Friday, August 24, 2007
News Freedom Park art saga
Posted by Mara Shalhoup on Fri, Aug 24, 2007 at 10:12 PM
First, a popular public art exhibit claimed it was essentially booted from Freedom Park in its second year, when its government money suspiciously dried up.
Then, another group wanting to host an exhibit in Freedom Park faced allegations — from organizers of the first exhibit — that the newcomers were getting preferential treatment from the city.
Now, the newcomers — whose would-be exhibit Embracing Differences was positively lauded by the city, including the mayor herself — are claiming they, too, have been pushed away from Atlanta's only designated "art park." And one of them is speaking out against the city.
The problem this time wasn’t funding; Embracing Differences has plenty of corporate sponsorships. Rather, it was the city’s new rules governing the art park that forced the exhibit elsewhere, according to Embracing Differences Inc.'s CFO Charles Green, who also happens to be chairman of the Fulton County Arts Council.
“Every time you read, it kind of looks a little deeper and more ominous,†Green says of the city’s new art-park permitting procedure.
One major setback, he says, was that the exhibit couldn’t include big banners naming the show’s sponsors — banners that are necessary, he says, in order to abstain from government funding.
“It is bizarre,†Green says. “And frankly, we just didn’t want to deal with it.â€
Yet Myra Reeves, spokeswoman for the city's Office of Cultural Affairs, which hands out permits for Freedom Park art exhibits, says there's hardly anything different in the new rules.
"Any tweaks to it may have to do with maintaining and protecting those items that we have on display," she says.
As for corporate banners, Reeves says, there was always a limit on the size of those. What's more, local artists and arts advocates expressed concern over the possible corporatization of Freedom Park exhibits.
To Green, it's the arts scene's loss.
"I regret for the art community that this has happened," he says. "When you get government involved in these kind of things, they do what they do, which is to regulate and manage and protect. That’s not necessarily an appropriate structure for a public art exhibit, but that’s what we have now."
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