The cold front did not arrive in time for the opening of “Into the Wild,” a wilderness-themed show at Carol Jazzar Contemporary Art last Friday night. The art crowd sweat among the campfire paintings and Enrique Gomez de Molina’s bizarre churkendoose sculpture (okay, it was more like a peacock-crab-squirrel, but anyway it was disturbing) and huddled in Carol’s air-conditioned-ish house, passing up the free wine to guzzle cups of ice water.
Yet we all knew the cold was coming, and not just in terms of the weather. Rather than the latest trends — portraiture is back! video in performance is de riguer! — talk turned to the latest signs of the economic downturn in the arts.
Someone observed that for the first time in the 30-year-existence of Tigertail, that venerable presenter of all things avant garde in performance and literature did not receive funding from the state of Florida, not because of any fault of Tigertail’s, but because the state’s budget is now nearly nil.
But then it’s easy to add up (or subtract) the damage to public funding of the arts where all we need to do is compare the figures from this year to last. What would be the impact on the commercial gallery world, someone asked. If buyers stopped buying, how would all the new galleries in Wynwood survive? Could we lose the whole district?
Ah, but the collapse of the commercial system might be a boon to creativity, suggested an optimist. Artists might pay more attention to their work, rather than their potential markets.
We can always hope. Maybe that’s why talk turned to Michael Spring, the eternal hope of Miami-Dade artists. Everyone wondered at the backroom negotiations, the back channel diplomacy, that must have gone into the recent announcement that the County had restored the level of funding for arts grants to 85% of what it was before the devastating countywide budget cuts. 85% is a deep cut. 85% hurts. But it feels down right miraculous compared to what might have been.
We did it! observed one artist-advocate who played an instrumental role in rallying the artworld to lobby the County over the past months. And in the chilly months to come we will have to keep doing it, proving once and for all that not only is art political, but that without politics, there is no art.
“Into the Wild” runs through November 15, Saturday & Sunday 1-6pm & by appointment at Carol Jazzar Contemporary Art, 158 NW 91 Street, Miami, 33150; 305-490-6906; www.cjazzart.com.
Thanks for doing this! Loved your ending line.
At a recent Creative Capital Professional Development Program artist workshop presentation, I tried to inspire local artists to be part of the conversation (not just the subject) on arts advocacy. I did so by using the metaphor of the Grey Wolf’s reintroduction to Yellowstone Park as an invitation for them to enter the Arts Advocacy dialogue. (The Grey Wolf’s return to the food web there restored balance to the ecosystem).
Although there is a healthy history of artist advocates (e.g., political art, activist art), artists can advocate for greater societal investment in the arts (e.g., supporting artists, implementing programs, developing audiences, arts education, capital improvements) without it having to be part of their art practice.
We need artists’ perspectives in the mix to help policy makers understand the inherent value of art (beyond the obvious economic development, traditional social services and educational functions). Artists’ involvement is a matter of self-preservation for our cultural community; essential if we want to protect artists, arts organizations and the other endangered species in this cultural landscape.
Peace,
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