Leaders Discuss State of the L.A. Arts

The arts community in Los Angeles needs to reach out to the city’s vast ethnic populations and could use a few million dollars more too, said a panel of several arts leaders participating Saturday in a “state of the L.A. arts” discussion.

About 100 artists and art patrons gathered at the Biltmore Hotel to hear the half-hour “report card” on the arts during a live broadcast celebrating the 100th show of KUSC-FM (91.5) radio’s weekly program “Backstage at Royce.”

Producer Sheila Tepper hosted the panel that included Andrea L. Van de Kamp, L.A. Task Force on the Arts honorary chairperson and Independent Colleges of Southern California president; Steve Lavine, newly appointed California Institute of the Arts president; Wallace A. Smith, KUSC radio president, and Pebbles Wadsworth, executive director of UCLA Center for the Performing Arts.

After all the talk about L.A. arts, there was a demonstration of local talent as clarinetist and UCLA professor Gary Gray dueted with pianist and fellow UCLA instructor Ick Choo Moon on several numbers, and Moon performed a lengthy classical solo.

For decades, many Los Angeles arts patrons felt it was necessary to emigrate to New York to enjoy fine art, classical music and legitimate stage, suggested some panelists. But Saturday night’s arts panel said that’s no longer necessary.

Smith, in particular, repeatedly encouraged Los Angeles to concentrate on its own bright future instead of allowing itself to be intimidated by the arts reputation of other cities. “I don’t care what New York thinks about Los Angeles,” he said flatly at one point.

“We seem to deal with an inferiority complex about where we live,” Smith said. “We have a tendency to think we can’t be as good. But there’s some superior work being done throughout this city.” He sees one of the roles of KUSC as a catalyst “to get this community to feel much more secure about what it does (in the arts).

“And we must convince the civic and business leaders to promote Los Angeles as a place to enjoy the arts, rather than just a place to come to enjoy amusement parks,” Smith said.

All panel members agreed that more attention should be focused on L.A.’s various ethnic groups both as creators and beneficiaries of the arts. Wadsworth called for greater minority representation among art policy makers. “I recently walked into a meeting of various presenters of the arts in California, and there was not one ethnic representative there. And yet they were discussing what Hispanic art forms they’d be presenting, and what black art forms,” she said.

Arts funding was another unifying theme of the discussion, as the panel members pointed out greater financial support would not only benefit current art programs, but also generations to come. Van de Kamp explained that if a proposed L.A. Endowment for the Arts measure is passed by the city council, local schools would receive a portion of the endowment’s $20-million to $25-million annual income. The measure is scheduled to be voted on by the city council in mid-November.

In the past, Los Angeles has subsidized the arts on a far more limited scale. Earlier this year, it was reported that the city had contributed less than $4 million to the L.A. Cultural Affairs Department to support grants and 12 existing arts programs. In addition, another $2.9 million for the arts is generated through the Community Redevelopment Agency.

Art must not “be viewed as an extra,” Van de Kamp said. “And that’s where it’s hard dealing with art’s funding. People tend to say ‘that’s not important, that’s not vital.’ And it is vital.”

Lavine, a recent East Coast transplant, pointed to the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival and the subsequent L.A. Arts Festival as rallying points that inspired and challenged the community to make a new commitment to the arts. But he cautioned Los Angeles not to neglect the care and feeding of its own artists.