A little plug
As a rule, I try not to stump for Amber’s shows here (and I never review them), but I’m making an exception in this case. Next Saturday, November 11, from 7 to 11pm the Lantana Projects are presenting their Class of 06 show at 387 South Main. Amber and I have spent a sizable chunk of the last two days up there and it’s shaping up to be a really fantastic show.
Yesterday started out a little rough for Amber. She still hadn’t fully recovered from her food poisoning. We threw in the towel about an hour into the installation in search of something, anything that Amber could eat. Given that there was something of a deadline for getting this work up, the folks putting on the show were really good about us bailing.
Today went considerably better. Amber woke up craving pancakes and set upon chowing down before I got out of bed. For anyone who’s ever been through food poisoning, you know this is a pretty good sign.
We got to the space a little later than we’d hoped, but the installation went pretty quickly. Somewhere around three in the afternoon, Amber started channeling Gabriel Orozco. It wasn’t part of the original design for the piece, but ultimately I think the antiphonal approach worked out well. I put up a little Flickr set of Amber’s installation for anybody who’d like to take a peek.
7 comments:
I thought Amber's piece was really in keeping with the environment, the industrial walls, piping and such--I'm not too familiar with her or her work, but it was nice to see the space integrated in such a manner, even if the impact is lessened somewhat by the side by side installation of the entire show.
The art in the Lantana exhibition overall was really strong, especially that of Niles Wallace, Joseph Slaughter and Hamlett Dobbins.
I still wish that everything for local artists were not these one shot surveys, as it seems desperation mentality warrants including as many as possible, thin and wide--everybody gets a turn. One just cannot get into what an artist is about looking at a single piece. Max will come up again next summer, and I predict that it will again follow suit.
The biennial in St Louis, for example, picks three local artists to exhibit one person exhibitions in the new contemporary arts center next to the Pulitzer Museum and gives each a $10,000 honorarium to boot.
Instead of propping pink elephants like Power House or offering a local artists nook in the Brooks basement, this city's top heavy arts funding aparatus should find a way to benefit its artists in a more substantial way. Then we would see more serious consideration of artists working amongst us, other than such consolation exhibitions.
But I cannot really speak with any credibility, since I've been outed as a hater.
Mofocrates –
Thanks for the read and for the kind words. You’re a hell of a writer and I’m glad you’re back out there doing it.
I agree with you on the need for more support of local artists here in Memphis, but I had no idea there was a program that good as near to us as St. Louis. Is it administered through a non-profit or is it just a civic thing? St. Louis as a city seems really good about reinvesting in the community in a way that Memphis has yet to quite get a handle on.
I also agree that if you take some time to look at the 990’s over at Guidestar, the art scene does look top heavy, but I’m not convinced that it’s just a Memphis thing. I don’t take it as inevitable and I’m not saying I necessarily like it, but the patrons always had more money than the artists. (Insert Marxist critique here)
That said, I’d argue that the Lantana and Brooks shows are a definite step in the right direction for local non-profits, but more steps need to follow from all quarters. Amber did a performance piece over at the Brooks a few months ago and they were fantastic to us. Now do I think that these programs are funded by as big a budget as what we can find in other cities? Obviously not. But I wonder if you wouldn’t honestly find them to be proportional to the overall level of civic support for art in those other communities.
I’m not sure if I’m arguing for a bigger piece of the pie for local artists, or just a larger pie…
As for your “outing,” just remember what Ice-T says: “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”
St Louis has a much larger art economy than Memphis, I'd be the first to admit. But you are right, a look at Guidestar reveals much about how arts funding props ever more non-profits and their administrators, and how the benefit to artists is ostensibly meant to trickle down. I just think it is notoriously disfunctional.
Power House, for instance, was the brainchild of a handful, launched behind the scenes, without the input of artists or the community at large, yet once open, it's now in everyones interest to support it--including artists giving to an annual auction. Go back to Guidestar, and factor the percentage of it's budget increases since 2000, and it is astronomical. The shows at Marshall Arts are about the same as they ever were, MAX too is about the same with regard to the budget. It is obvious that the increase is attributed to the cost of the Power House facility.
Such characterizes a tendency toward hierarchy, giving some people a blank check and then having no system of accountability to access the real benefit to the community--which is the crux of non-profit status. Power House has a fine mission, if flawed, but there is already a place for the self-possessed aspirations of the few people that launched it--it's called the private fucking sector. But we all know it wouldn't have gotten off the ground, had they not milked the non-profit sector.
How well has UrbanArt managed it's mission? Who says, and what measure of accountability is used to judge, who reviews such, and what is the outcome of doing so. Do it's administrators answer to anyone or not?
No, the non-profit sector is growing (10% of the US economy now)precisely because the media is chicken-shit about scrutinizing "charities" and there is lots of money to be had. An article on my journal states that there are professional agencies that help business people transition to the non-profit sector.
Accountability and greater access to the actual funding sources for artists is what I want, and have always insisted upon. No more cheery hyperbole about budgets and no more claims of tertiary benefits to artists.
Maybe we cannot offer the kind of resources to artist as they do in St Loius, but for the millions spent, we could do a lot better. Of course, that might mean getting rid of a lot of dead wood and blue hairs, so I won't be holding my breath.
I'm not going to blow any sunshine up your ass about tertiary benefits, but I have to say that from the perspective of a frequent gallery show attendee and artist-spouse, I have to firmly come down in the more Art is better camp. That doesn't mean that I'm pro-hierarchy or anti-transparency (far from it), but if it comes down to a situation where less hierarchy means less support for art in Memphis, then I'm not sure that's a position I can rationally defend (nor would it be personally or politically expedient for me to try).
Does that make me a whore? Maybe. But if so, you've got to admit at least I'm an honest whore.
I agree that personal pet projects should belong in the private sector, but the non-profit sector are usually the refuge for cultural movements and institutions in a community where private support simply isn't going to happen. I don't believe for a second that Memphis as a community would support the quantity or quality of art we see displayed around here without the current non-profit players. There's a reason people joke about seeing the "usual suspects" at art openings around here. We're not a market with broad public support for art. That's ideally what the non-profit, grant driven sector should be protecting.
Besides which, it not as if by going private the existing institutions would immediately start passing out SEC filings to everybody that walks through the door; I'd sooner be able to see the 990's of the people asking for my time and money than face a complete wall of silence.
As for UrbanArt specifically (since they're the local non-profit I know the most about), their oversight is handled by a government committee which is at least partially appointed by the City Council in a public meeting (Google for "Public Art Oversight Committee" "Memphis" and you should be able to see agendas and minutes of the Council meetings where those appointments are made). Since this is the city government, that oversight committee has to keep minutes and those minutes should be public. There was an article in Number a while back that took a look at some of this but I'm frankly too tired to look it up at the moment.
Interesting thing is that as I look back on our conversation so far, I realize that this is not a position that I usually find myself in. In any given crowd, I'm usually the radical yelling for more openness and innovation. Thanks for the perspective...
Thank you, brother, for a substantive response to my points, instead of just calling me negative.
However, not only is there not "broad public support for art," there is not broad knowledge of indigenous artists by the people that run the cultural non-profits. The people that support the exhibition circuit are, overwhelmingly, other artists (and their spouses, of course).
I don't know where I argued for less art, and I absolutely support groups like Lantana, Medicine Factory and others benefiting from 501(c)3 status; only better management and oversight of arts funding, especially with regard to megas like GMAC and TAC, so that just these types of truly artist-friendly enterprises may benefit from such. I support Delta Axis as well, but find the costs of Power House amiss, especially considering its many failures.
When I question how much the city of Memphis props MCA, a "private" university that both has a tuition beyond the median income of local residents and runs its admissions like Pratt, someone will ask me parentally, "Don't you think it is good that Memphis has an art college?" If I'm critical of the way an organization operates, the reply is often, "well, at least they are doing something."
The level at which dialogue and scrutiny are cut short by sentiment or because it is not "personally or politically expedient" ultimately harms art, not to mention intellectual honesty. It is why we have very little art criticism (that isn't puff) and I must guess why my stint as a critic was sabotaged.
Personally, I've exhibited the work of over a hundred artists and written hundreds of reviews in several local and national publications over the last decade. I'm not some cry-baby bitching from the sidelines.
I believe in more art as well and have staked my neck on it (but no one wants me on their board); I just also believe we need to shake-off our antebellum mentality when it comes to respecting hierarchy.
Again, thanks for not just blowing me off, and the last thing I would want is to alienate you from any individual or organization. Oh, you're a pretty damn good writer yourself--loved that Mutu review.
Sorry it’s taken so long for me to get back with you; I was so tired when I got in last night I couldn’t have constructed a ham and cheese sandwich, much less a coherent sentence. I’ve thought ever since you opened this can of worms over on Dwayne’s blog that this was a conversation worth having and I’m glad you came here to have it with me. I’m all for subverting the dominant paradigm, so long as we can do it in a rational fashion.
Firstly, I never intended to imply that you were specifically arguing for “less art” as such. I know better. My concern is simply that if we (in the broader “we”, not you and I personally) stop “propping pink elephants like Power House,” they would cease to exist. Less exhibition space means less art.
Obviously you see a different outcome or you wouldn’t put forth the argument, but I’m struggling with a model of consistent artist and venue support in Memphis that doesn’t include the non-profit structure you have such a problem with. I swear I’m not trying to be obtuse and I realize fully that the bulk of your argument stems from the fact that the “artist” part of that last proposition is sorely under-represented, it’s just that the only obvious alternative I see is consumption driven and artistic consumption is not something Memphis does well. Of course, I suppose you could try to run arts funding in Memphis as quasi-governmental non-profits, but that has serious problems here too.
My first week in Memphis was mid-December 2001. I knew dick-all about this city other than that it was where my mom used to love to come Christmas shopping when I was little (back in the heyday of the Mall of Memphis) and that it’s where Amber wanted to go to school.
So here I am, first week in town, and there is some poor lady (who I now know to be Carissa Hussong) standing out in front of the library on Channel 5 news having to defend a piece of public art from accusations that it was pushing a communist agenda on Memphis’ impressionable children. There it was: a “Red Scare” in Memphis twelve years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and three months after the fall of the World Trade Centers. I didn’t know the term “Freeper” at that point, but if I had I’d have considered myself to have found their version of heaven.
Now, I’ve come to understand in the last 5 years that the political scene here is much more nuanced than that, but every year or so a very similar story shows up again on the local news. And they can do it precisely because the UAC is a non-profit quasi-governmental organization giving money directly to artists (some of whom are local). It’s the same lesson we all learned from the NEA in the mid-90’s playing itself out locally.
That said, this isn’t a market where I want to trust my ability to see quality art to electoral politics or public consumption… so what’s left?
I’m probably headed to my grandmother’s place for a couple of days. So if we don’t get to go another round before I leave in the morning, I hope you have a good weekend.
I wish to make a few points clearer, if I may:
I believe in the value of 501(c)3 protection and benefits for contemporary arts organizations, because the market (especially here) will not support art and artists working in intellectually challenging, politically volitile or just unmarketable forms. So, let me establish that I am no enemy of the non-profit sector. This kind of work will wither and die if completely dependent on the market.
That said, non-profit status is provided by the federal government with the presumption that those benefits impact the greater community (and I don't think they mean more fundraisers). Do you really think Power House gets 3000 visitors a year, and if not, why do they need to put it on their 990s?
I don't believe that every non-profit needs to provide an annual report, but if it is one that has a budget of $100K or more, then some transparency is in order, and such is not my arbitrary opinion, but one that is widely accepted and customary in the non-profit sector--if not here in Crumpville.
I know Lantana is squeaking by; I've seen many casualties over the last 15 years, people (the number od which would fill a paragraph)who have staked their time and treasure to build a contemporary art scene here, only to crash and burn, while GMAC and TAC throw more money at people and organizations that coast blithely along or are downright dysfunctional.
The bottom line is that, if Memphis doesn't demand accountability, transparency and results from the non-profit sector, then it won't happen by itself.
So in review, I believe:
Non-profits with a budget exceeding $100K should produce an annual report, with exhaustive explanation of its numbers.
Any organization or institution with a budget exceeding $100K that benefits from non-profit funding (like MCA, UAC, etc.) should do likewise, including how those funds are earmarked.
Organizations (like the UAC) need to be held to some standard of accountability (beyond city council auditors) to determine the efficacy of their projects as art and the benefit to the community--the three lucky people in its employee will likely retire from there, after all.
Parent non-profits (like GMAC and TAC) need to get to know the artist community (outside of fundraising contexts); I've been so bold as to suggest that artists should be recruited to their boards or in advisory roles, as opposed to just crowning wives of some well-heeled CEO. But who am I kidding?
Organizations getting large state and local support (like MCA) should reciprocate by offering commensurate benefit to the residents of the community, instead of regarding such as an entitlement. Another good reason for the transparency, yes?
Or, maybe I just a hater, and I made all this up for cover.
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