oaklandia

Remember Them (Ordinances)

I've been watching this the way one watches hornets build a nest right over the kitchen door.

Mario Chiodo was unsuccessful with this design in the public art competition for Mandela Gateway, but the work resonated with some folks, such as Jerry Brown and Ignacio de la Fuente and Peggy Stinnett and Respectalians from the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, who Mario got to pose in a really cool, situationist way... I think. Add the City's Parks and Rec Commission and the City Planning Commission to the group of supporters.

Getting on board with the work has been easy for politicians: it's an encylopedic reference to civil rights leaders and humanitarians, from Nelson Mandela to Mother Theresa to Thich Nhat Hanh.

The problem is that no arts-focused body convened by the City has ever approved of the 52 foot by 21 foot bronze sculpture. For well over a year a stand-off has brewed between City officials, who know enough about art to know it when they see it, and the cultural advisors it has appointed and hired to oversee such matters: the Public Art Advisory Committee, the Cultural Affairs Commission, the staff of the Public Art Program at the City's Cultural Arts and Marketing Division, and the newly-formed Gifts Panel.

Meanwhile, Chiodo and supporters of the Monument worked with the Chamber of Commerce to move the project into a private commission of Forest City, the developer at the core of the City's Uptown Development Area. They have been successful in siting the sculpture in Fox Square Neighborhood Park, which is currently private property... until Forest City gives the park to the City in 2008, and with it the Monument.

Observing this, the Public Art Advisory Committee sent a letter to the Mayor and Council alerting them to an end run around the City's Public Art Program. The letter argued for a formal review of Monument which would eventually become part of the City's art collection by a simple act of deeding the property it which it stands on to the City. The Cultural Affairs Commission endorsed the letter, and City staff met with the artist and project backers, who agreed to the review by the City's Gift Panel.

The panel met on May 31 to review the proposal, look at site plans and imagery, and visit Chiodo's studio to engage the artist in a discussion where they encountered a posse of project backers, including poet and novelist Guy Johnson. At the end of the day, Monument looks like it's getting another no vote --albeit a qualified one-- from this latest public body.

The report contains some aesthetic recommendations for the work, which are typical with large civic commissions, but centers its declination based on, what else, the numbers. The unfunded portion of the fabrication cost (estimated at $3.5 million) and the ongoing cost of maintaining the safety and condition of a two-story, 50 foot piece of bronze, which the proposal suggests would be covered by sales of an educational DVD.

The report will go to the Public Art Advisory Committee on Monday at 5pm, and insiders aren't betting that the recommendation will be contested in any way. It should shoot straight to the Cultural Affairs Commission on June 26.

The Thing That Must Be Discovered

What's at the heart of this debate?

• Aesthetic differences: the highly representational style of the Monument is in stark contrast to say, The Ladders at  14th Street and Mandela Parkway commemorating the Loma Prieta collapse of the Cypress freeway. Those who align with one style or the other have been known to include a moral superiority while they're at it.
• Political correctness: voting down a sculpture that is attempting to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, among others, is going to require a lot of prelim regardless of the rationality of your argument. Yet this particular work has received plenty of no votes without anyone calling the card... yet.
• Frustration with City bureaucracy: Public review of art and culture is a time-consuming system erected to protect public interest, with very little attention paid to it until one is not favored by it. Chiodo's alternative to public funding of the Monument is an important model, even though this particular example seems to be pointing to public funding after all.
• Contempt for the Contempters: The Monument assaults our sense of fair play, but it should not be the only project to do so. It is merely another example of the Brown Administration appearing to support the arts while holding its own cultural workers and advisors in small regard. With one of the largest concentrations of artists in its borders and at its side, City Hall continues to relegate our functions to titulary rubber stampers while maintining a capricious royal court of aesthetic favorites who will likely triumph regardless of our protests or endorsements. As a participant in the recent Ron Dellums Arts Town Hall pointed out: City Hall has selected artists and arts initiatives based on their sympathy, or susceptibility, to the idea of the arts in service to the Mayor's economic agenda. Upon reflection this agenda has created as much loss for citizens as it has created opportunity for its investors. The impact on the arts, barring the good fortunes of some of us, is writ large in our own deep-seated divisions.

You all have to, no I'm serious this time, fill out a speaker card for this one.

Oh yeah: all artists need to vote on Tuesday, June 6.

You're All Fired, Including Me

The City Clerk published a document listing all the members of Oakland's boards and commissions with notes about the duration of their terms. I reviewed the Cultural Arts Commission page and am delighted to announce:

Many of us can go home now.

We'll do so because we've been assigned to terms that began before we arrived, and end (or ended) soon thereafter. Others are enjoying their terms beyond the legal limit of two consecutive three-year runs. This was, as a City Hall Gadfly alleges, because of two things:

1. Early on in its administration (about the time we began celebrating the arts) the Mayor's Office was keenly interested in politically emasculating one or two commissions, and so set the City Clerk on revising the approach to all of them to obscure the emasculating activity. Instead of appointing someone and having them live a three-year term from the moment of appointment, the appointments were fixed. You entered them like you would a photo booth. If you were there for all four flashes, eggselent. It could happen that you were there for only the last flash.
2. The City Clerk's office dutifully realigned, something that took them a kerjillion years because it involved the big things like time and space. Then they kept the rosters on a floppy disk that was infected with a boot virus, so all the work was foobared. In order to restore the data it has been suggested that it was simply... made up. I like this idea. Floppies are so nineteen eighty sixteen. It has a "And I realized I had stepped on a butterfly" feeling to it. Just add Kafka.

I think we should also step down because we've been a collective sack of potatoes, unclear on our mission and might, captivated by responsbilities outside the scope of public service, and engaged in either self-serving or self-loathing behavior. It's not all disconnect. A large cross-section of the commission has a point of commonality: an ability to drink at the same bars as the Mayor's staff, something we institutionalized on our agenda for a time.

but I didn't even wish for it

Got a call from Steve Huss, the city liaison to the Cultural Affairs Commission, and he informed me that I had been appointed Chair, was I aware?

No.

Uncertain whether this represents an apex or a nadir in the Mayor's engagement in the arts.

Results of ego-check
some cross between three things:

1. Outrage. Surely ensuring proper leadership of Oakland's local arts agency would require more than a perfunctory note to staff. Coincidentally the current Harpers has a great re-visit of the monkey-typewriter-shakespeare contemplation, so maybe that's where we're at now. It hardly matters who is on the dais for this body because it's highly unlikely anything will come of our exercising. Unfortunately, I don't know if we're playing the role of the monkey or the role of the typewriter. It's appropriate to the think the Mayor might play the role of Shakespeare.
2. Forehead Slapping Irony. Leadership appointments are the least of our worries in light of the amputating cuts to arts funding the City is gearing up to implement. But if we can hang with the subject a bit longer: I had numerous conversations with staff and commishees about what the Commission's resolution's guidelines were for replacing Chris Johnson, the Chair who termed out of the Commission this month. Staff had a recommendation for the Mayor which included a Vice Chair, but that position is elected annually by the Commission itself, something it hasn't thought of doing for several years. Who would want to be chair, I repeatedly wrote and said, when s/he would have to preside over the dismantling of the arts agency and the death of the commission itself? How could I be chair, I thought to myself, when my conflicts of interest have led to repeated losses of quorum?
3. Diabolical Delight. For a wee moment, there is a perception of authority, however restricted, about as close to my persona as is likely to occur ever. As a situationist and a freak, I feel this appointment is a liberation, albeit a liberation to live an Evelyn Waugh book, or a Terry Gilliam movie.
   
   The future of Oakland Arts is quite horrible from a bureaucratic standpoint, but a thousand flowers continue to bloom. Importantly, it looks as though no one is really paying attention. Since most good things happen when the hall monitor is looking the other way...

Let's get started.

Ring the Bell that Can Still Ring,

forget your perfect offering, there is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." Leonard Cohen

Cultural Affairs Commission Retreat today. It ended in a way no one anticipated, so the universe (via laughing squid) provided its explanation with a random calendar listing driven by the quote above.

Right before the agenda crashed, there was a screeching sound. The little red ball that rolled out in the street is stored out at spokes of a hub. Go get it and throw it back here.

We can get a few more up before it gets too dark to play.

And thanks to these folks for putting on a show that required laughing squid in the first place.

not on my watch

For months now I've had feeling that the City of Oakland's 2005-2007 budget preparations were going to pull the rug, and the floor, and the earth below out from under Oakland Arts. Staff seemed to carry the calm of the Routinely Doomed, but it wasn't until Thursday night a note came in over the transom:

Hey kids - Nothing is set yet, but due to continued City deficit the Cultural Funding Program is being asked to propose a series of cuts to the grant programs.  We may suffer anywhere from a 10% to 50% plus cut to our fund allocation. That means we would have to either greatly reduce and/or eliminate some of our grant opportunities. Proposals for reductions are due to the budget office next week. They'll put things together for reports to council, etc., for debate and consideration over the next few months before permanent reductions are put to a final vote with council at the end of June/early July. It may seem early, but now is the time to gather forces to keep funding for the arts if not intact, then with minimal reductions. I'm hoping you guys can help carry the torch and rally the forces. People can contact their councilmembers, attend council meetings to make open forum statements, lobby the mayor, etc.

I cast about like a flopping fish on Friday trying to get confirmation, sending out early warnings to the Spokes, Dan Fontes, a couple Commishees, Heather Tunis, who co-chairs the Oakland Arts Funding Advisory Committee, and Peter Brown, an artist with guts to whom I turn when when the issue, ostensibly about the arts, is actually about equity.

I mentioned to the Spokes that the Cultural Affairs Commission was finalizing its agenda for its Feb 2 Retreat, and there was talk of tabling the item to discuss the budget, and the role the Commissioners play (if any!) in its development and adoption. Some Spokes thought it might be a good idea to gather the outrage, bum rush the show on Feb 2 and demand the Commishees take the item up. This after Sanjiv reprimanded the Commission on Monday night for breaking Brown Act laws by conducting the retreat during the day, instead of the evenings and weekends when the public could reasonably be expected to have time to attend.

Established Spokes over at Tribe.net to take advantage of all the built-in networking and calendaring we'll need to mount an effective advocacy campaign. If we proceed correctly, and then maybe not even then, the budget that the Mayor and City Administrator present to City Council in May won't contain any cuts to the arts.

Right?

everyday i feel killed by politicians

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 13:48:40 -0700
To: Suki O'Kane
From: Hugh Livingston
Subject: Re: Artship in SF?
Suki, The word is that the Nat'l Historic Preservation Society jumped in and got an injunction to hold off shipping the boat to China, so it was temporarily put up at Mare Island. It is not accessible and nobody thinks it will last long. Slobodan is confused as to why they didn't team up with ARTSHIP Foundation earlier, but that is apparently how they work. Meanwhile, the ARTSHIP Foundation, which existed before the Golden Bear, continues to exist. They receive grants, do public works, mediation, the Windows, etc. Slobodan believes that two loose associates came and made such an announcement at the committee meeting, which may have been misinterpreted. They only wanted to say everybody was still alive and making art, not to be killed by politicians.

Ai yi yi: another great band name.

If it is true that the Artship is not a ship, but a coalition of creative programming, then I am satisfied, much in the way I am satisfied that P-Funk's Mother Ship is not a ship, although I heard recently the Mother Ship Is Returning.

Slobodan Dan Paich and George Clinton would make a remarkable pair.

hey, it worked for altrea!

Out of the blue, I received an email from Nancy Nadel's office inviting me to come to a community meeting to discuss a possible name change for the Alice Arts Center.

Naturally, it conflicts with the Cultural Affairs Commission Meeting, which is this:

• Monday, March 19, 2004
  5:30-7:30pm
  City Hall Council Chambers
  1 Frank Ogawa Plaza
  Oakland, California
• apparently it streams or you can find watch it on cable television (KTOP)
• no agenda received yet, or perhaps I'm backlogged

But it would be ideal to clone oneself and go to this:

• Monday, April 19, 2004
  6:30 to 8pm
  Alice Arts Center
  1428 Alice Street
  Conference Room A
• Please come to the Alice Arts Center to discuss the idea to possibly changing the name of the center to honor the memory of Malonga Casquelourd.
• For more information, please contact the Office of Councilmember Nancy J. Nadel at 510-238-7032,
  via email at [email protected], or write [email protected].

and that.

artship has moved to sf

A participant at the Oakland arts collaborative session inside Arts First Oakland tonight reported that the Artship has been moved to Shan Franshisky.

Must find it. I mean. How hard can that be?

Vacancies

The new commissioner terms don't start until May 8, 2003, a Saturday.
GARY GLITTER WAS BORN ON THIS DAY IN 1944 | YIKES

I'm taking Paul Garrison's place, which he left in May of 2003.

So I rolled over to the Commission meeting on February 23 on a tip from Raissa to see what was up.

THE SNAKE EATS ITS TAIL
Newly appointed Commissioner Michael Liener was there, operating on the same instincts. Michael's taking Harold Lawrence's place. After Commission Hyland Baron walked us around the edges of the dais for introductions, we sat together in the City Council gallery and watched another quorum fail to establish, on one level, and watched a portion of Oakland's history unfold before us, on another.

• VACANCY
  Slobodan is gone, after years of always being there, somewhere, somehow, remaining above water much like his Artship in perpetually uncertain waters. The Artship has been sold for scrap and with it the street report that Slobodan has moved out of Oakland. I've been running into Slobodan on Oakland streets for over 10 years, and am quite accustomed to long, random intervals between each meeting. This absence struck me more as heartbreak, and I realized I'm going to have to learn the story in its entirety.
• VACANCY NOT VACANCY
  Dennis Power, was plucked from a Commissioner's seat when he was appointed Director of the Cultural Arts portion of Oakland's Cultural Arts and Marketing in the new fiscal year, then plunked down immediately to the left in the City Staff seat. Dennis is the Executive Director of the Oakland Museum of California. It crosses my mind to research examples of combined local arts agencies and collecting museums, and I will, but the idea makes my head hurt. I'd rather just interview Dennis here.
  Devin Satterfield just took Dennis' place. I think that's really cool.
• NOS VACANCES, PROVISOIRE ET PERMANENT
  This seems a hybrid of musical chairs and eerie ghost town, let's just say it. I can't immediately find a rational perspective on it. Under the disco ball in the City Hall Rotunda, I'm asking you how you know anyone is ever really here, after all, you know, acknowledging that elephant in the room with the big "Maybe We Don't Exist" message painted on its side?
  The Cultural Arts website lists seven vacancies but the City Clerk's seems all full up.
• THE BIGGEST GAP
  Only one citizen came to watch these proceedings.

My Day One Was Not The Same As Dusty Crevice's

I watched the City Council meeting on KTOP from the safety of MZ's couch, which came equipped with a never-ending bottle of Two Buck Chuck. My appointment to the Cultural Affairs Commission was the Item 31 of 33 items, and not on consent. Would there be objections from For The Record I'm Sanjiv Handa, East Bay News Service? None personal, but he did, and he was right to, point out how sorry Oakland boards and commissions are these days.

I think the assumption is that the Cultural Affairs Commission is irrelevant. To everyone. In every way.

From Dan Fontes:

5 different Directors in the last five years. Nobody wants to acknowledge that the Mayor has lost close to 30 cultural affairs commissioners over that period of time. His pattern of using arts folks is serious when contrasted with his "promise to celebrate the arts". This business of calling the Arts Department the "Arts and Marketing Department" is particularly galling given Oakland's constant fumbling of arts marketing. The lack of quorums has been going on now for close to three years! In fact, about the only area they haven't damaged is the Art & Soul festival.

Not so. I think budget cuts removed the leadership on Art & Soul as well. artandsouloakland.com is currently looping webserver foo from hell. I think it's a Saturday night thing.

In spite of all this, incidental remarks by Eddie Ytuarte at that same Council meeting made it easy to discount anxiety about the meaning of this civic appointment. I count Eddie among my One Hundred Or More Mentors who continue to inform Oaklandia with their principled action.