The idea of an artist-patron relationship may seem archaic in the 21st century, but patronage still plays an important and sometimes destructive role in contemporary art production, said cultural theorist Marjorie Garber in a lecture at Hillel yesterday afternoon.
Garber, who was brought to the University by the graduate program in English, discussed her forthcoming book, "Patronizing the Arts," which examines the historical evolution of the visual, performance and literary art patronage systems.
Garber, a Shakespeare specialist and a professor of English, is the chair of the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies and director of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University.
Patronage of the arts has become an increasingly commercial enterprise that threatens to leave more experimental art production under-funded, she said. The modern patronage system has more to do with advertising and creating cultural nationalism than supporting experimental creativity, she said.
Contemporary support for the arts flows largely from corporations and governments, Garber said. To encourage creative diversity in the arts, she argued, more neutral patrons, like universities, need to play a larger role in the art patronage system. "Art is too important to be left in the hands of governments and venture capitalists," she said.
Garber's historical analysis charted the evolution of personal and often erotic relationships between male patrons and female dancers in the 19th century to the emphatically un-erotic depersonalized corporate sponsorship of today.
This new art-patron relationship leads to art institutes named after corporate donors, like the American Airlines Theater or the Cadillac Winter Garden Theater in New York, she said.
Despite an increase in corporate art sponsorship, private wealthy individuals continue to sponsor the arts as they have for centuries, according to Garber. She cited a New York Times Magazine article from 2004 that profiled several wealthy "Bergdorf blonde"-type art supporters from New York City.
While the article describes these women as "behind-the-scene movers and shakers," interested in promoting a vibrant arts scene, Garber pointed out that the article focused more on the style of these women than their philanthropic sponsorship of the arts. In other words, the funding of cultural production has come to be less about art itself and more about the social status it brings donors.
Garber then examined how government patronage tends to result in propaganda or art appreciation rather than supporting experimental artwork. She argued that government-recognized poets, like poets laureate in England in the 17th century, were limited creatively.
She compared these poets laureate to former President John F. Kennedy's renewed emphasis on a connection between public political achievement and progress in the arts. Garber noted that Kennedy was the first American president to invite a poet to his inauguration, strengthening the relationship between literature and politics.
Most government patronage of the arts also centers on art appreciation. For example, First Lady Laura Bush has supported literature appreciation programs that focus on the American literary past, Garber said.
While such programs of "cultural tourism" are important, they do not encourage the artistic experimentation that is crucial to perpetuating diversity in the arts, she said. "Note that these programs suggest that American poetry has one voice," Garber added.
