Judy Hoffman, a video artist who works in Illinois’ 4th Congressional District, was really worried.
“We’re going to lose the fight for the arts,” she said, pacing the lobby of the Kino-Eye Theater on Chicago’s Near Northwest Side where her congressman, Luis Gutierrez, had scheduled an artists’ town meeting for that evening. “And the biggest problem is that we’ve given in to the language of the Far Right. Now we try to justify art, we try to explain art. It’s only art if it can be immediately understood by the fools in Congress. And who are they?”
It used to be that Chicago artists and their brethren nationwide looked to Democratic Rep. Sidney Yates for congressional support. Yates’ 9th District, which stretches along the lakeshore, had long been the domain of artists and arts patrons in Chicago. Yates understood that and carried the banner into Congress, saving the National Endowment for the Arts from extinction several times.
But in the last few years, the winds have shifted. There are fewer patrons, artists are receiving less money each year from the federal government, and the notion of art for its own sake has been replaced by demands for art as education and employment–indeed, art as pragmatism.
Enter Gutierrez, a scrappy, longtime community activist who has been politically pragmatic enough to be on both Harold Washington’s and Richie Daley’s starting lineup. When Gutierrez arrived on this recent Monday night for the artists’ gathering he had called, the Chicago Democrat quickly doffed his suit jacket and, while bouncing around on stage like a champion featherweight, proceeded to tell approximately 50 people on hand that he had nothing specific to say, but that he loves art and just wanted to hear what their concerns were.
The 4th Congressional District is the city’s creative locus. It includes Wicker Park, Bucktown, West Town, parts of River West and Logan Square. Nestled within those neighborhoods are the art districts that include world-class galleries and grass-roots upstarts. Theaters abound, with the Latino Chicago theater company anchoring the busy intersection of Damen, North and Milwaukee at a theater carved out of an old, restored firehouse.
Up and down Milwaukee Avenue, above furniture stores advertising layaway plans and jazz clubs piping out long, bluesy lines of music, lights were flickering in the second- and third-floor lofts where artists live and work. A quick peek at the windows above a diner serving kielbasa showed a sleek, wood sculpture in progress. Above a new Italian restaurant, a dancer could be seen twirling.
For David Shine, who lives and works in the neighborhood, all that was proof enough that art will survive no matter what. And as added insurance, he noted that Chicago’s art community has powerful patronage in Congress and City Hall too. “Hey, we have Maggie Daley here,” he said. Not to mention Luis.
Gutierrez has a lot more in common with his artist constituents than the dapper, soft-spoken Yates ever did. Indeed, Gutierrez is very much a performer himself.
Watching Gutierrez tell a story about his exploits as a champion of art is like sitting in the audience of an absurdist production.
“I had a lot more direct action (when I was an alderman) in the City Council,” he told an informal circle of admirers at the town meeting. “Man, remember that deal for the firehouse for Latino Chicago? I got them that for what–32 grand? Juan Ramirez (Latino Chicago’s artistic director) kept saying, `Louie, we don’t have 32 grand,’ and I kept saying, `Juan, shut up–this is an amazing deal–you’re gonna get the 32 grand.’ And they did, remember?”
Indeed, three weeks before the theater’s fundraising deadline was up, the group finally came up with the bucks. And though Gutierrez didn’t do much formal fundraising, his imprimatur made getting those dollars a lot easier.
$100,000 for bathrooms
As he told the story, Gutierrez danced about, clapped his hands, and nudged whomever was within reach. But he was just warming up with that one. Now, on a roll, he rocked on his heels, twitched excitedly, poked his index finger in the air.
“And what about that $100,000 we got Ruiz Belvis for the bathrooms, huh?” he exclaimed, his robust laughter filling the large screening room. The Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center is a longtime West Town arts axis that desperately needed renovation, especially in the form of new, accessible restrooms. The renovation was carried out thanks to the aforesaid monies.
“I traded a vote for those $100,000–man,” Gutierrez said. “I’m sure you’re shocked that I traded a vote in the Chicago City Council.” He paused for effect, and took in the giggles. “Meca (Sorrentini, the center’s executive director), before she fell out of love with me, she was going to name those bathrooms for me, in my honor.”
Everyone laughed easily. It seemed at this get-together of mostly white artists from his district, Gutierrez could do no wrong. Every speaker–even venerable Alene Valkanas, executive director of the apolitical Illinois Arts Alliance–began their presentation by praising Gutierrez, for what they clearly perceive to be an exemplary performance in defense of the arts. In the most recent Congress alone, he has co-sponsored five arts-related bills–and that doesn’t count his particularly passionate performance in support of the National Endowment for the Arts. (All are pending, except for the resolution praising the late Jimmy Stewart, which passed.)
In fact, the meeting was a fawn fest. Artists–usually rebellious and anti-authority, hardly the types to bow before somebody in a suit and tie–were kissing Gutierrez’s feet. It was laid on so thick, one was moved to wonder what was really going on.
“You are a wonderful spokesperson,” gushed Hoffman, who works with the Community Television Network.
Gutierrez shuffled on stage, hugged himself, thanked her.
“I came to honor someone who’s doing wonderful work,” echoed Shine, executive director of Free Street Theater.
“There are thousands of artists who’ll put flyers up for you, do whatever,” chimed in Virginia Boyle, who works for the Community Television Network and is an active member of Artists for Gutierrez, one of the congressman’s constituent caucuses.
“You deserve praise for trying to make friends with your Republican colleagues in Congress,” dripped Valkanas.
Later, Valkanas asserted that Gutierrez’s artists meetings are a needed innovation. Yates never convened a group of artists to learn what their concerns were, but instead relied on printed surveys.
Only a few didn’t join the hallelujah chorus: One was a fellow who chided Gutierrez for passing out folders dealing with congressional facts and figures on federal arts programs and not talking enough about the importance of art itself.
“Well, we’re trying to get some information out,” said Gutierrez.
The other holdout was, ironically enough, Ramirez. “I can’t fawn over Luis,” he said with a shrug. “I mean, he’s from the neighborhood.”
– – –
As the evening progressed, the questions from the floor became more focused on the precariousness of the NEA–which funds nearly every important Chicago art institution, from the Art Institute and the Lyric Opera to theater companies like Latino Chicago.
Yet curiously, the artists at Gutierrez’s meeting weren’t all pro-NEA, at least not in its current form.
“One of the things I hear is that NEA monies could be going to the states,” said Ramirez during the meeting, “which, personally, I like, so long as there’s not less grant money.”
“Well, yes, if the NEA is eliminated, its entire $90 million budget will go to the states,” explained Gutierrez. “But let me explain something: It’s a one-year program. After that then, those of us in Congress, like Pontius Pilate, we’ll wash our hands.”
The congressman emphasized that the NEA has funded only 40 controversial grants out of 112,000 grants since 1965. “That’s three-tenths of one percent (that drew criticism)–can you imagine what it would be like if the rest of the federal government were run like the NEA?”
“When the NEA restructured and cut out grants to stuff like the picture of (urine) on Jesus, did it make any difference?” asked Shine. He was referring to “Piss Christ,” a photograph by Andres Serrano, which featured a crucifix in a bottle of urine and which was much-reviled by right-wingers in Congress, along with a work by performance artist Karen Finley, in which she smeared chocolate all over her naked body.
“You know, we need to show that the NEA is about more than `Piss Christ’ or covering yourself in chocolate –not that I have any trouble with that,” said a woman in the audience.
Gutierrez encouraged artists to organize, to pressure other politicians. “You’re a community like any other community,” he said.
“The NEA looks dead to me,” said Hoffman. “Without the NEA, we’re pretty much left with corporate money. I’m not saying we shouldn’t take their (corporations’) money, but it’s different. There’s no representative accountability with corporations. And with corporations, art becomes commodified. Artists are encouraged to make art just to be sold, not because it’s meaningful.”
But for Ramirez, who has been a frequent NEA grant recipient, the artists’ meeting was a mixed bag. “I’m a firm believer that if people don’t support something, then maybe it’s outgrown its usefulness,” he said. “Right now, I think you have to disconnect the NEA from the arts. I think people think they’re the same thing, think we can’t have one without the other. There’s too much emphasis on the NEA, not enough on art.”
For Hoffman, Gutierrez’s meeting was useful but not conclusive. “In fact, I think what really needs to be discussed–and what we’re all getting away from–is the role that art’s being expected to play all of a sudden,” she said. “We’re now asking artists to be the healers of neighborhoods, to do the work of developers and mental health workers and teachers and parents, to develop small businesses within not-for-profits and battle welfare. Artists don’t really have the capacity for all that.”
“You know what no one mentioned?” asked Dyrkacz Zygmunt, the owner of the adjacent Chopin Theater. “That art, to be real art, has to be revolutionary always.”
– – –
Outside the Kino-Eye after the two-hour plus meeting, Gutierrez languorously smoked a cigarette. “How well we support the arts says a lot about a nation,” he said, the subject still percolating within him. “Look at Canada–they spend $35 per person. And England, about $40. We spend 38 cents. That’s ridiculous. Of course, lots of other things are ridiculous, like health care, which we also lag behind in comparison to other civilized countries.”
“You did great,” a staffer told the congressman.
“Yeah, yeah, did you see how I remembered my lines–38 cents per person, 40 (grants) out of 112,000, huh?” he said, grinning excitedly.
“What about the NEA, though?” asked a persistent constituent. “It’s dead, isn’t it?”
“You know, everybody says the NEA is dead,” mused Gutierrez, his brow wrinkled. “But it’s not dead. (President) Clinton has said he’ll veto any bill that kills the NEA.”
“You believe him?” the constituent asked.
Gutierrez nodded. “Absolutely,” he said. “I have to. I mean, the NEA budget is nothing–it’s the cost of one lousy F-22 fighter plane out of the whole fleet. That’s all. I mean, how can you not support that, huh?”
