Tuesday, January 12, 2010

An Angry White Guy in Chicago: Stick Your Government Arts Subsidy in This Hole:

And, here, boys and girls, comes the pitch: instead of giving a single dollar to individual artists or collectives, combine the dough and subsidize community venues like the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs programs.

The (edward) Hopper Project is a huge achievement for my tiny little, stubbornly non-commercial theater company. The budget clocked in at roughly $7,000.00 from stem to stern. Had we not been invited to perform at the government subsidized Storefront Theater, it would have cost us an additional $12,000.00 - which means it would not have happened at all.

As a model for a nationwide network of professionally run, adjudicated work culled from the tiny companies and individual artists - from theater to dance to stationary art - this not only addresses issues of diversity in terms of the variety of voices accommodated but can also address the Prof's problem with the major urban areas stranglehold on the national reputation as centers of highest quality art.