The National Endowment for the Arts turned 45 the other day: President Lyndon Johnson signed the law creating the agency on Sept. 29, 1965. And to note the day, the NEA put out a list of statistics — which got little notice. I thought I’d share some of the most interesting ones. 

• Total dollar amount of NEA grants awarded to nonprofit organizations: $4 billion in more than 130,000 grants.
• Average ratio of matching funds to NEA awards: 7:1.
• Languages translated into English through NEA Literature Translation Fellowships: 61
• Most recent estimate of languages spoken worldwide: 6,909
• Most common full-time arts profession: graphic designer
• Most common volunteer performing arts activity: choral singer
• Rank of education as a primary influence on arts participation: #1
• Average time Americans age 15-24 spent watching TV daily: 2 hours
• Average time spent reading for pleasure daily: 7 minutes
• Percentage of American recipients of the National Book Awards, National Book Critics Circle Awards, and Pulitzer Prizes in fiction and poetry who have received NEA Creative Writing Fellowships: 58

Here’s a link to the press release.

Now, the National Endowment for the Humanities was created by the same act of Congress, signed into law by LBJ, a fact the NEA neglected to mention in its release (except that Humanities was part of the act’s name).

But over at the Humanities site, things were different. The NEH celebrated by going the historical route — no numbers, just a short summary relating what happened the day LBJ created both endowments in the White House Rose Garden, surrounded by scholars, artists and other luminaries. LBJ said:

We in America have not always been kind to the artists and the scholars who are the creators and the keepers of our vision. Somehow, the scientists always seem to get the penthouse, while the arts and the humanities get the basement.

A gala reception was held that night at what is now the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (which I reviewed here in 2009). There, Vice President Hubert Humphrey said that the two new agencies represented “the true meaning of the Great Society” and likened it to the Marshall Plan (see more here).

Well, not exactly.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the NEH

 

Do we have another Bernini?

His Ecstasy of Saint Theresa in Rome is unquestionably a masterpiece in white marble. This week, the MacArthur Foundation bestowed one of its $500,000 no-strings-attached grants on another sculptor in marble, Elizabeth Turk, 48, from Atlanta, noting that “she transforms her signature medium of marble into intricate, seemingly weightless works of art.”

And:

Employing a variety of electric grinders, files, and small dental tools with a dexterous touch, her technical virtuosity is on full display in The Collars, a series of sixteen painstakingly carved sculptures that explore a rich variety of organic and geometric patterns. The elaborate collars in this collection combine allusions to decorative motifs and the self-organizing systems of the natural world, drawing from lace-making and Elizabethan fashion as well as botanical, skeletal, and architectural structures.

Hirschl & Adler showed The Collars in 2006, and noted that her work had been shown at the Mint Museum and the Corcoran Gallery.

But have a look at these examples — at how outside the mainstream of contemporary art they are. And at how beautiful they are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Were the MacArthur judges trying to make a point?

It’s not a silly question. Over the years, the MacArthur “genius” grants have often sent a message, usually a politically correct one. I don’t want to cite examples, lest I seem to cast aspersions on the individuals — who no doubt were doing good work, but might not have been chosen had they not also made a larger point.

Maybe someone at MacArthur thinks contemporary art of many stripes ought to be recognized — interestingly, Hirschl & Adler does not cast itself as a contemporary gallery, though it does handle “modern” works.

There could be another explanation, of course. I’m just asking.

Read more about Turk from the MacArthur Foundation here, more about The Collars from Hirschl & Adler here.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the MacArthur Foundation (top); of Hirschl & Adler (bottom)

 

Target has a new philanthropy strategy, and it may not be good news for museums and performing arts centers. In recent years, the company, through “Target First Saturdays” or “First Fridays” or whatever the name, has provided free or reduced admissions at more than 120 museums and theaters on more than 2,200 days annually.

But this week, the company announced that it was redoubling its efforts to invest in education. It committed to donating $500 million by 2015, making its total commitment to education reach $1 billion. Much of the effort will focus on literacy, getting children to read by third grade. Here’s a link to the press release.

This shift represents a refocusing of the company’s 5%-for-philanthropy program — not additional dollars. That 5% of annual income is a pretty substantial amount.

Target did not spell out specifically what this means for its arts programs. And when I contacted the press department, I was told that the company didn’t have anything specific to say on the subject now.

What the press representative, Joshua Thomas, did say sounds somewhat ominous for museums: Target’s non-education gifts might, in the future, have to more of an education component. “We are aligning our support efforts” to reflect the priority on education, he said — the funded programs must link to education. That may mean that Target might support school trips but not the live music-cum-art events that have made Target First Saturdays at, say, the Brooklyn Museum, so popular.

As Brooklyn says on its website: “Please note that due to limited capacities, some Target First Saturday programs require tickets. Ticket lines often form 30 minutes before ticket distribution at the Visitor Center located in the Rubin Lobby.”

As I understand the grants, Target funds these arts programs annually, which explains why  Thomas said there would be further news on the subject down the road.

Not all the Target museum free-access evenings are about art, and I’ve complained about that.

But if Target ends this program, I hope it gives its grantees plenty of time to find other funding. It’s indispensible for a lot of visitors who wouldn’t ordinarily attend museums. It would be a huge loss if someone, some entity, did not step in to replace Target. Here’s a sampling of what would be lost. 

The reviews are starting to come in, and it’s pretty clear that most of the critics think Robert Lepage’s new production of Das Rheingold at the Metropolitan Opera is good, very good, despite the big mechanical glitch in the finale of last night’s premier.

Here’s the Daily Telegraph:

Lepage treated the audience to a mesmerising display of virtual magic, giving them plenty to feast their eyes on in the intimate scenes between the coups de théâtre. Images projected on to the set evoke the depths of the Rhine, the mountaintops of the gods and the underground realm of the Nibelungen….Far from overwhelming the singing, Lepage’s playful production complements it beautifully, with the set acting as a big resonating chamber. 

Other reviews: The New York Times; The Wall Street Journal; Bloomberg; Associated Press; The Guardian; The Toronto Star; The Montreal Gazette (this one is a pan).

The new Ring, even without much difference of opinion, will no doubt occupy opera circles in the next several days.

I have a different thought about that: the arts community, including opera supporters, would more profitably invest their time in discussing New Yorker music critic Alex Ross’s op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times.

Jumping off from a statement by singer David Byrne that the money spent on new opera productions (specifically, in his case, the LA Opera’s new Ring) was not well spent —

There is a greater value for humanity in empowering folks to make and create than there is in teaching them the canon — 

Ross convincingly argued otherwise. He ended with a quote from Mark Twain, who after seeing Wagner at Bayreuth, wrote:

Sometimes I feel like the sane person in a community of the mad. But by no means do I ever overlook or minify the fact that this is one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. I have never seen anything like this before. I have never seen anything so great and fine and real as this devotion.

That is a great message the arts community should be carrying to the unconvinced, the likes of David Byrne.

“Until now, no serious art exhibition has coupled the histories of wine and art in a cross-disciplinary fashion.”

That line comes from the lede of a press release issued recently by the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, and my response is “indeed.”

In years past — even recent years past — that theme would probably have been considered unacademic, lacking in scholarship value, and therefore unlikely to enhance the career of the curator. At many art history departments, it would be better to study some narrow aspect of a much-researched subject, or to deploy the lens of deconstructionism or gender studies, say, on a well-trod area than to study something so approachable, and probably popular.

So it’s double-interesting that the show is at a well-respected college, and that it will travel to the Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Rochester.

According to the press release, the exhibit — Wine and Spirit: Rituals, Remedies, and Revelry — will examine the “imagery of sacred, social, and restorative practices that have occasioned wine’s singular mystique in civilizations across nearly every age.” On view since Sept. 2, it includes more than 100 works of art and literature:

…the earliest a rare Neolithic wine jar from Hajji Firuz Tepe dated 5400-5000 BCE, and the most recent, a 2009 painting of Ariadne Discovered by Dionysus by New York artist Leonard Porter [below]….17th century Dutch paintings by Pieter Claez and Jan Steen [his In Luxury Beware is above]…prints, drawings, and photographs by Honoré Daumier, Pablo Picasso, Jacob Jordaens, Roger Fenton, and others…Greek vases, Roman glassware, Renaissance drinking vessels, medieval manuscripts, and rare books….Italian Renaissance apothecary jars, early printed treatises, herbal books, and pharmacopiae… 

And here’s another aspect that may be notable: the exhibit was curated by John Varriano, a professor emeritus of art history at Mount Holyoke. Would no younger scholar risk it?

Or does this signal a new era at art history departments?

The exhibit illustrates that use of wine imagery, which thrived in centuries to and including the 18th, then took a dip, appearing less frequently — “but Picasso refocuses attention on the scenes of revelry and debauchery of the ancient era,” again quoting the press release.

I may be reading too much into this, but it seems to me that this exhibit marries scholarship with popular appeal in a way that many so-called populist shows, conceived to draw crowds, do not. It shows that we can have our cake and eat it, too. 

Photo Credits: Courtesy Mount Holyoke College Art Museum