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Some of our favorite posts and statements from the past week:
George R.R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice and Fire, precursor to HBO’s mega-hit Game of Thrones
There are really no words for how I feel this morning.
America has spoken. I really thought we were better than this. Guess not.
Trump was the least qualified candidate ever nominated by a major party for the presidency. Come January, he will become the worst president in American history, and a dangerously unstable player on the world stage.
And the decimated Democrats, a minority in both House and Senate, do not have the power to hinder him.
Over the next four years, our problems are going to get much, much worse.
Winter is coming. I told you so.
Hrag Vartanian, founder and editor of Hyperallergic
[Excerpted from full post on website]
It’s a dark day in America. I’m numb. Many of us are right now …
We live in a racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, xenophobic, and Islamophobic nation — we already knew that. But we imagined it was always improving, changing its ways, and learning as it went. But America has proven itself uninterested in facts, preferring to be swayed by bravado. This isn’t the first time the United States has showed us its ugly, hateful face; we’ve seen it previously, as recently as the years after 9/11 and many many times before …
We will still create, write, perform, sing, dance, and anything else we can, because that’s what we do … The art community will have to help by innovating new paths forward, because the old ways don’t work, and they haven’t for a while. Projects like #DecolonizeThisPlace at Artists Space take on a new urgency today, as they will be our greatest hope to forge ahead. Success requires risks. All art is some form of artivism now, as we will all become inadvertent activists, whether we like it or not. This is to survive, grow, and feed ourselves with the financial, social, and intellectual nourishment that we need.
For many different reasons, a great deal of us are scared, and some more than others. We know stop-and-frisk isn’t going away, new restrictions on those from Muslim-majority nations will grow, women’s bodies will continue to be a battleground for health issues, America’s foreign alliances and wars will be in flux, government surveillance may be heightened, and we now have a Vice President who is known to support “gay conversion therapy” for LGBTQ people — and this is just some of it. It’s hard not to feel hopeless, but this too shall pass…
Earlier this year, [Trump] answered the Washington Post‘s candidate survey that included a question about NEA funding. His campaign provided a generic answer about the value of liberal arts education. It also added: “The Congress, as representatives of the people, make the determination as to what the spending priorities ought to be.” That Congress will soon be solidly Republican, a party that has never had a good track record with federal arts funding. The culture wars are back, and Trump just threw kindling onto the flames.
Jerry Saltz, art critic, New York Magazine
[Excerpt. Read full story here.]
How will this play out, this time, in the art world? … I can imagine the typical arty gestures of spareness art giving way to another kind of organization, marked by extremes of gesture, things more homemade, unpredictable, vulnerable, bizarre. Maybe artists will work with mechanics to disable deportation buses at night. Maybe there will be a move away from so many artists and curators making deconstructivist institutional-critique art, which is ultimately a way for insiders to pretend to be outsiders — and which already feels like folly in a time when politicians have declared that institutions will be defunded and dismantled … More important, the shift or clusterfuck under way may jar professionalized artists from being part and parcel of the career machine and return them and all of us to our rightful outsider gypsy position — aristocratic bohemians with highly calibrated bullshit detectors. After all, why should art want to serve consensus? What is interesting, or exciting, or urgent about consensus?
Robert Lynch, President and CEO of Americans for the Arts
[Excerpted from full statement on website]
The historic election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States brings some uncertainty in terms of federal support for the arts. President-Elect Trump, in answering questions co-developed by Americans for the Arts during the course of the campaign, deferred to Congress on supporting increased federal funding of the National Endowment for the Arts and other federal funding for culture in general. He also deferred to state and local school districts on maintaining or increasing support for arts education funding. While he does express appreciation for arts education and the arts in his own life, specific policy positions are unknown or undeveloped….
President-Elect Trump has said, “…supporting and advocating for appreciation of the arts is important to an informed and aware society. As President, I would take on that role.” We hope for a White House and administration that supports the nonprofit arts community, the local and state arts support infrastructures, as well as independent artists and creative entrepreneurs. Arts policy recommendations that the Americans for the Arts Action Fund has put forward and will continue to fight for include:
Increasing federal funding for the arts to $1.00 per capita (an increase from 46 cents per capita);
Fully funding and implementing the “well-rounded education” provisions within the Every Student Succeeds Act by strengthening equitable access to learning in the arts;
Preserving or expanding charitable tax deduction incentives for giving to nonprofit arts and culture charities; and
Establishing a cabinet-level position for the arts and culture to advise President-Elect Trump on matters such as how the arts impact the economy, diplomacy, education, and the overall well-being of citizens and the nation at large.
As the 115th Congress is sworn in this January, it is also possible that we will see more conservative and bold policies emerge with a single party controlling the House, Senate, and White House. Complex challenges may be ahead that will impact funding decisions and policy priorities, including a possible tax reform overhaul that hasn’t happened since 1986 that could impact charitable giving for nonprofit organizations. However, we look to our bipartisan congressional partners, like the long-standing Congressional Arts Caucus, the Congressional STEAM Caucus, along with new Senate Cultural Caucus leadership with the retirement of Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), to grow their ranks and press for supporting arts and culture in America. Together with all of America’s pro-arts elected officials and continued grassroots advocacy, we look forward to continuing to build upon legislative successes when the next session of Congress begins in 2017…
