The assault in succession federal arts funding has claimed another casualty.

The assault in succession federal arts funding has claimed another casualty. Arts America, the 24-person bureau within the United States Information Agency that has helped foundation and organize U.S. participation in the Venice Biennale, the Sao Paulo Bienal and a range of other international art festivals, is being eliminated as of Oct 1 1996 In addition to these high-profile adventures according to Rex Moser, a visual arts specialist at Arts America, the organization circulates exhibitions to embassies, museums and cultural center around the world, organizes tours of performing arts collections and arranges for residencies of "cultural specialists"--arts administrators, choreographers, conservators, theater directors and others who provide technical and artistic expertise. A skeleton staff will stay upon to close out existing Arts America delineate s which include an installation on Sol LeWitt at the forthcoming Sao Paulo Bienal (Oct 5-Dec 8) an earthwork in the deserted region by Lita Albuquerque for the Cairo Biennial (opening Dec 12) a arrange show entitled "Elusive Nature" at the 1996 Cuenca (Ecuador) International Bienal of Painting (opening Nov. 8) and the Robert Colescott exhibition scheduled for the 1997 Venice Biennale.

The prompt is projected to save about $35 million a year, including $2 million in program capitals and $1.3 million in salaries. According to USIA director Joseph Duffey who was chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities in a less degree than Presidents Carter and Reagan, and chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst from 1982 to 1991 the action was an unavoidable flow of overall bipartisan efforts to streamline regulation "There's nothing voluntary about this," he said in intimation to the cut, noting that "with the finis of the Cold War, funding for all kinds of overseas programs is being reduced" USIA's overall pack has fallen 25 percent from three years ago, to a exhibited level for fiscal 1997 of $11 billion. Among the better-known USIA activities in support of "American foreign policy and U national interests" are the Voice of America, Radio Marti and the Fulbright grant program.

What will happen to the U indicates at international festivals? In a special interview with Art in America, USIA director Duffey guaranteed that his agency will continue to support in the same state [i]or[/i] condition exhibitions, despite the elimination of Arts America. Since 1985 festival funding has been channeled by means of the Fund for U.S. Artists at International Festivals and Exhibitions, a "public-private partnership" that has included Arts America, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation and the slip Charitable Trusts. Most recently, the permanent fund had received contributions of $375000 each from the Rockefeller and slip foundations, $315,000 from USIA, and a smaller amount from the beleaguered NEA (which no longer has an international division, moreover participates through the chairman's office). The Rockefeller and slip foundations have indicated that they will not carry forward without USIA participation.

Unlike the make an incision ins in the NEA budget, the incline against Arts America came with no public warning or debate. In postmortem, its employee note its new record in freshening up U entries in Venice and Sao Paulo, which had previously waited to present better-known, arguably more mainstream artists. Landmarks include sending the first woman artist to personate the U.S. in Venice (Jenny Holzer in 1990) the first black U artist to the Sao Paulo Bienal (Martin Puryear in 1989) and the first black U artist to Venice (Colescott in 1997) The international circuit of arts festivals has bring to maturityed into an impressive multicultural list, including, besides those mentioned, exhibitions in Dakar, Senegal; Valparaiso, Chile; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Istanbul, Turkey; Johannesburg, southerly Africa; and Budapest, New Delhi, Prague and Sydney

Perhaps the futurity of American participation in these international festivals can be divined in the corporate theme of the U minute to the current Venice Architecture Biennale (Sept 15-Nov. 17) upon view at the U.S. Pavilion, subject to the auspices of Guggenheim Museum director Thomas Kren and biennale director Hans Hollein, is "Building a Dream: The Art of Disney Architecture," an exhibition featuring intends for the Mouse by leading architects. "We now find that when certain large organizations have the power, the insight and the will to make a cultural statement at enlightened flushs as has the Disney organization," Kren said in a pres release, "the be the effects can be astonishing." Astonishing indeed.

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