When Policy Meets Art. . . We All Lose

From an August 4 US State Department press release:

Question: Is the U.S. committed to participating / providing funding for the 2005 Venice Biennale? Did the U.S. issue a letter regarding participation in the Venice Biennale? What obstacles exist? Has a new RFP been issued seeking a new agency to manage U.S. participation in the Biennale?

Answer: The Department of State is committed to the support of U.S. participation in the 2005 Venice Biennale, and is prepared to provide $170,000 in support of it. In May 2004, a grant competition seeking a non-profit cultural organization to manage the official U.S. participation in the 2005 Venice Biennale was advertised in the Federal Register and open to all organizations. A panel reviewed all proposals received, but none met the grant criteria; in keeping with standard practice, organizations whose applications were not accepted were notified by letter. We are now looking for a mechanism to ensure U.S. participation in the 2005 Venice Biennale, despite the obstacles of lack of partners and limited time available to mount the exhibition. This includes an ongoing conversation with the owner of the U.S. pavilion, the Guggenheim Museum. No official offer has been made to any entity about U.S. participation in the 2005 Venice Biennale. There are no plans to re-issue a request for grant proposals.

We are looking for a permanent mechanism to ensure U.S. participation in international arts exhibitions, to replace the Fund for U.S. Artists at International Festivals and Exhibitions. In December 2003, partners in this Fund, which include the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pew Charitable Trust, and the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as the Department of State, agreed to disband the partnership as of the end of this year.

My kind of press conference. Now I have to say, the State Department has no excuse for the quagmire we're looking forward to in Venice. They've known since at least 2002 that the Pew Charitable Trust and the Rockefeller Foundation were pinching their purses in a declining economy—plenty of time to assemble a coalition of the willing in order to ensure that our artistic interests abroad are protected. And it's sure as hell not like State's been so busy guiding Iraq policy all this time.

Instead we get a lot of rhetoric from this administration about how it's dedicated to the cause of democracy promotion, but when does this administration ever promote democracy? In one sense the decline of the American Pavilion mirrors the blind eye that the US turns on Vlad Putin: Colin Powell is full of tough talk but the administration as a whole remains silent on Putin's rolling back of democratic institutions; if the Guggenheim consolidates control over the American Pavillion we should hardly call that democracy promotion. And the administration, in dissolving the Fund for U.S. Artists at International Festivals and Exhibitions, has abandoned the multilateral approach that has been established precedent since the post-war art period. And now the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs indicates that it is unprepared to keep the peace in Venice. While I wouldn't say that Guggenheim director Thomas Krens, in whose hands the fate of the American Pavilion will almost certainly wind up, is the same caliber thug as Iyad Allawi, power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I think we're looking at a Matthew Barney American Pavilion, an exhibit that isn't exactly likley to win over the hearts and minds. I wish we could make like Belgium and send a hott painter like Luc Tuymans—maybe John Currin, maybe Cecily Brown. But more importantly we need to address the structural problems by electing a Kerry administration. With Kerry we get a cogent Biennale policy, and we'll probably see him there.

Posted by Kriston at September 15, 2004 3:25 PM