NEA, State Dept. will choose biennial artists to represent America And Her Interests
ABOVE: detail from Ed Ruscha’s Flash, L.A. Times (1963). Ruscha will represent the U.S. at the Venice Biennale in June; the U.S. State Department and the NEA recently announced changes to the way artists will be chosen for international exhibits.
The U.S. State Department and the National Endowment for the Arts are striking a committee to choose artists to represent America And Her Interests at international biennales, The Art Newspaper reports. These decisions used to be made by a panel of NEA wonks funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Rockefellers—there’s that name again—but both private funders decided in 2003 to send their oversize novelty cheques elsewhere. The selection process was thrown into chaos. Rending of clothes, fire falling from the sky, etc.
Well, no more. No one, according to this article, has any idea how the process will work, who will be on the committee, or how they will pay for the sandwiches and kool-aid at their meetings. But one State Dept. boffin said that they hope to have the whole process working in time to choose an artist to represent America And Her Interests at the Istanbul biennial in September, so they obviously intend to get cracking. Like all things at the State Department, the whole scheme is rationalized by saying it’ll improve relations with The Muslim World. Sorry kids, but a few Ed Ruscha paintings probably aren’t going to distract anyone in Baghdad from that whole invasion thing.