BLOG

Adapting to the landscape of the pandemic, the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts (MKFA) has announced 18 organisations that will be the first beneficiaries of its Organizational Support Grants, a slight revision of their annual Artist Project Grants. The grants will provide the selected organisations with up to $30,000 in unrestricted funds to help support the continuation of their work.

The MFKA, based in Los Angeles, was founded in 2007 to support the “spirit of critical thinking, risk taking, and provocation in the arts” by artist Mike Kelley, who passed away in 2012. In 2016, the foundation offered its first Artist Project Grants, an initiative that has supported the work of dozens of artists since.

However, 2020 presented a new set of issues to the arts community. The MFKA contributed to Artist Relief, but, in the wake of a tumultuous year, it recognised the continued needs of arts organisations within the LA community. So, the foundation chose to pivot the model of their Artist Project Grants to aid small to midsize arts organisations.

The 18 organisations selected for the 2021 grants vary in disciplines ranging from poetry to experimental music to performance art to multimedia works.

“We are struck by the resilience and flexibility of so many arts organizations and artists during this devastating time,” executive director of the MKFA Mary Clare Stevens said in a press release. “Each one of these organizations has helped shape the unique arts landscape in Los Angeles. In the face of cancelled and delayed exhibitions, performances, and fundraising events, we hope that this support will help the grantees navigate this next chapter.”

The 2021 Organizational Support Grant recipients are:

the Center for Land Use Interpretation
Center for the Study of Political Graphics
Coaxial Arts Foundation
Clockshop
Echo Park Film Center
Future Roots Inc. DBA dublab
Human Resources LA
Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA)
Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions
Los Angeles Filmforum
Los Angeles Poverty Department
Museum of Jurassic Technology
Pieter Performance Space
Poetic Research Bureau
Side Street Projects
Society for the Activation of Social Spaces through Art and Sound
Vincent Price Art Museum Foundation
Women’s Center for Creative Work

Sarah Williams, co-founder and executive director of the Women’s Center for Creative Work described the past year as a “very destabilizing period.” Williams continued saying: “This kind of overarching support is desperately needed to keep people employed and to help small arts organizations weather the months to come. [… and] to ensure a meaningful arts landscape on the other side of the pandemic”

The grantees were selected by an independent panel that reviewed applications. That panel included Erin Christovale, Associate Curator at the Hammer Museum; artist Todd Gray; artist Tala Madani; Sohrab Mohebbi, Kathe and Jim Patrinos Curator of the 58th edition of the Carnegie International and Curator at Large at Sculpture Center; and Diana Nawi, Co-Artistic Director of Prospect.5, New Orleans.

What do Angelina Jolie, Winston Churchill, and Franklin D. Roosevelt have in common? To the surprise of many, the answer is a painting.

The actor, director and philanthropist is now selling the only painting created by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the second world war, and the work is expected to fetch up to £2.5 million at Christie’s in a few weeks.

Adding to its powerful provenance and celebrity status, “Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque” (1943) was the only work that the then prime minister painted during the second world war, and was gifted by him to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. They had visited Marrakesh together after the 10-day Casablanca Conference in 1943, which is what inspired Churchill to create the work.

“It is the only work that Churchill painted during the war, perhaps encouraged by the recent progress made by the Allies in what he considered to be one of the most beautiful countries he had encountered,” Nick Orchard, head of modern British art at auction house Christie’s, said in a statement.

The painting, which depicts the 12th-century mosque against the backdrop of the Atlas Mountains, has a rather complicated provenance, which warrants its current estimate. It was passed on to Roosevelt’s son when he died and it was then sold in 1950 to a Nebraska collector. The collector then sold it to the author, producer, financier and collector Norman G. Hickman, who had served as associate producer of the Churchill-themed film The Finest Hours in 1964. While it was in his possession, it was exhibited at the New York Daily News building and later at the Churchill Memorial in Fulton, Missouri during 1970. Upon Hickman’s death, it was passed to his second wife and then to her daughter, where it was stored in a closet for fifteen years. It was eventually acquired by the New Orleans dealer MS Rau and was put up for sale with a guide price of just under $3 million, which was when the Jolie Family Collection bought the work in 2011.

Churchill famously took up painting in 1915, when he was 40. In his writings, the wartime prime minister references the influence of the painter Henri Matisse, who had also spent time in Morocco earlier in the 20th century.

Churchill’s works can now command considerable sale prices, particularly if they have impeccable provenance (as in the case of Jolie’s Marrakesh, as well as Truman’s). In 2007, a painting of a view from Churchill’s home, “Chartwell Landscape with Sheep”, set a record for one of his works when it sold for £1m.

The Paris Opera Ballet is the oldest national ballet company in the world and is steeped in tradition. For all its grandeur and prestige, the ballet is notably lacking in diversity and, until recently, was among the ballet companies with a repertoire that even included blackface. However, a 66-page report released Monday shed light on just how much work the Paris Opera will need to put in to right its lack of diversity.

Compiled by historian Pap Ndiaye and rights advocate Constance Rivière, the report was commissioned by Alexander Neef, artistic director of the Paris Opera. It was created in response to a 2020 open letter written by five Black members of the ballet company who were frustrated by the persistent discriminatory environment of the Opera. Released in January, the report found that the Paris Opera is in dire need for diversity.

Taking on board the report’s critique, the Opera is initiating efforts that will create a more progressive ballet for the future. Neef announced that the Paris Opera will now employ a “diversity and inclusion officer,” following the example of the Metropolitan Opera in New York which created its first such posting in January. The Opera will also form a consulting body of experts, both from within the Opera and outside of the institution, that will weigh in on the ballet’s repertoire in relation to the report’s findings.

The report also urged that an overhaul of the admissions process for the Paris Opera Ballet School, where the company trains a majority of the its dancers, be carried out to allow for a more diverse selection pool. “The objective is not that the school recruits less talented students to meet diversity objectives,” the writers of the report said, “but to search for great students wherever they can be found.”

The report didn’t stop with the ballet itself, either, as it pointed out the need for diversity amongst the Paris Opera’s 1,800-member staff, including technical and administrative personnel, musicians, and librettists.

Neef stated that the Opera will continue to include The Nutcracker and La Bayadère in its repertoire, although there will be careful consideration in future productions to change choreography and costumes perpetuating racist caricatures found within a number of classical works. After all, The Nutcracker continues to feature the “Chinese Dance” and until 2015, La Bayadère utilised blackface.

Specific “aesthetic choices” of Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, who led the Paris Opera Ballet as director during the 1980s and whose ballets are still performed by the company, were discussed in the report as well. Neef has ensured that Nureyev’s works will not be banned from the Opera, but that the use of blackface and yellowface, both of which were in Nureyev works, will certainly be banned. The report also specifically weighed in on ballet blanc, or white ballet. The ballet blanc tradition is that which shows a ballet corps in identical white tutus; it is found in a number of ballets, but those of Swan Lake are perhaps the most iconic. According to the report, at times, Black ballet dancers have been explicitly excluded from such scenes performed by the ballet.

“I expect the far right and the most conservative politicians and intellectuals to protest, and say it’s, once again, about the Americanization of French culture,” Ndiaye said, and he was right. The report has already drawn criticism from some. Neef’s statement that “some works will no doubt disappear from the repertoire” incited particular outcry, although Neef said his words were taken out of context. Among detractors is the leader of the far-right National Rally party, Marine Le Pen who took to Twitter to call the actions “antiracism gone mad.” In response to such rebukes, Neef was not phased, saying: “We’re not here promoting a climate of censorship, or dictatorial actions from the leadership. The whole point of this initiative is we want to put on opera and ballet by 21^st-century artists for 21^st-century audiences.”

Of course, the Paris Opera Ballet is not the only company to face these issues. Misty Copeland, principal dancer for the American Ballet Theatre, has been vocal on the perpetuation of racism and the lack of diversity within the ballet community. Copeland was the first African American female to become a principal dancer for the ABT and in 2019, called out the Bolshoi Ballet for their use of blackface. Chloé Lopes Gomes, the first Black ballet dancer to enter the Staatsballett in Berlin, accused the organisation of racism.

“This is not the end, it’s the beginning,” Neef said of Paris Opera plans to diversity, emphasizing that the changes will take time. As it is a force to be reckoned with within the ballet world, if the Opera makes the changes recommended and continues to progress as an institution, it could set a standard for ballet companies around the world.