Andy is coming! Andy is coming!
I knew about some of these changes a few weeks ago;
The Great Hall at the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science will be renamed in honor of a longtime supporter, the late Mary Sommervold, officials announced Thursday.
I will keep my opinion about this to myself.
Two large shows are scheduled at the Pavilion’s Visual Arts Center: an Andy Warhol exhibit in 2011 and photographs by Ansel Adams in 2012. While shows in the six art galleries usually are free, the bigger shows will be ticketed attractions to help support the center.
Whoo-Hooo! Warhol!
In addition, new tenants are on the way to the downtown Sioux Falls landmark at 11th and Main, to help share costs and add to the arts offerings there.
The administrative offices of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra and Sioux Empire Arts Council will move there from off-site locations in coming months.
The Dakota Academy of Performing Arts soon will move its programming into the Pavilion, too. And a Native American fine arts museum and gallery will be added.
The changes were made possible in part by more than $100,000 in grants the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation gave to local arts organizations, and a special fund drive in Sommervold’s honor that now stands at $580,000.
While some of these changes are probably a good thing, I worry about putting all of these offices under one roof for a number of reasons. While I think these organizations should work together, and I have been a longtime advocate of the Pavilion giving discounts to local non-profit art orgs, like Sioux Falls Jazz and Blues, for example, I wonder if this is a Power Grab for the Pavilion to take control of all the arts orgs in our city. I guess only time will tell. I also find this move interesting only a few days before a new mayor is decided.
The Sioux Empire Arts Council’s administrative office has been in the Horse Barn Arts Center at Falls Park since 1999. It soon will move to the Pavilion.
From her new office, Deb Klebanoff, executive director, says she might have greater visibility and can step up her outreach to the arts community. But she says she hopes that use of the barn for local art exhibits and other community gatherings will continue at Falls Park.
The fate of the Horse Barn, a 100-year-old city-owned building, has not been decided.
Yeah, maybe they will give it back to the artists that were managing the facility just fine until a bunch of elitists stuck their nose where it did not belong.
I think this is a good move, especially if the consolidations improve efficencies and help keep people coming in the doors.
They are trying new things and that’s great, the moved the SD Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in there which I think is a natural fit. With the new tenants, they may not have the space to do the interactive music museum like I pitched to Wood just before he left, but he thought that was an idea worth passing on to the committee that is planning for the future.
BTW L3wis, why do you hate on those “elitists” so much? Where would the Arts community in SF be without people like them to support it?
Yeah Scott, let’s go back to when the Barn was intermittently open; had few exhibits; no staff; no gift shop to sell local art; no meeting space for arts organizations; no signage; no promotional activity in the region, no kids activities … a place where a handful of visitors strolled through without buying much each summer and that was it.
In fact, while well-intentioned, the artists that once managed the facility (lease was held by the Sioux Empire Arts Council BTW) were not doing just fine. They could not keep the doors regularly open due to lack of funds, volunteers, and their own personal time to devote to working here 7 days a week, especially weekends and holidays.
This “elitist” has worked extremely hard to exhibit local art from every caliber of artist, year-round for the past 8 years; operating a free arts venue that 24,000 people visited in 2009; and giving hundreds of artists a place to exhibit their work when no other facility would.
If the Barn has to close because of this move, the arts community will surely have lost one of the only places to exhibit local art in the region, other than coffeehouses.
Maybe you should start a blog campaign that actually helps … if the Barn is important to local artists, then they need to let the powers-that-be know that sooner than later, or another arts facility will soon be lost.
Deb- I wasn’t talking about you, I think you know who I am talking about, I don’t think I have to use her name and I agree that SEAC has done wonderful things for the community.
I guess I am more of a grassroots person who believes that artists can do things on their own without the help of orgs and directors and big tax subsidies. I wish you luck in your endeavors.
As for blogging for artist’s rights, I am proud to say that because of my many battles with orgs like WASHPAV (Arts Night) and SculptureWalk, many of the things I have advocated over the years have been implemented into policy, was it because of me, or was it because they finally woke up? Not sure, but as I told someone a few months back, too little – too late.
It seems (The Pavilion in particular) were waiting until the ship almost sank before they started bailing water, that is truly sad, not because of all the people who have a negative opinion about the facility, but because of all of the people who are supposedly advocates for it let it go down the tubes so quickly.
I wish Larry Toll and you the best of luck, maybe it will take a business man that actually understands finances to turn the place around.