Installation Gallery, Left in Cold, to Fight for Funds

Stunned and angered that a City Council committee singled out its organization for funding elimination, the board of directors of a small, avant-garde gallery plans to enlist community support and appeal to the full council next week.

“We were shocked when we heard we were the only group that was completely not recommended for funding,” said Beverly Schroeder, a director for Installation Gallery. “We have plans to meet with individual council people and get letters of support from the community and make our feelings known in that way to the full council meeting” scheduled for Wednesday.

By a unanimous vote, the City Council’s Public Services and Safety Committee last week overrode a recommendation by the Commission for Arts and Culture. Citing Installation’s shaky financial condition and its commissioning of art on billboards, the five committee members stripped away the entire $42,000 operating grant the arts commission proposed by the commission for Installation.

The committee vote also troubled some arts commission members.

“I was shocked that the PS&S; Committee recommended that Installation not be funded,” said Sylvia M’Lafi Thompson, a member of the arts commission. “I know that, because the city is tight on funding, they like to cut back on organizations that have deficits.

“But Installation is one of the few performance art galleries in the city who have worked with new playwrights. They are one of the few that have produced a South African play by a South African artist. They have very diverse programming. If they go under because of billboard posters it will be a loss for San Diego.”

“We don’t feel it’s the city’s role to prop someone up,” Council Woman Judy McCarty said Wednesday in defense of her vote. “We don’t want to throw money down a dark hole if they’re not going to make it.”

Although McCarty did not have a problem with the billboards, committee member Ron Roberts did.

“I’ve never been a supporter of billboards,” Roberts said. “I’ve voted to do away with billboards entirely throughout the city. I voted to withhold funding for the stadium when they wanted to put up a billboard-like sign.

“I recognize that some of the work that’s done on billboards can be equated to art. I’m just not a fan of billboards.”

Roberts said he was unconcerned about the content of a controversial billboard that raised the issue of racism in San Diego by focusing on the city’s unwillingness to name the new convention center for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

But Installation’s Schroeder said the issue of a billboard as an artist’s medium would be like a council member saying, “I didn’t like the music played at the symphony, and we’re not going to fund them.”

“We are an experimental, cutting edge, avant-garde art organization,” Schroeder said. “We are a forum for that kind of art.

“But it’s only one kind. We have poetry. We have videos. We work with high school students in producing sculptures. We have done many, many other kinds of programs, and to be singled out for one particular thing and be completely cut off from funding--I find it shocking.”

Founded in 1981 as a nonprofit alternative art gallery, Installation relies almost entirely on contributions. Last year its budget was $140,000. Last month, faced with a $12,000 debt including rent owed to its landlord, Installation closed the doors of its gallery at 930 E St., laid off its two-member staff and accepted the resignation of its director.

The concern about Installation’s financial condition was exacerbated by a letter in April sent to the council by former director Dan Wasil requesting “emergency funding,” Roberts said.

Installation board member Randy Robbins called the use of the word emergency “unfortunate.” The real purpose was to get early funding to “enable us to bridge this difficult time while the Commission for Arts and Culture is beginning its evaluation of all arts organizations applying for future funding within the city,” Robbins said, quoting from the letter. “The letter did backfire on us.”

Schroeder hoped that the full council would take the longer view when considering Installation’s case.

“When the San Diego Symphony had its financial crisis, the city did not abandon the symphony,” she said. “And our debt is not humongous.”

The Public Services and Safety Committee also recommended a “wish list” of increased funding for the Mingei Museum ($33,380), the Hall of Champions ($19,900) and the Visitor’s Council ($8,000). Besides the Installation funds, it recommended taking money from the arts commission’s administrative budget and the Centre City Maintenance Coordination fund to pay for the increased funding.