Minneapolis: The Death Of Art

This is Minnsota.

We provide copious welfare to major corporations.

We subsidize poverty, in order to make it a viable lifestyle.

And now, from the same people who brought you the Motor Vehicle Department and the County Code Enforcement Bureau, we have...

...arts welfare!:

To the artists and others at Wednesday night's public meeting, Minneapolis' new strategic arts and culture plan looked great. And it should have -- it's the result of three years of effort on the part of the Minneapolis Arts Commission, and involved the input of more than 500 people representing various neighborhoods and arts organizations.

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak says the plan will ensure the future well-being of what is already a culturally dynamic city.

In other words, Minneapolis is going to pay off yet another DFL constituency.

Says Mayor Rybak:

"When I really see the art percolating in this city, in the middle of the Fringe Festival, when the art festivals are going on and we see somebody doing a spontaneous art performance on the Stone Arch bridge, I feel so proud to be mayor of a city that has so much art percolating from just the basic DNA of the city of Minneapolis. I want to make sure we do everything we can to keep nurturing that"

As someone who deeply loves art of all kinds, I beg of you; please don't.

The Twin Cities are, indeed, great cities for the arts. Arts of all kinds - music, theatre, visual, kinetic, literature and more - all thrive here.

Making it a part of the bureaucracy is a wonderful way to kill it.

Look at what happened to Jazz and "Classical" ("Serious") music; as both moved from the realm of the market into academic sinecure and government-subsidized preservation programs, each evolved in the same way everything evolves once it is subsumed into the bureaucracy, whether it's an art form or the tax code; through opacity to arrogance; via subsidy to dependence and the homogenization that goes with it; from art that shares the world we live in to art that can only survive in a subsidized, academic hothouse; from art by artists to art by grant whores.

"I'm skeptical. We've seen how many arts plans have gone through," says Knox. "I want to believe the city of Minneapolis will demonstrate a commitment to the arts by acting on what has been put out. But right now, listening to what has been said, it feels like these are some really glib, easy answers."

Well, here's one more glib, easy answer: be veeeeeeery careful when subsidizing the arts.

There's a fine line between Shakespeare in the Park and the gratingly arrogant "public art" that clogs so much of the urban landscape...

...no. No, actually it's not a fine line at all. Enabling organic art to get to the people is one thing; paying artists to do what which is done best on their own is quite another.

Posted by Mitch at September 23, 2005 05:55 PM | TrackBack