Advocacy

CAA sent the following letter regarding the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei to the editor of the New York Times on Friday, April 8, 2011. Read more about the international art community’s response at CultureGrrl.

Letter to the Editor

To the Editor:

The College Art Association, the world’s largest organization of visual arts professionals, is extremely concerned about the fate of Ai Weiwei since he was taken into police custody when attempting to board a plane to Hong Kong on April 3rd. He has not been accused of specific crimes.

We are deeply alarmed that Ai would be subject to such extreme methods of repression because of his unfettered work and outspokenness. Ai’s work has garnered international accolades, recognized as an indication of the vitality of the visual arts in China. He is well known in art circles in New York, where he lived for a number of years, and his choice to return to Beijing was seen as part of the renewal of the arts in China.

The College Art Association supports freedom of expression for all artists and looks forward to Ai’s prompt release.

Sincerely,

Barbara Nesin, MFA
President, College Art Association

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.

Several artists, architects, filmmakers, and other supporters of the arts and humanities have recently been named to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. Among the new members to the committee are:

• Paula Hannaway Crown, an artist and member of the board of trustees for the Museum of Modern Art
• Christine Forester, an architect and board member for the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and the Museum of Photographic Arts
• Liz Manne, an independent film producer and consultant
• Thom Mayne, an architect whose projects include the Cooper Union academic building in New York and the San Francisco Federal Building
• Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, who was instrumental in fundraising efforts for the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Other well-known members newly appointed to the committee include actors Edward Norton and Sarah Jessica Parker and the musician Yo-Yo Ma. For the full list of members, please see the Chicago Tribune’s Cityscapes. (In the Los Angeles Times, Christopher Knight laments the lack of visual artists on the committee.)

The twenty-six-member committee works closely with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services to promote the value of the arts and humanities in the United States through education, cultural diplomacy, and recognition of excellence in those fields.

Barack Obama has appointed new leaders to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. George Stevens, Jr., and Margo Lion will serve as cochairs, and Mary Schmidt Campbell will be vice chair.

This committee, founded in 1982 and comprised of private citizens from across the United States, advocates for the arts and humanities as core of a vital society. It works with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services to advance nonpartisan cultural objectives of the Obama administration.

Stevens is a writer, director, producer of motion pictures and television, founder of the American Film Institute, and creator of the Kennedy Center Honors. He fostered a new generation of documentary filmmakers as head of the US Information Agency’s Motion Picture Service during the Kennedy presidency.

As a Broadway producer, Lion has worked with Tony Kushner, David Mamet, Arthur Miller, August Wilson, and George C. Wolfe, and her work has earned Tony and Olivier awards and a Pulitzer Prize. She is also an adjunct professor and a member of the Dean’s Council at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Tisch is also home to Campbell, where she is dean. A former chair of the New York State Council on the Arts, Campell was executive director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she wrote the catalogue for the exhibition Memory and Metaphor: The Art of Romare Bearden, 1940–1987.

In early August, President Obama appointed Rachel Goslins, an independent television and film producer, as the committee’s executive director.

After receiving confirmation from the US Senate last Friday, Jim Leach was sworn in as the ninth chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). A Republican, Leach previously served southeastern Iowa for thirty years in the US House of Representatives, where he chaired the Banking and Financial Services Committee, the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. He also founded and cochaired the Congressional Humanities Caucus.

After leaving Congress in 2007, Leach was John L. Weinberg Visiting Professor of Public and International Affairs in Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School. In September 2007, he took a year’s leave of absence from Princeton to serve as the interim director of the Institute of Politics and a lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

In a recent staff “town hall” meeting about a new “bridging cultures” theme for the NEH, Leach said, “In an era where declining civility increasingly hallmarks domestic politics and where anarchy has taken root in many parts of the world, it is imperative that cultural differences at home and abroad be respectfully understood, rather than irrationally denigrated.”

Leach graduated from Princeton, received a master’s degree in Soviet politics from the School of Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University, and did additional graduate studies at the London School of Economics. He also holds eight honorary degrees and has received numerous awards, including the Sidney R. Yates Award for Distinguished Public Service to the Humanities from the National Humanities Alliance; the Woodrow Wilson Award from Johns Hopkins; the Adlai Stevenson Award from the United Nations Association; the Edgar Wayburn Award from the Sierra Club; the Wayne Morse Integrity in Politics Award; the Norman Borlaug Award for Public Service; and the Wesley Award for Service to Humanity.

On Friday, August 7, 2009, the US Senate confirmed Rocco Landesman, a Broadway theater producer, as the tenth chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Nominated by President Barack Obama, Landesman succeeds Dana Gioia, who resigned in January 2009. Patrice Walker Powell, the NEA’s deputy chairman for state, regions, and local arts agencies, had served as acting chairman in the interim.

Upon his confirmation Landesman said, “I am honored to receive the Senate’s vote of confirmation. I look forward to serving the nation as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. I believe this is an auspicious time for the NEA and the country. Art is essential to the civic, economic, and cultural vitality of our nation. It reflects who we are and what we stand for—freedom of expression, imagination, and vision. I am eager to work with our many partners to bring quality arts programs to neighborhoods and communities across the country.”

Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, Landesman pursued his undergraduate education at Colby College and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and earned a doctorate in dramatic literature at the Yale School of Drama. At the completion of his course work, he stayed at the school for four years, working as an assistant professor.

His ensuing career has been a hybrid of commercial, philanthropic, and artistic engagements. In 1977, he left Yale to start a private investment fund, which he ran until his appointment in 1987 as president of Jujamcyn, a company that owns and operates five Broadway theaters. Before and after joining Jujamcyn, Landesman produced Broadway shows, the most notable of which are Big River (1985 Tony for best musical), Angels in America, and The Producers (2001 Tony for best musical). In 2005, he bought Jujamcyn and managed it until President Obama announced his intention to nominate him to the NEA chairmanship.

Landesman has also been active on numerous boards, including the Municipal Arts Society; an advocacy organization concerned with New York City’s public spaces and preservation; the Times Square Alliance, which has radically changed the heart of the city by improving its safety, sanitation, and aesthetic; and the Educational Foundation of America. Over the years, he returned to the Yale School of Drama and Yale Rep to teach.

Photo: Michael Eastman.

Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate former Republican Congressman Jim Leach as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Obama said, “I am confident that with Jim as its head, the National Endowment for the Humanities will continue on its vital mission of supporting the humanities and giving the American public access to the rich resources of our culture. Jim is a valued and dedicated public servant and I look forward to working with him in the months and years ahead.”

Jim Leach served as a member of the US House of Representatives for the state of Iowa for thirty years. He founded and cochaired the Congressional Humanities Caucus, which is dedicated to  advocating on behalf of the humanities in the House and to raising the profile of humanities in the United States. The caucus worked to promote and preserve humanities programs and commissions such as the Historical Publications and Records Commission. Leach and his cofounder, Rep. David Price, received the Sidney R. Yates Award for Distinguished Public Service to the Humanities from the National Humanities Alliance in 2005. During his tenure in Congress, Leach also served as chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services (1995-2001), a senior member of the House Committee on International Relations, and chairman of the committee’s Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs (2001-6). In addition, Leach is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the vice chairman of the Century Foundation’s board of trustees and has served on the boards of the Social Sciences Research Council, ProPublica, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Kettering Foundation. Since leaving Congress in 2007, he has taught at Princeton University and served as the interim director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.