Commentary : The Art of Taking Risks for Art’s Sake Is Very Crucial in San Diego

Artists take risks. A life in art is not only a shaky way to earn a living, but each creative act is also an exercise in exposure. Standing nude in Horton Plaza is nothing compared to the nakedness of painting a picture or writing a poem. Then a critic tells the world whether or not the artist’s bare soul has value.

Politicians, on the other hand, trying to please as many constituents as possible, play it safe.

The difference between the artist and the politician makes wise politicians distance themselves from decisions on government funding of the arts. The political risks are too great.

Therefore, the upcoming San Diego City Council vote on whether the Public Services and Safety Committee gets first crack at the arts allocations is meaningless because the real damage was done when the council foolishly demanded that it have the final say on who gets money for the arts.

This situation may exist some other place, but I can think of no other body of elected officials who have willingly made themselves targets for the wrath of disgruntled artists, self-styled champions of wise government spending and any assortment of crazy-cause flakes.

We can reasonably expect that arts funding in San Diego will now become a combination of the divisiveness that has accompanied the renaming of Market Street and the convention center and the scandals that made our city a joke in the art world when the Board of Port Commissioners turned down three sculptures. Referenda are sure to follow. No wonder then, that the new Commission for Arts and Culture is proceeding with caution and in a very strange direction.

With the council looking over its shoulder, the commission recently announced that it would apportion money based on an art group’s annual budget and the excellence of its management. The commission’s chairman said that funding panels will not review artistic quality.

An arts commission that doesn’t consider artistic excellence?

Another member of the commission said audience size and fund-raising success are a measure of artistic excellence. Untrue. Grant writing, audience development and fund raising are sales skills.

Under the commission’s guidelines, Michael Jackson would beat out Mozart, and LeRoy Neiman would win over Cezanne. Taking this formula to its logical, but ridiculous, extreme, if this commission were funding theologians, they would favor Jim and Tammy Bakker over Jesus.

No one denies that judgments about artistic quality are difficult. National, state, and city funding bodies that use artistic excellence as a factor in making grants--and most do--are not universally popular.

A commission that will not take risks does not give us confidence that it will support artists who do. But that is one of the qualities it should be looking for in those applying for grants.

Will the commission tackle big questions? Will it devise ways to enrich our artistic life by including Mexican, African and Asian arts? Will it be bold enough to fund experiments and young promising artists? Will it fearlessly support work that is critical of society and artists who expose the bigotry and racism in San Diego? Can it preserve the large institutions and at the same time encourage new ones? Will it lobby for artist’s housing, rehearsal space, arts programs in the schools?

A timid commission that doesn’t judge excellence will be forced to use peripheral standards, such as an art’s value as a tourist attraction or its use in a public relations contest with other cities. That is like having a fancy car in the driveway to impress the neighbors, but never driving it to get anywhere.

A further problem is the perception that, by not considering artistic merit, the commission is not being fair. The commission was already regarded skeptically by many in the arts community, who believed that the mayor and the council appointed political friends, some of whom represent one or another of the major arts groups in town. Recognizing these affiliations, small groups and individuals fear they’ll be cut out of the funding process.

The commission must address these well-founded concerns by publicly stating its responsibility to represent all citizens, all the arts and all the artists of San Diego. To act otherwise would be a conflict of interest.

To give funds based on the excellence of an organization’s management or its attendance figures merely perpetuates the status quo, and we end up with a welfare system for the arts rather than a vision for positive change.

Unfortunately, many arts institutions already have a welfare mentality, “Give us money simply because we are needy.” When have we heard them argue for support based on the value of their art to the public? Their unwillingness or inability to articulate a philosophical reason for government to fund their work is a contributing factor to the vacuum in the artistic life of San Diego.

When the mayor partially filled that vacuum with her ill-considered “Year of the Arts” speech, heads of arts organizations were aghast. Some of the larger institutions might have attempted to guide the mayor or, failing that, have criticized her plans in public statements. Instead, greed and fear of retribution turned them into sycophants, unwilling to tell the empress she had no clothes and unable to suspend their rivalries, join together and aid the city to formulate an intelligent policy.

Taking a long view, I know from history that artists have often been courtiers. Shakespeare had to flatter Queen Elizabeth and Moliere humored Louis XIV. But we live in a democracy and should not have to fawn on our officials.

The arts, especially in a democracy and particularly if they are to receive public funds, are obligated to tell the truth. We need the arts for precisely that reason: to show us the truth.

Moreover, it seems to me that we have lost a thread of continuity when money becomes so important to art. Art springs from religion, not commerce. Art and religion ask many of the same questions about our nature as human beings, our relationship to those infinite forces that confound us, and our treatment of one another. Art is now more metaphorical than religion, and it is certainly more subversive, in the political sense and in the original Latin meaning of turning things upside down.

Art turns things upside down so that we see them in a new way, a changed perspective. Because this is of value to society, one of the commission’s criteria for funding should be that an arts group or artist speak to questions that force us to consider our humanity, our role in the universe and the nature of society in new ways.

Going back to the same Latin root of subversion, vertere, to turn, there is another kind of art, a diversion. This art turns us away from thinking of the large questions. It is the tired businessman’s art, a way of forgetting one’s problem. When awarding grants, the Commission for Arts and Culture should realize that diversions are often able to support themselves.

Were the Soviet Arts Festival, “The Year of the Arts” and the Commission for Arts and Culture intended as diversions? It doesn’t matter now. The curtain has risen on a new show and a much needed spotlight has been focused on the arts in San Diego. The leading players are the power-hungry mayor and council, the politicized commission and the greedy arts groups. Who will be the hero and who the villain? Will anyone demonstrate wisdom, vision, unselfishness or honesty? And who will take risks?

The paradox is--as every artist knows and politicians do not--that taking risks is the only way to be safe.