A Creative Legacy: A History of the National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists' Fellowship Program - Hardcover

Ivey, Bill; Dowley, Jennifer; Princenthal, Nancy

9780810941700: A Creative Legacy: A History of the National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists' Fellowship Program

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0810941708 ISBN 13: 9780810941700

Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, 2001

Bruce Nauman, Alice Neel, Chuck Close, Cindy Sherman, Dale Chihuly, Nam June Paik: these are just a few of the approximately 5,000 artists whose once-fledgling careers have been fostered by a Visual Artists' Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Sometimes controversial, always committed to the development of art in America, from 1966 to 1995 the NEA awarded many such artists' fellowships to recipients in a diverse range of disciplines.

A Creative Legacy presents a compelling insider account of this innovative government program -- how its policies were determined, its panelists selected, and the artists evaluated. The 100 color and nearly 200 black-and-white illustrations showcase a significant sampling of work by both notable and less-recognized honorees; all recipients from 1965 to 1995 are listed in the extensive indices.

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About the Author:

Bill Ivey has been chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts since 1998.
Nancy Princenthal is a curator and writer whose work has appeared in Art in America, Art/Text, Art on Paper, and in numerous books and exhibition catalogues.
Jennifer Dowley is president of the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation in Massachusetts and a former director of Museums and Visual Arts at the National Endowment for the Arts

From Publishers Weekly:

In 1996, Congress cut funding for the NEA's Visual Artists Fellowships program, which had given grants to individual artists to pursue particular projects. Soon after, Dowley, president of the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation in Massachusetts and director of museums and visual arts at the NEA from 1994 to 1999, sent out a list of the then 4,500 fellowship recipients (there were eventually more than 5,000) to 14 curators and museum directors, asking them to choose 100 who best represented the program. The result is this book, put together with Princenthal, a curator who has published in Art in America and elsewhere. Much of the work, shown in 293 illustrations (100 in full color) and discussed in essays from the two editors, is terrific: Richard Tuttle's 1998 New Mexico, New York, B, #5, a painting of Native American-like shapes on fir plywood; Bruce Nauman's creepy 1988 Carousel (Stainless Steel Version) animating a hot-cast menagerie; Carrie Mae Weems's 1998 Ritual and Revolution multimedia installation these pieces are joined by work from lesser-known artists like Gillermo Gomez-Pena and Judy Pfaff, as well as the more familiar Alice Neel and Edward Ruscha. Current NEA chair Ivey carefully discusses the program's contributions to the arts and artists' careers, while appendices include a full chronology of recipients and the program's staff, along with its policies. A lot of it is inside baseball, but the stakes remain high enough that many outside the contentious art world are likely to still care. (Dec.) Forecast: Michael Brenson's Visionaries and Outcasts: The NEA, Congress, and the Place of the Artist in America, originally developed as an essay for this volume, was well reviewed when published last year by the New Press. Those who missed it will take this opportunity to review both books from the angles of arts funding politics and "how do we know what's good?" while art world insiders will get it to see who made the cut.

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