Advocacy

The Executive Committee of the CAA Board of Directors adopted the following statement on December 7, 2010. At the bottom of the page is information about a special session at the upcoming CAA Annual Conference, chaired by Jonathan Katz, a scholar and the cocurator of Hide/Seek.

CAA Statement

The College Art Association regrets the removal of David Wojnarowicz’s A Fire in My Belly (1987) from the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, on display at the National Portrait Gallery. It was taken out on November 30 by G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, in response to outside pressure. CAA further expresses profound disappointment that the House speaker–designate, John A. Boehner of Ohio, and the incoming majority leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia, have used their positions to question future funding for the Smithsonian Institution.

CAA applauds the National Portrait Gallery for its groundbreaking exhibition, which presents the long-suppressed subject of same-sex orientation. Furthermore, CAA commends the thorough, pioneering scholarship and the challenging curatorial judgment made by the organizers of Hide/Seek—David C. Ward, a historian at the museum, and Jonathan Katz, director of the Visual Studies Doctoral Program at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. That the work of everyone involved has been heedlessly compromised is deeply troubling. The pressure brought to bear on the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian sounds a familiar note from 1989, when direct federal funding to artists was ended due to political pressure. Then as now, CAA strongly protests such tactics.

Government has a long tradition of supporting universities, museums, and libraries—institutions that have produced research that expresses a variety of positions on all subjects. Freedom of expression is one of the great strengths of American democracy and one that our country holds up as a model for emerging democracies elsewhere. Americans understand that ideas expressed in books and artworks are those of their makers, not of the institutions that house them, and certainly do not represent public policy.

CAA urges all members to let your senators and representatives know of your support for the exhibition, its curators, and the National Portrait Gallery. You may also use advocacy tools provided by the National Humanities Alliance or Americans for the Arts.

Special Conference Session

This week CAA invited Jonathan Katz, cocurator of Hide/Seek, to chair a special Centennial session at the 2011 Annual Conference in New York. He will present “Against Acknowledgement: Sexuality and the Instrumentalization of Knowledge” on Wednesday, February 9, 2011, 9:30 AM–NOON in the Rendezvous Trianon Room at the Hilton New York. Please check the conference website soon for a list of panelists, their institutional affiliations, and topics of discussion.

In the past week, numerous art and museum associations, advocacy groups, nonprofit and commercial galleries, art critics, and newspapers have spoken out against the removal of an artwork by David Wojnarowicz that was on view in an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. CAA is compiling a list of organizations, companies, and people who have published official statements, editorials, and letters to the editor.

Organizations

• College Art Association
• Association of Art Museum Directors (PDF)
• Transformer in Washington, DC, which is screening A Fire in My Belly
• Association of Art Museum Curators
• National Coalition Against Censorship (a joint statement with thirteen other groups, including the First Amendment Project, Catholics for Choice, the Association of American Publishers, and the International Association of Art Critics, United States Section)
• American Association of Museums
• American Civil Liberties Union
• Washington Project for the Arts
• Fluent~Collaborative
• Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Critics, Journalists, Scholars, and Curators

• Jonathan D. Katz, scholar and curator of Hide/Seek with David C. Ward
• Tyler Green, Modern Art Notes, who has an archive of events and commentary since November 30
• Lee Rosenbaum, CultureGrrl, who also has covered the story with news and editorials
• Blake Gopnik, the Washington Post
• Christopher Knight, the Los Angeles Times

Museums and Galleries

• PPOW Gallery in New York, which represents the Estate of David Wojnarowicz
• Arlington Arts Center in Virginia

Press and Publishing

• New York Times

Social Networking and Web Resources

• Hide/Seek.org
• Support Hide/Seek on Facebook
• Hide/Seek.org on Twitter

The above list will be cumulative. If you would like to send CAA a link to an official or organizational statement, please write to Christopher Howard, CAA managing editor.

On November 30, G. Wayne Clough, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, ordered the removal of David Wojnarowicz’s A Fire in My Belly (1987) from display at the National Portrait Gallery. In addition, incoming Republican leaders in Congress urged that the entire exhibition, Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, be closed. Thankfully this did not happen.

Our government clearly needs to hear from you. At this critical time of federal budget planning—when sufficient funding for the Smithsonian museums may be in doubt—it is crucial that you let Capitol Hill know about your support for the visual arts, humanities, and art museums. CAA encourages you to register and take part in three upcoming events this winter and spring in Washington, DC: Museums Advocacy Day, Humanities Advocacy Day, and Arts Advocacy Day. At each, participants meet their senators and representatives in person to advocate for increased federal support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

Previous lobbying experience isn’t necessary. Training sessions and practice talks take place the day before the main events—that’s why, for example, Arts Advocacy Day is actually two days, not one. Participants are also prepped on the critical issues and the range of funding requested of Congress to support these federal agencies. It is at these training sessions where you meet—and network with—other advocates from your states. The main sponsoring organization for each event makes congressional appointments for you.

You may have mailed a letter or sent a prewritten email to your congressperson or senator before, but legislators have an algorithm of interest for pressing issues, in which a personal visit tops all other forms of communication. As citizen lobbyists, it’s also important to have a few specific examples about how arts funding has affected you: don’t be afraid to name-drop major cultural institutions—such as your city’s best-known museum or nonprofit art center—in your examples of why the visual arts matter in your state.

If you cannot attend the three advocacy days in person, please send an email or fax to your representatives expressing your concern about continued and increased funding for the visual arts. If you don’t know your representative or senators, you can look them up at www.congress.org.

Museums Advocacy Day

The American Association of Museums (AAM) leads Museums Advocacy Day, taking place February 28–March 1, 2011, with support from numerous other nonprofit organizations. AAM is developing the legislative agenda for this year’s event. Likely issues will include federal funding for museums, museums and federal education policy, and charitable giving issues affecting museums. The entire museum field is welcome to participate: staff, volunteers, trustees, students, and even museum enthusiasts. Museums Advocacy Day is the ideal chance for new and seasoned advocates to network with museum professionals from their state and to meet staff in congressional offices. Register online now.

Humanities Advocacy Day

The National Humanities Alliance (NHA) sponsors Humanities Advocacy Day, to be held March 7–8, 2011, in conjunction with its annual meeting. Scholars, higher education and association leaders, and policy makers will convene first at George Washington University for the conference and then on Capitol Hill for congressional visits and a reception. The preliminary program includes NHA’s annual business meeting for voting members, commentary on the postelection landscape, discussion of humanities funding and other policy issues, a luncheon and keynote address, and presentations of current work in the humanities. Learn more about registration.

Arts Advocacy Day

To be held April 4–5, 2011, Arts Advocacy Day is the only national event that brings together America’s cultural and civic organizations with hundreds of grassroots advocates, all of whom will underscore the importance of developing strong public policies and appropriating increased public funding for the arts. Sponsored by Americans for the Arts, the event starts at the Omni Shoreham Hotel on the first day, before advocates head to Capitol Hill on the second. Registration is open now.

CAA joined with artists and other arts-support organizations in filing an amicus brief asking the US Supreme Court to grant a petition to review a case involving an artwork removed from public view in San Marcos, Texas. In that case, Kleinman v. City of San Marcos, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the First Amendment only protects “great” works of art.

The brief explains how this new, “great” art standard is inconsistent with the First Amendment and would give governments the ability to ban disfavored art and contemporary art that has not yet become iconic. It points out that whether art is “great” art is not susceptible to an objective, value-neutral determination, but would require courts to act as art critics based on expert evidence of what constitutes “greatness” in art. The brief also highlights a number of examples of artists and art whose work was not initially regarded as “great,” but only became so over time. For all of these reasons, the brief argues, the new and unprecedented “great” art standard of the Fifth Circuit is troubling, and the Supreme Court should review and reverse the appellate decision.

Background

In the city of San Marcos, Texas, participants at a charity event for the opening of a store, Planet K, were invited to smash up an old car. The car was then converted into a cactus planter and painted on the exterior by two local artists, with scenes from San Marcos, abstract designs, and the phrase “Make Love, Not War.” The stated intention of one of the petitioners, Michael Kleinman, organizer of the event and owner of the store, was always to turn the wrecked car into an artwork. The resulting artwork was displayed on private property (the Planet K parking lot) and was easily visible to the public from thoroughfares.

A San Marcos ordinance prohibits, as a public nuisance, any display of a “junked vehicle” that can been seen by the public. Based on the First Amendment—that their artwork is protected speech—Kleinman and the artists sued the city, to enjoin it from applying the ordinance to their artwork. The US District Court for the Western District of Texas found for the city. The court held that the ordinance did not violate the First Amendment, as applied to plaintiffs’ artwork, because they had alternative avenues of communicating their message.

This past February, the Fifth Circuit affirmed that decision. It first questioned whether the wrecked car/planter/artwork could be considered constitutionally protected expression. In particular, the appeals court read a prior Supreme Court decision to indicate that the First Amendment protects only “great” works of art, and that the Supreme Court has not otherwise set out the First Amendment framework to be applied to visual works of art. The Fifth Circuit also went on to hold that even if the First Amendment did apply in this case, under prevailing standards the city’s nuisance law could apply to the artwork. After the decision of the Fifth Circuit, the city seized and removed—but has not yet destroyed—the artwork.

The artists filed a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court, requesting that the court review the decision of the Fifth Circuit. There are several grounds for the petition, one of which is that “great art” should not be the test for whether an artwork is protected by the First Amendment.

First Amendment protection for works of art has long been a core concern of CAA and important to its advocacy program. In the last Supreme Court term, CAA joined the National Coalition Against Censorship in filing an amicus brief in the case of United States v. Stevens. In that case, the Supreme Court ultimately held, 8–0, that the federal statute criminalizing depictions of animal cruelty violated the First Amendment, agreeing with the position taken by CAA in its brief. Earlier, CAA joined an amicus brief in the NEA Four case (National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley), in which the Supreme Court ultimately held, in 1998, that it was not unconstitutional for Congress to mandate that the National Endowment for the Arts take into account “general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public” when funding artists.

Other Signers to the Brief

The amicus brief to which CAA is a party was filed on July 8, 2010. The other signers are: Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts; Volunteer Lawyers and Professionals for the Arts (formerly Tennessee Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts); Northwest Lawyers and Artists (Portland, Oregon); Comic Book Legal Defense Fund; ArtCar Fest; the artist historian Douglas Nickel; and artists Butch Hancock, Kelly Lyles, Leo Aston, Alan Pogue, Jan D. Elftman, Philo Northrup, Harrod Blank, Emily Duffy, and Graydon Parrish.

Downloads

Download a PDF of the Kleinman amicus brief. A second PDF contains the petition for certiorari, the District Court and Fifth Circuit opinions, and, at the end of the file, photographs of the artwork in question.

According to a new report published by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Americans who participate in the arts through the internet, television, radio, computers, and handheld devices are almost three times more likely to attend live arts events than nonmedia participants (59 percent versus 21 percent). Users of technology and electronic media also attend, on average, twice as many live arts events—six versus three in a single year—and see a wider variety of genres.

The report, called Audience 2.0: How Technology Influences Arts Participation, looks at who is participating in the arts through electronic media, what factors affect their participation, and the relationships among media-based arts activities, live attendance, and personal arts creation. Audience 2.0 has determined that media-based arts participation appears to encourage—rather than replace—attendance at live arts events. Among the conclusions:

• Education continues to be the best predictor of arts participation among adults, both for live attendance and through electronic media. Survey respondents with at least some college education were more likely than respondents with a grade-school education to have used electronic media to participate in the arts
• For many Americans—primarily older Americans, lower-income earners, and racial/ethnic minority groups—electronic media is the only way they participate in arts events
• The 15.4 percent of US adults who use media only to engage with the arts are equally likely to be urban or rural
• Twenty-one percent (47 million) of all US adults reported using the internet to view music, theater, or dance performances in the last twelve months. Twenty-four percent (55 million) obtained information about the arts online

Audience 2.0 expands on the research published in the NEA’s 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA). This survey, conducted in partnership with the US Census Bureau and released last year, is the nation’s largest, most representative study of arts participation among American adults. Since 1982, SPPA has measured American adult participation in activities such as visits to art museums or galleries and attendance at jazz and classical music concerts, opera and ballet performances, and musical and nonmusical plays. SPPA categorizes these as “benchmark” activities, providing a standard group of arts activities for more than two decades of consistent trend analysis. Audience 2.0 takes a closer look at how audiences use electronic media to engage in these benchmark activities.

In an agency first, the new report is being released only in an electronic format that includes multimedia features. Chairman Rocco Landesman’s video greeting is accompanied by a video commentary on the report from Sunil Iyengar, NEA director of research and analysis. Additionally, each chapter will open with videos from arts organizations that represent each of the benchmark disciplines tracked by the report. Arts organizations can use findings from Audience 2.0 to better understand their audiences’ uses of technology and electronic media.

As part of its ongoing analysis of SPPA data, the NEA is making raw data and detailed statistical tables available to researchers and the public. The tables highlight demographic factors affecting adult participation in a variety of art forms.

The following twenty-one United States senators signed onto the Dear Colleague letter circulated by Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) earlier this month. The letter, which supported increased funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), was submitted last week. If your senator(s) signed on, please send a thank-you email using the National Humanities Alliance’s website. A customizable form letter is posted on the Online Advocacy Tools section.

A PDF of the Dear Colleague letter, addressed to Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-HA) and Vice Chair Thad Cochran (R-MS), and to Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Ranking Member Lamar Alexander (R-TN), is available for download.

Final List of Signatures

Tom Udall (D-NM), letter sponsor
Daniel Akaka (D-HI)
Mark Begich (D-AK)
Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD)
Christopher Dodd (D-CT)
Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
Tim Johnson (D-SD)
John Kerry (D-MA)
Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
Carl Levin (D-MI)
Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
Jeff Merkley (D-OR)
Jack Reed (D-RI)
Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
Charles Schumer (D-NY)
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
Ron Wyden (D-OR)

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced on April 14, 2010, that Jason Schupbach will join the endowment as director of design at the end of May.

Schupbach brings to the NEA an impressive background of support for the creative economy and the design field, along with experience working with local, state, and federal agencies. He currently serves as the creative economy industry director for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where one of his primary focuses is the growth and support of all types of design businesses. Schupbach has also worked as capital projects manager for the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and director of Boston’s ArtistLink, an organization that creates a stable environment for Massachusetts artists as they seek workspace and housing.

Schupbach will manage the NEA’s grantmaking for design and its design initiatives, such as the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, as well as the proposed Our Town, which is part of the NEA fiscal year 2011 budget request and would provide funding in recognition of the role that the arts can play in economic revitalization and in creating livable, sustainable communities.

After receiving his BS in public health from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, Schupbach earned his master’s degree in city planning with an urban-design certificate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Read more about him on the NEA website. Judith H. Dobrzynski of the ArtsJournal blog Real Clear Arts worries that his appointment is leading toward a more commercialized NEA.

In response to Museums Advocacy Day, held on March 22–23, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) is circulating a “Dear Colleague” letter to encourage her fellow senators to ask the Senate Appropriations Committee for $50 million in funding for the Office of Museum Services, a branch of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The amount requested for fiscal year 2011 is a $14.8 million increase over the current fiscal year. Gillibrand’s letter is similar to a separate effort in the House of Representatives, supported by Representatives Paul Tonko (D-NY), Louise Slaughter (D-NY), and Leonard Lance (R-NJ).

The American Association of Museums (AAM) has prepared a form letter that you may use to send an urgent message to your senators. Use the online fields to enter your contact information, which will then select your senator’s name and address. You can then download (as an .rtf) and print the letter to mail or fax, or choose the email option to send your letter right away. You can edit and personalize your missive before sending.

The Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC), a federal agency in the Executive Office of the President, seeks opinions on how the federal government should enforce copyrights and handle infringements. In a two-part survey, IPEC not only solicits written submissions about economic costs associated with intellectual-property violations, but also requests specific recommendations on how such violations can be dealt with. All comments should be sent by email.

Public Knowledge, a digital-issues interest group based in Washington, DC, writes, “The request for comments seems geared to take in complaints from big media companies and other major holders of copyrights, patents, and trademarks,” but also that it is “open to everyday consumers, citizens, and members of the public.”

An area that art historians may wish to address, for example, is the way that copyright controls on images have made it difficult for electronic texts to include copyrighted art images. For artists, an area of concern is the high cost of registering copyright in a visual image, and lack of good bulk registration tools at the US Copyright Office for visual-image rights holders.

Read more about the issue on the Public Knowledge website, which also includes a sample letter that you can tailor to your needs. Deadline: 5:00 PM on March 24, 2010.

As reported last week, the cochairs of the Congressional Humanities Caucus—David Price (D-NC) and Tom Petri (R-WI)—are circulating a sign-on letter asking their colleagues in the House of Representatives to join them in urging appropriators to increase funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). As of this morning, nearly sixty members of Congress have agreed to sign.Last year, one hundred members signed a similar letter.While this is a difficult fiscal year, CAA supports at least level funding for the NEH.

An updated list of signers is below. Please take a moment to review these names. If your representative is not listed, you can still call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121, or email the office a request via NHA’s online advocacy tools. If a representative has already indicated their willingness to sign, but is NOT yet listed, please contact Jessica Irons, NHA executive director, at jirons@nhalliance.org or 202-296-4994.

The House “Dear Colleague Letter” requests total funding of $232.5 million for the NEH in fiscal year 2011, including $144 million for NEH National Programs and $60 million for the NEH Federal/State Partnership (a $65 million increase over the FY 2010 enacted level). It also opposes $7.2 million (5.6 percent) in cuts to NEH programs, proposed in the President Barack Obama’s budget request for NEH. The text of the sign-on letter is available.

For more information or to sign onto the letter, congressional offices should contact Kate Roetzer with Rep. David Price (5-1784) or Lindsay Punzenberger with Rep. Thomas Petri (5-5406). The deadline for representatives to sign the letter is Tuesday, March 16, 2010.

Sign-On List (as of March 15)

(AR-2) Vic Snyder
(AR-4) Mike Ross
(CA-5) Doris O. Matsui
(CA-6) Lynn Woolsey
(CA-14) Anna G. Eshoo
(CA-17) Sam Farr
(CA-28) Howard L. Berman
(CA-30) Henry A. Waxman
(CA-32) Judy Chu
(CT-2) Joe Courtney
(CT-3) Rosa L. DeLauro
*(DE-AL) Michael Castle PENDING
(FL-23) Alcee Hastings
*(GA-5) John Lewis PENDING
*(GA-8) Jim Marshall PENDING
*(GA-13) David Scott PENDING
(HA-2) Mazie K. Hirono
(IA-2) David Loebsack
(IL-1) Bobby L. Rush
(IL-9) Jan Schakowsky
(KY-3) John A. Yarmuth
(MA-3) James P. McGovern
(MA-5) Niki Tsongas
(MA-8) Michael E. Capuano
(MA-9) Stephen Lynch
(MA-10) Bill Delahunt
(MD-8) Chris Van Hollen
(ME-1) Chellie Pingree
(MI-3) Vernon J. Ehlers
(MI-12) Sander Levin
(MI-14) John Conyers, Jr.
(MI-15) John Dingell
(MN-8) Jim Oberstar
(MO-5) Emmanuel Cleaver II
(MP-AL) Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan
(NC-4) David Price (cosponsor)
(NC-13) Brad Miller
(NH-1) Carol Shea-Porter
(NJ-2) Frank LoBiondo
(NJ-7) Leonard Lance
(NJ-8) Bill Pascrell, Jr.
(NJ-12) Rush Holt
(NV-1) Shelley Berkley
(NV-3) Dina Titus
(NY-8) Jerrold Nadler
(NY-12) Nydia Velazquez
(NY-14) Carolyn B. Maloney
(NY-23) Bill Owens
(OR-1) David Wu
(OR-3) Earl Blumenauer
(OR-4) Peter DeFazio
(PA-1) Robert Brady
(PA-6) Jim Gerlach
(RI-2) James R. Langevin
(TX-25) Lloyd Doggett
(VA-3) Robert C. “Bobby” Scott
(VA-11) Gerry Connolly
(WI-2) Tammy Baldwin
(WI-6) Thomas Petri (cosponsor)
(WV-3) Nick J. Rahall, II