Culture Chronicle

U.S. to Send Visual Artists as Cultural Ambassadors
The New York Times - October 25, 2010
By Kate Taylor

In recent years the State Department has relied on performing artists to act as cultural ambassadors, sending dancers and musicians around the world to show people that America is more than just Hollywood movies, McEverything and two drawn-out wars.

But under a new $1 million program being announced this week, the Obama administration is planning to expand its cultural diplomacy programs to include visual artists like painters and sculptors, who will be asked next year to create public art projects in 15 foreign countries.

"To me, visual artists are just as capable as other artists of capturing a dialogue with people," said Maura M. Pally, a deputy assistant secretary of state who is overseeing this two-year pilot program.

The new program, known as smART Power, will be administered by the Bronx Museum of the Arts, which was selected from a dozen institutions to choose the artists. They will be sent to places that include Pakistan, Egypt, Venezuela, China, Nigeria and a Somali refugee camp in Kenya. The museum will put out an open call for proposals early next year; the 15 artists will be selected by a panel of experts put together by the museum. Holly Block, the museum's director, said she had no preconceived notion of what projects the artists should undertake. But as an example of the kind of proposals she was anticipating, she mentioned a work by Pedro Reyes, a Mexican artist, in which he melted down guns turned in as part of an anti-violence campaign and turned the metal into gardening tools.

She called the program "a fantastic opportunity for people who are interested in pushing the boundaries of art making."

Cultural diplomacy, once a staple of American foreign policy during the two decades after World War II, has experienced a resurgence since 2001. That year the State Department's cultural diplomacy programs had a budget of $1.6 million; in 2010 the budget is $11.75 million. The budget increased 40 percent between 2009 and the current fiscal year. (It is not expected to increase next year.)

This year the department initiated a program that sent three American dance companies to do four-week tours in Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, and South America. Ms. Pally said that the program, which was administered by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, was considered a success and would be repeated and expanded next year. For the full article, click here