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Business Support Vital to Arts, Time Executive Tells Community Leaders

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Times Staff Writer

The future of the arts in America will depend on the linking of business, local government and the arts in a mutual support role that can earn business priceless good will.

That was the key message from the chairman of Time Inc.’s executive committee to 271 community leaders, including Mayor Maureen O’Connor and 150 local chief executive officers, who attended a Thursday luncheon on business and the arts.

American businesses, which pumped more than $700 million into the arts in 1986, are already a major factor in arts support, said Time’s Ralph P. Davidson. The return for companies who invest in the arts is “the kind of good will that’s very hard to put a price tag on,” Davidson said.

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Davidson was in San Diego as part of a series of events this week highlighting the arts. He appeared at the La Jolla Marriott Hotel in his capacity as a volunteer executive of the national Business Committee for the Arts. San Diego State University and the Times San Diego County Edition are sponsoring the events, including a symposium today on “Speaking of the Arts.”

Davidson, who also is a director of the New York City Opera, pointed out that, historically, support for the arts has lagged far behind that for sporting events. He used the recent America’s Cup victory as an illustration that sporting events have traditionally drawn much more support than the arts in the United States.

“It’s true that we Americans have been more apt to invest our time and our effort and money in refining the art of sailing a Stars & Stripes or racing a horse or fielding a ball team than we have in supporting the visual arts or the performing arts,” Davidson said. “There is something very natural about that. In a country that consisted mostly of frontier, we had to spend our early years just making a living eking out an existence.”

Davidson’s message was that any company, no matter how small, can gain from supporting the arts. But arts organizations can no longer take money and use it willy-nilly, he said, noting that they do not have a “license for irresponsibility.” More than ever, arts groups must be financially accountable, Davidson said.

With the federal government cutting back its arts support, Davidson said, local and state government must also take a greater role, and stand to gain from improving their cultural environments.

Ultimately, pragmatic businessmen and businesswomen must realize there is more to support of the arts than “simply . . . a matter of new opportunities for enhancing a corporate image or strengthening the local economic climate,” Davidson said. “It has to include a realization of the independent value of art and beauty and enjoyment as well.”

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Today’s symposium, “Speaking of the Arts,” from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Mainstage at San Diego State, will feature national and regional artists and critics. Panelists will include playwright Edward Albee, painter Wayne Thiebaud, violinist Ani Kavafian, Wall Street Journal theater critic Ed Wilson and Times music critic Martin Bernheimer.

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