Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Rocco Landesman announces new direction for NEA

At the 2009 Grantmakers in the Arts conference, Rocco Landesman laid out his new direction for the National Endowment for the Arts. Click here to read his full remarks.

In it, he talks about the need for optimism. "Art is the most optimistic of activities: the ballerina standing en pointe or being thrown high into the air, lovers breaking into song in musicals, painters through history rendering success in war and hunting, or religious imagery or the exuberant discovery of new forms and shapes, the thrilling, spontaneous riff of a jazz saxophonist, the emotional release of comedy, even tragedy in the Aristotelian sense of catharsis and lessons learned."

He also lays out his simple direction for the NEA:

Art works.

I hope you read it. It's given me lots of food for thought this week.

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