Exhibition catalogues are something I enjoy collecting and reading. I have a stack which need to be read and have made a commitment to getting back to this stack.
This commitment has me just finishing The Broad Contemporary Art Museum at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2008, published on the occasion of it’s opening.
The essay by Michael Gloven speaks of this space as a place for the Broad Collection to be available to the public, but as we now know, a new museum in downtown LA will house this collect.
The essay by Lynn Zelevansky was the most enjoyable delving into the history of modern and contemporary art at LACMA. In reading this I found a couple of programs that could be used here in San Diego. At the beginning of LACMA’s contemporary art history those involved understood the importance of keeping the artists graduating from the art schools throughout LA in Los Angeles, and one of the programs they implemented to help was to establish a Young Talent Award. In exchange for a work of art the artist was given a grant and an exhibit. A rental gallery promoting regional artists was also established. There were other circumstances and programs which contributed to artist being supported and thereby staying in Los Angeles. And now it seems LA has surpassed NYC and San Francisco as an art capital.
It is very disheartening to have heard while reading this extensive history of a vibrant art community that our Mayor wants to take our percent for art program money and put it into the cities general fund.
San Diego lagged far behind cities of comparable size in a percent for public art program. It was not until 2004 that policy #900-11was adopted by the city and just six years later it is already being threatened.
The fear tactics being used is no surprise, it seems the tool of choice by politicians.
And I wonder why people cannot see through the tactic of fear into the benefit of a healthy well supported art community.
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