbers match up almost perfectly," he noted. "The lesson here is that supporting more museums, art and musical entertainment has a much bigger payoff (and isn't that what we always talk about in Chicago?) than either amusement parks or casinos," the study concludes. Sources/resources:
"Phila. Ought to be Grateful for Legislature's Anti-gambling Vote;
Education Shouldn't be a Crapshoot"
Marc Meltzer
J. Terrence Brunner, Executive Director, Better Government
Association
Ricardo C. Gazel and William Thompson BETTER GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION WEBSITE: http://www.bgawatchdog.org ILLINOIS ARTS ALLIANCE -- http://www.artswire.org/~ilartadv
SAN FRANCISCO EMPLOYMENT INITIATIVE WILL GIVE WELFARE RECIPIENTS ARTS WORKSAN FRANCISCO, CA -- The California Lawyers for the Arts' Arts Industry Employment Initiative, (AIEI) will give welfare to work recipients a chance to work in an arts environment -- such as gallery reception, exhibition production assistance, teaching assistance, or in technical theatrical work including lighting, sound, set construction or costuming. The idea is to give people on welfare work that they are interested in.According to California Lawyers for the Arts, (CLA) this innovative program will provide low-income aid recipients who have a sincere interest in the arts with arts-related training and job placement. Planning grants were provided by the Mayor's Office of Community Development, the San Francisco Foundation and the Institute for Civil Society. The Program not only gives CalWORKS recipients a chance to find meaningful employment but also emphasizes the idea of the arts as being accessible to all. Alma Robinson, executive director of CLA told the SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER that she had been thinking that because the arts are a multimillion- dollar industry, "It's time for the arts to give something back. What do we do for poor people?" Nanette Hogan, CLA's Program Developer for AIEI, says that they will be implementing this project with the support of the Private Industry Council and the Department of Human Services of San Francisco. The program will place apprentices with arts related employers for twelve weeks. While participating in the three month training program, participants will receive additional pay of $6/hr as well as continuing to receive TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) benefits. In addition to this twenty hour per week component, participants will attend three months of classroom training, for twelve hours per week. Classes will be held at Golden Gate University and will include instruction in computer/office skills, business communication, orientation to work in the arts sector, understanding and adapting to general workplace requirements and job search skills. The SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER reports that the program will pay 87 percent of an apprentice's salary. Organizations involved include: Intersection for the Arts; Galleria de la Raza; the Exploratorium; the San Francisco Opera; the Bayview Opera; the San Francisco Jazz Festival; the Wajumbe Cultural Institute; the SOMA Art Festival; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; the Mission Cultural Center; the San Francisco Girls Chorus; the Precita Eyes Mural Arts Center; and the San Francisco Mime Troupe. CLA is currently seeking for more corporations and private companies with arts-related jobs to take apprentices. According to Nanette Hogan, there is a tax break of up to $8,000 total (not per year) for employers who hire CalWORKS recipients. However, several San Francisco Bay area underemployed artists, who did not want to be identified, told Arts Wire that although they liked the idea of the arts being involved in this program, they were also concerned that the program would further reduce the small amount of very difficult to obtain arts jobs in the area. "It would be great to also have a program that funded arts organization apprenticeships for artists and arts workers who currently have to wait on tables or do light hauling," one artist suggested. CLA's Nanette Hogan told Arts Wire that in response to the newspaper article about the program, she had received calls from artists who were interested in the Program. She says she is very sympathetic to this, but that this particular program is thru CalWORKS for TANF recipients only. The application deadline, for San Francisco residents over the age of 21, who are currently receiving TANF public assistance benefits, and who are also interested in an arts-related career, is April 23, 1999. The program begins on April 26, 1999. Contact Nanette Hogan at 415-775-7200 x464 for more information. Source:
Rob Morse
Nanette Hogan
CONFERENCES, SYMPOSIA, LECTURESBATON ROUGEMay 13- 15 Radisson Hotel, 4728 Constitution Ave. ARTWORKS 99 The Louisiana State Arts Council, in cooperation with the Foundation for a Better Louisiana and through a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, sponsors a biennial conference on the arts. This year's conference, ARTWORKS 99: A SENSE OF PLACE, will feature a wide variety of skills-building workshops as well as presentations and discussions by national leaders in the community-based arts movement. "This is an opportunity - perhaps the only opportunity - for artists and arts organizations from across the state to meet one another, provide each other with technical assistance, develop new skills, identify resources and shape the direction of cultural growth in Louisiana for the next two years," said Dan Henderson, chair of the Louisiana State Arts Council, according to the Louisiana Division of the Arts E-MAIL FORUM. On Thursday, May 13, the keynote speaker for ARTWORKS 99 will be Patrick Overton, author of RE-BUILDING THE FRONT PORCH OF AMERICA: ESSAYS ON THE ART OF COMMUNITY MAKING. Rebecca Anderson, founder and director of HandMade in America, will be the lunch speaker on Friday, May 14th. That evening, shuttles will run from the hotel to the LSU campus where a performing artists' showcase will highlight Louisiana musicians, dancers and theater professionals at the LSU Colonnade Theater. The conference will close out at noon on Saturday, May 15th, with a keynote discussion lead by pianist Ellis Marsalis, writer Kalamu ya Salaam and visual artist John T. Scott. For additional information, contact: Billie Tripp, Conference Coordinator, Post Office Box 1029, Gonzales, LA 70707-1029; tel: 225-644-0619 fax: 225-644-0122 Source: THE LOUISIANA DIVISION OF THE ARTS E-MAIL FORUM -- http://www.crt.state.la.us/arts/forumpr.htm
ARTS EVENTSNEW YORK CITY, NYthru May 8 The Kitchen gallery , 512 West 19th Street THE APPEARANCE MACHINE - WILLY LE MAITRE & ERIC ROSENZVEIG "The Appearance Machine is a possible result of the medical/entertainment complex. It engineers the physical manipulation, translation, transmission, recording and display of a vast array of detritus," the artists write. "These exhausted objects, re-animated, are the set. Sets become characters, characters are combined and reconstituted as landscape. Landscape and characters through image analysis perform their own accompanying soundtrack. The object's' lives, extended by your imaginations as well as the machine, are made meaningful by the ways in which they interact. This, an appearance of articulated intention where there is none, is almost wholly by suggestion to the viewer and is achieved through the close interactivity of the visual and auditory media." Visit http://www.interport.net/~er/flea/appear1.html for More information on The Appearance Machine and a visual. More information about the kitchen is available at http://www.thekitchen.org or call 212-255-5793 WASHINGTON, DC April 24 - 4 PM St. Stephen & the Incarnation Episcopal Church, 1525 Newton St NW SOUND + SPIRITUALITY + EARTH DAY = EARTHSOUNDING! Buddha BigEars, LongNose Tree Spirit and seventeen other "sounding masks" will appear at an EARTHSOUNDING event to celebrates sound, spirituality and Earth Day. Sounding mask maker Norman Lowrey returns to Washington, DC to join local vocal trio Comma, organist Ronald Stolk and the Choir of St. Stephen & the Incarnation in a surround-sound environmental work of music theater and audience participation. Lowrey's work for this occasion, SPIRIT TALK: conversations with the Singing Masks combines ancient traditions of mask making, digital recordings of the natural environment, ritual movement and audience participation to create a temporary world of deeper perception and healing community. Lowrey began creating sounding masks to encourage sonic participation by people who did not necessarily think of themselves as musicians. Spirit Talk focuses on glossolalia, which he considers the spirit language of all things. The accompanying soundscape consists of river sounds, birds, crickets, and other voices of nature. Other Performers are: Comma the DC-based composer/performer trio known for performances of John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, and original works; Dutch-born organist and choir director Ronald Stolk, the Choir of St. Stephen & the Incarnation which regularly performs Gregorian and Eastern Orthodox chant, renaissance polyphony and African American spirituals in worship. In addition to Spirit Talk, EarthSounding will include Tom Bickley's VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS for three choirs and sopranino recorder, a work by Joe Zitt, and improvisations for voices, instruments and electronics. LOS ANGELES, CA thru June 2, 1999 Grande Laemmle Theaters, between third and fourth on Figueroa St.
Side Street Projects presents: Each artist is asked to consider both the context of a movie theatre space as public art and as an exhibition site. The slides are not reproductions of artwork done previously, but are produced specifically for the site of the theatre. The artists include: David Antin, Anne Bray, Sam Erenberg, Nicholas Fedak II, Christian Mounger, Hillary Mushkin Valerie Tevere, Jody Zellen, and Stefan Zucker. Proposals are being accepted from artists for future projects. Please call Katie Sivers at Side Street Projects 310-829-0779 for submission guidelines and info. The next opening is June 3, 1999. For more information, visit http://www.sidestreet.org
CALLS FOR ENTRIESCall forREEL NEW YORK.WEB, AN ONLINE SHOWCASE FOR NEW YORK AREA WEB ARTISTS REEL NEW YORK, Thirteen/WNET's annual televised series of local independent film and video, and wNetStation -- http://www.wnet.org -- the Web site of Thirteen/WNET, will launch REEL NEW YORK.WEB, an online showcase of outstanding Web-based work by artists in the New York metropolitan area. Together, these two showcases from Thirteen/WNET present an expanded view of cutting-edge new media in the New York area. Up to a dozen works will be selected for this inaugural Web art showcase, which goes online on June 11, 1999 in conjunction with the on-air series. Each artist will receive a $500 honorarium, and their work and biography will be featured. Submissions are now being accepted from the general public, Web artists and organizations. Artists will also be sought through a committee search. Final selections will be made jointly by Carl Goodman, Curator of Digital Media at the American Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, N.Y., who is serving as curatorial consultant to the project, and Barry Levine, Director of wNetStation and Online Programs at Thirteen/WNET. Entries may be submitted via their Web site -- http://www.wnet.org/reelnewyorkweb -- or by sending email directly to ReelNewYork_Web@wnetstation.wnet.org Include your name, phone number, email address, and Web address where your work resides. To be considered, submissions must include contact information; the work must currently be accessible on a Web site; the artist (or one of the primary artists) must reside in the New York metropolitan area; and the work must meet the criteria described below. No other forms of media will be accepted. In order to highlight Web-based art whose independent vision most closely resembles the independent vision of the films/videotapes presented in the TV series, REEL NEW YORK.WEB has specified some broad criteria for the Web art being considered. The work must: be designed for and currently available on the Web; be created primarily by artist(s) residing in the New York metropolitan area; be the result of a personal, not a corporate vision; creatively employ the capabilities and limitations of the Web as a medium for creative expression; be accessible via a direct link, and not through the home page of a parent site.
The DEADLINE for submissions is April 26, 1999. The REEL NEW YORK.WEB Advisory Board includes Kathy Brew of Thundergulch, Kevin Duggan of the New York Foundation for the Arts, Carl Goodman of the American Museum of the Moving Image, Cheryl Harris of Northstar Interactive, Carol Parkinson of Harvestworks, and Beth Rosenberg of Eyebeam Atelier. Season four of the REEL NEW YORK television series begins on Friday, June 11, at 10 p.m., only on Thirteen/WNET, and airs for eight consecutive Fridays, through July 30, with repeats on Sundays at 12 midnight. REEL NEW YORK.WEB will be online for two years. wNetStation will also present a Web companion to the television series, as it has for several seasons past, with video clips from the films and videos, interviews with and photos of the filmmakers, a printable festival calendar, and resources for artists. Check it out online beginning June 11 on wNetStation -- http://www.wnet.org/reelnewyork REEL NEW YORK.WEB is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. More information about Thirteen/WNET can be found at http://www.wnet.org Call for Environmental Art: THE NANCY H. GRAY FOUNDATION FOR ART IN THE ENVIRONMENT offers grants of up to $5,000 to encourages the incorporation of art and the work of artists into the environment, combining art, ecology and education.
Deadline: May 1. For more information, contact: Nancy G. Gray, 5128
Manning Drive, Bethesda, MD 20814; or call 301-951-0966
Call for: According to TASH-Disability Advocacy Worldwide, if the Olmstead decision is overturned, the rights of people with disabilities to live in the community will be seriously eroded. "We're in desperate need of freedom songs. We would be especially grateful for songs written to the tunes of songs from the African American civil rights movement. We want to stress that we, too, are a civil rights group..." says Janine Bertram Kemp. Contact her via Tom Olin's cripppower@aol.com For more information about the Olmstead Case, visit TASH-Disability Advocacy Worldwide at http://www.tash.org
PROJECTSCALL FOR Year 2000 Public Policy and Arts Administration (PPAA) - National Art Education Association (NAEA) CONVENTION PROPOSALS The Public Policy and Arts Administration (PPAA) Affiliate invites members of the NAEA to submit year 2000 convention proposals on the topic: Strategies for Changing Public Perceptions of Art Programs in Schools, Museums, and Community Arts Centers at the Local and Regional Level Proposals must be submitted on the NAEA proposal forms. Send two copies to Barbara Laws, NAEA National Convention Coordinator, 1916 Association Drive, Reston, VA 20191-1590. Please be sure to "check" the affiliate category and list PPAA. All proposals must be postmarked on or before July 31, 1999.
FUNDING NEWSDORIS DUKE FOUNDATION AWARDS $8.65M TO FIVE PERFORMING ARTS GROUPS The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has awarded a total $8.65 million to Five performing arts groups including the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, SC, according to PHILANTHROPY JOURNAL ALERT. Ranging in size from $150,000 to $3.5 million, the grants are to be used for new performance pieces, audience development and endowment funds. They include: a three year grant of $3.5 million to the Brooklyn Academy of Music -- http://www.bam.org -- to present new American and international compositions and to support programming for its renovated Majestic Theater; $1.5 million to 651 ARTS - a BAM affiliate - to both establish an endowment and commission and present dance works by black choreographers; $2 million to the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project -- http://w ww.nefa.org/create/ndp2.htm -- to fund the 1999-2000 season through the center's Doris Duke Fund for Dance; $1.5 million to the Charleston, SC Spoleto Festival USA -- http://www.spoletousa.org -- to fund new works that are thematically linked to Charleston and the surrounding area, and help launch a new endowment campaign; and $150,000 as a planning grant for the Theatre Communications Group -- http://www.tcg.org -- in New York, the national service organization for the American theater community, to fund a series of regional and national meetings with theater leaders. Established in 1997 by the estate of Doris Duke, The Duke Foundation supports performing arts, environmental causes and medical research. The foundation has more than $1.4 billion in assets and made $48 million in grants last year. Source:
PHILANTHROPY JOURNAL ALERT --
http://www.pj.org
JOB OPPORTUNITIES
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, Southern Exposure, (San Francisco, CA) EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, (re-opened search) Chester Springs Studio, (Chester Springs, PA) PUBLIC ART PROGRAM DIRECTOR, City of San Jose, (San Jose, CA) PROGRAM DIRECTOR, Painted Bride Art Center, (Philadelphia, PA) PROJECT MANAGER/DEVELOPMENT OFFICER, "Dance of the Picture Bride", (Bellevue, WA) PROGRAM OFFICERS, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, (Chicago, IL)
DIRECTOR OF PROMOTION DESIGN, Parsons School of Design ASSOCIATE / ASSISTANT REGISTRAR FOR EXHIBITIONS AND INSTALLATIONS, The Toledo Museum of Art, (Toledo, Ohio) COORDINATOR OF MUSIC ADMISSIONS, Ithaca College School of Music, (Ithaca, New York) COORDINATOR OF MUSIC FACILITIES AND MUSIC PUBLICITY, Ithaca College School of Music, (Ithaca, New York) CORPORATE GIFTS COORDINo:artswire@artswire.org">artswire@artswire.org
A growing list of links to job resources for artists and arts administrators is available on Arts Wire's Web Site at http://www.artswire.org/current/jobres.html
ARTS WIRE WEB REPORTSYEAR ONE ZERO: WOMEN WHO ARE REDEFINING PUBLIC ART"....alternative visions of public art are emerging and women artists throughout the world appear to be leading in their development," Suzanne Farkas writes in "Art in Public Spaces; Creating Memory and Community by Design," an article in the current issue of YEAR ONE ZERO at http://www.year01.com/year01 (in the Forum section) "What would women want to remember? How might a woman's monument differ from the patriarchal monolithic form?" she asks, and she examines the work of women artists who are challenging the idea of monuments as permanent structures with a unifying authority -- such as Beth Alber's MARKER OF CHANGE 1996, a healing circle for the 14 young women engineering students who were massacred in 1987 by a male student in the City of Montreal, Canada, and the work of Veronica Verkley whose DREAM FIGURES, made from salvaged trash, car parts and industrial objects, currently on display in Toronto's polluted Don River Valley, "are creatures larger than life, reminiscent of the once common bird, bear, and elk ...Evoking memories of a time when urban was rural, the figures watch the City's commuters as they pass by..." Issue #4 of YEAR ZERO ONE -- http://www.year01.com/year01 -- the fourth edition of this an Toronto based forum for visual art, also features a review by Harold Alegria-Ortiz of Mary Anne Barkhouse & Michael Belmores'Toronto Sculpture Garden installation LICHEN and much more. Arts Wire's website at http://www.artswire.org is a central place to visit the cyberhomes of the diverse artists and art organizations who are Arts Wire members. This week CURRENT invites readers to visit the home page of CARIBBEAN CONTEMPORARY ARTS and artist TIMOTHY WEAVER.
CARIBBEAN CONTEMPORARY ARTS (CCA) -- http://www.caribbean-arts.com -- is an international arts organization that works with contemporary visual artists, curators, writers, historians and art educators from the Caribbean and the Caribbean Diaspora in order to exhibit, publish and document their practice and ideas. "We share their concerns for the many social, political and cultural changes in various geographical locations; and are interested in works that seek to investigate and extend a diversity of subjects within contemporary art practice and theory, art histories and art criticism," they write. "We emphasize the term contemporary to signify how relevant the changes in times; places and meanings are to us and how we must attend to the many theoretical and critical perspectives about the cultures, politics and economies that we inhabit." In addition to a calendar of events, education projects, exhibitions, exchanges, residencies, fellowships, workshops, publications, and digitised databases, the site features information about the upcoming BIG RIVER, an International Artists Workshop which the Caribbean Contemporary Arts is hosting and facilitating in Trinidad. big River is a collaborative venture between the Triangle Arts Trust, London and CCA and is organized by a working group of Trinidad artists whose goals are to increase cultural and aesthetic exchanges among artists as they live and work in this different political culture and to exhibit their work as a collective at an accessible, recognized venue. Participating artists include Dean Arlen, Lisa Brice, Kathryn Chan, Susie Dayal, Godfried Donkor, Noritoshi Hirakawa, Turunesh Pommell-Raymond and many others. Visit the site to find out more.
"I create testimonial objects and mixed-media environments as a means of personally recalling events and phenomena which are subject to collective cultural, historical and spiritual amnesia," writes TIMOTHY WEAVER - http://artswire.org/~tweaver/ -- a mixed media artist/environmental scientist based in Golden, Colorado. "In doing so, I visually present layers of our societal belief system. In particular, I present those layers which rationalize the human dilemma of admitting to our vulnerability. My desire in this activity is to induce viewers into remembering and forgetting their perceptions regarding how we got where we are; what we may have lost along the way and potentially, where we need to go." The site documents Weaver's environments including BEYOND FEAR, REFLECTIONS ON WATER AND HEALTH PROJECTS; IN THE IXIL TRIANGLE, a collaborative Mixed Media Installation; PRIMA MATERIA that deals with the arrival at the necessity for creative solution from the chaos of raw material; and "NACIENDO EN LOS BOSQUES / BEING BORN IN THE FOREST", based on the poem "Being Born in the Forest", by Pablo Neruda. Visit the site for more information.
ELSEWHERE ON THE NETKARA WALKER IS FIRST CAPP STREET PROJECT RESIDENT AT CCACOAKLAND, CA -- In July 1998, the Capp Street Project merged with the California College of Arts and Crafts, (CCAC) making possible the integration of Capp Street's residency program with the newly developed CCAC Institute, an organization devoted to cutting edge exhibitions and programs. Kara Walker was invited to be the first Capp Street Project resident at CCAC. Her installation at the CCAC Oliver Gallery thru May 15 is a narrative cyclorama -- a curving room sized wall dominating the gallery space on which an array of silhouetted black characters (with white details) flow not only across the room but seemingly also backwards and forwards from central white swans with black heads. The characters are those central to Walker's work. "There's the slave girls, the young pickaninny, an older black woman who'd be the mammy, the mistress of the house, the master, the overseer, and varying types of black male -- buck, field hand, Uncle Tom," she says in an interview with Larry Rinder, CCAC Institute. In response to a question from Rinder "What is the difference for you between a stereotype and a character?" Walker says "For me they become characters the minute I start working with them. Because they become mine in a way. So that when I encounter the much contested African- American tchotchkes and derogatory images, they don't have the power over me that they used to." "Is that because in some respect you feel in control of them because you have been in control of them your own work" Rinder asks. "Yes. Of course, as an artist, being in control of characters that represent the social manipulations that blacks have undergone in this century at least, puts me in the position of being the controller or the puppet- master of imaginary black people," Walker states. In response to Rinder's concluding question: "How would you respond to the accusation, which has been made recently, that when 'white' institutions present work like yours they are essentially hanging our their own racism under the convenient cover of an African American Artist? Do you feel used?" Walker says: "I feel like I'm in power here. But really I don't have a clear answer. Sure, maybe its a possibility. Maybe white America is baring its racist soul through me as I bear my racist soul through it. Maybe that's not that bad. Because there are black artists and black thinkers talking about this issue which gives the work another element, which might be the social change element. We start to question our relation to the institution, how does it or doesn't it have power over us and how we see ourselves. It creates a whole new dialogue. Maybe that's the best we can get to now. In our desire for peace and happiness." A film and lecture series: THE POLITICS OF BLACK VISUAL REPRESENTATION accompanies the exhibition. Among the upcoming events are:
April 21
May 5 For further information, call the CCAC Institute at 510-594-3650
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