Arts & International Affairs: 2.3: Autumn/Winter 2017 | Page 6

ARTS & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
ologies and taste (Miller and Yúdice 2002). While artistic practices shape arts agencies,
more often the latter are risk-averse and conservative despite an occasional controversy.
This issue highlights many tensions and confluences between arts and cultural institu-
tions. We present two themes: one dealing with the ‘Status of (Inter)National Organiza-
tions as Cultural Institutions,’ and the other titled ‘Cities, Culture, and the Proliferation
of the Biennials.’ Our new Managing Editor, Evangelos Chrysagis, is to be credited for
creating these sub-themes.
‘Status of (Inter)National Organisations at Cultural Institutions’ deals both with the lim-
its and the possibilities of arts and cultural institutions. Scholar Naomi Adiv’s forceful
piece notes that the threat to the cut-off less than $150 million in annual funding for
the National Endowment for the Arts in the United States has less to do with budget
savings—it’s an infinitesimal part of the federal budget—but with broad conservative
grudges and “culture war tropes” that seek limit government involvement in the arts or
curtailing particular types of arts expressions. Across the Atlantic Ocean, the British
Council presents a contrasting story. Director of Arts Graham Sheffield writes to the
power of theater in cultivating the British Council’s agenda of fostering cultural relations
among communities and nations. Rather than avoiding controversial issues, the Brit-
ish Council has sometimes dealt with them headlong and with reflection. For example,
last year the British Council sponsored a production of Argentine Director Lola Arias’
Minefield exploring the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas war not based on the politics of the
Argentine or the UK but from the perspective of the war’s personal tolls and horrors.
The British Council is part of the UK government’s soft power strategy but even as a
quasi-government cultural relations organisation it has sometimes not shied away from
taking on difficult subjects and it is certainly not immune to funding cuts. There was
some opposition to funding Minefield within the British government.
The Mafalda Dâmaso article shows how art may expose the limits of an organisation’s
ideals, in this case that of the United Nations, through art. She describes Pedro Reyes
2013–2014 exhibit titled The People’s United Nations. Dâmaso’s theoretical exhumation
of the project shows how the UN is far from its ideals of democracy and deliberation.
Our second theme is ‘Cities, Culture, and the Proliferation of Biennials.’ All three es-
says are aware of the importance of the creative economies and tourist monies generated
through cultural events such as the biennales and the growing cultural importance of cit-
ies. Scholars Julia Bethwaite and Anni Kangas, nevertheless, explore not just the domi-
nance of nation-states or the market modes of production inherent in the nearly 150 arts
biennials in more than 50 countries. They also show how the biennials foster resistance,
diversity, and creativity. Similarly, Anne Murray’s multi-media interview with the two
curators and co-founders of the Mediterranean Biennial of Contemporary Art of Oran,
Algeria, posits the value of this biennial along with the value and dominance of Ven-
ice Biennale across the Mediterranean. Certainly, co-curators Sadek Rahim and Tewfik
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