Arts Program

Through our arts program, the Foundation recognizes the arts as a significant vehicle for communication and education, and supports the cultural pluralism of the United States through its expression in the creative arts.

In 1991, we targeted our grants m three focus areas. The Arts Program funded projects that encourage creative autonomy and arts advocacy, and supported arts institutions in their efforts to create new agendas and to become more accessible to all populations. The Program also supported arts education, primarily for youth-at-risk.

Some of our 1991 grantees are described in detail below, and a full list follows at the end of this section. We are proud of their efforts to bring diverse national voices to American arts and culture.

ARTS ADVOCACY/CREATIVE AUTONOMY

The Arts Program funded promising efforts to bring the arts community together, to identify common interests and concerns, and to develop a strong American commitment to the arts and humanities. Increasingly, arts institutions, artists, and the public are working together to support creative autonomy and the right to free expression. The arts community and its supporters, committed to the exercise of individual expression, face a special challenge when its members begin to act in concert. The Foundation supported many strategies, from education to legal action, and took particular interest in programs with potential for national impact.

ARTISTS TRUST-A RESOURCE FOR WASHINGTON/THE NATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
Seattle, Washington $35,000

For The National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, an organization formed in 1990 to protect and extend freedom of artistic expression. An educational and informational network which represents the community of individual artists, arts organizations and their audiences, the National Campaign works to empower the cultural community to combat censorship and other threats to creative autonomy and freedom of expression.

THE SOCIAL POLICY CORPORATION/THE NEW PRESS
New York, NY $150,000

For The New Press to develop a publishing program in the fields of art censorship and art education, including support of an art education editor and the commissioning of books for the first publication list. The NCF grant will support the following projects: A documentary history of censorship in the U.S. in the 1980's; a narrative history of the rise of government censorship of art in America since the Vietnam war; a book based on the installation The Play of the Unmentionable designed by the artist Joseph Kosuth; and a series of educational art publications aimed at younger audiences emphasizing the diversity of the world's artistic and cultural traditions. The New Press, headed by Andre Shiffrin, is the first full-scale, general interest, non-profit book publisher operating on a national scale. It received a start-up grant from the Foundation last year.

ARTS EDUCATION

In 1991 we decided to support model arts education programs which have a primary concern with youth-at-risk. Through our grants, we hope to learn more about what makes arts education successful and meaningful for children. We took particular interest in innovative programs which might result in replication.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY/PROJECT ZERO
Cambridge, Massachusetts $250,000

For Project Co-Arts, a two-year national study of ways to better analyze the effectiveness of community art education programs. The project will design, document and pilot-test assessment strategies and develop an evaluative frame through which the educational effectiveness of community arts centers can be documented. Centers will be able to use the evaluative frame to substantiate successes and to consider alternative educational approaches. The distinguished cognitive psychologist Howard Gardner, professor of education and co-director of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, will head the project.

MEET THE COMPOSER
New York, New York $40,000

To expand their pilot education program which features composer's residences in public schools within the Mid-Atlantic region. In each residency a composer is commissioned to write a new work specifically for the school band, ensemble, or orchestra. All residencies culminate in a public concert featuring the commissioned work. In addition, the composers conduct such activities as helping students create vocal music to accompany their own poetry and workshops in which the students create their own compositions. Priority is given to neighborhoods traditionally underserved by arts education programs.

NEW AGENDAS/ACCESS AND DIVERSITY IN THE ARTS

Many arts institutions all over the country are working to create new agendas for themselves, that recognize and encourage cultural pluralism. We have sought to strengthen culturally diverse arts organizations, helping them to collaborate with each other and with other organizations in new ways, and have also supported efforts of arts institutions to diversify their board, staff, and audience.

DIA ART FOUNDATION
New York, New York $15,000

For a three day symposium entitled Black Popular Culture, sponsored by the DIA Center for the Arts in collaboration with the Studio Museum in Harlem. The symposium examined the role of a politicized popular culture in political, economic and social change in the black community. Symposium participants debated current directions in film, television, music, writing and cultural forms as created by or with the participation of black artists. The symposium will be published as Volume 8 in the Discussions in Contemporary Culture series published by Dia and Bay Press.

LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART
Los Angeles, California $50,000

For a film about the critically acclaimed exhibition, Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany which recreates the Nazis' infamous 1937 exhibition attacking and vilifying modern art. The Foundation previously supported the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for the educational components of this exhibition in 1990. The exhibition is groundbreaking in concept and design and significant in light of the censorship of art which continues to be a theme in contemporary American culture. The film will make the Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany available to a public far beyond the exhibition's three American sites. g and cultural forms as created by or with the participation of black artists. The symposium will be published as Volume 8 in the Discussions in Contemporary Culture series published by Dia and Bay Press.