To all of those who champion and fight for the arts and cultural community in the United States; To all our members, our funders, our partners, and patrons who have generously supported Americans for the Arts; To the artists and arts professionals whom we represent: I have read your letters and comments over these last months as Americans for the Arts has faced challenges. Both I and other board members have talked with many of you directly. We have engaged thought leaders in the field for advice and wisdom as our organization grapples with dramatic change sweeping through society and our sector. We are committed to continuing this dialogue so that we can work together to find an equitable and sustainable future for Americans for the Arts. It would be easy to make incremental changes, but in order to catch up to the future, we know that what is now required is transformation.

The multi-media Atlanta-based artist Luzene Hill, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, was one of five Fellowship artists chosen by the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis in 2015 and featured in their exhibition Conversations (the other artists honored in 2015 were Brenda Mallory, Da-ka-xeen Mehner, Holly Wilson, and Mario Martinez). Certainly, the work of these artists reaches a high formal and aesthetic level, as well as being informed by complex contemporary cultural, social and political realities. Luzene Hill’s work draws deeply personal and difficult experiences related to violence against women and Indigenous cultures. In creating museum and site-specific installations, she helps her audiences understand complex issues on a deeper level. In communicating about tough issues, she also manages to create visually stunning work. During our current period of tremendous social, cultural, and political upheaval, artists like Luzene Hill bring needed attention to key issues while engaging our hearts and minds to consider more effective ways to respond to the serious work that remains to be done.

Civic leaders are recognizing more and more that the impact of the arts goes beyond cultural and aesthetic enhancements. The hope is that civic engagement—artists working on location in studios, museums, galleries, music, and dance performances—will attract people, and their economic infusion will foster the development of neglected downtown areas. Public art is now trending as reparations for African Americans and women. In this watershed moment—spurred by the massive uprisings and protests in response to the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and too many others—we understand that bridging the deep racial and ideological chasms for environmental justice will require creative solutions and funding. I want to be counted as a catalyst to meet this moment as I continue to advocate for my public art practice by creating awareness to deepen the knowledge of the people of color’s struggle for equity. “How do we get more women and people of color into the public-art arena?” Time magazine asked me, last year. I retorted, “It’s not going to be easy!” It’s not. Of the 5,000-some-odd representational-figurative public artworks in the United States, less than five percent have been created by women; and fewer than that have been created by Black people. 

According to the artist Alan Michelson—a Mohawk member of the Six Nations of the Grand River who is currently based in New York—history is unfinished business demanding our attention. He believes that American history needs to address some hard truths if we are ever to progress beyond this tragic juncture. Alan also believes that the arts generally, and public art in particular, play significant roles both in addressing complex issues and making important social change. From his Indigenous world view, the violent and fraudulent dispossession of Native people is a significant issue that must be front and center in the national discourse. He has contributed considerably to this discourse, especially in the last couple of years. The Whitney Museum presented his solo exhibition Wolf Nation (Oct. 25, 2019 through Jan. 12, 2020) and College Art Association named him one of their two Distinguished Artists for their 2021 conference. He has made substantive contributions to the national cultural conversation for years. As Alan conveys, “My work is very much grounded in the local, in place, and place can be fraught when you’re Indigenous.” From his perspective, understanding the historical and cultural dynamics of place is at the heart of his work. 

According to The New York Times, Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests may have been the largest movement in U.S. history—and the most vigilant of these protests remain on the walls, corners, and surfaces of streets that we walk by every day. In cities across the country, artists banded together to use their creativity as a powerful visual advocacy against racial injustice. Unfortunately, these murals are short-lived, either because they are immediately tagged or destroyed by dissenters who blithely deny America’s problem of racism. Artists who had transformed boarded-up businesses into powerful BLM art witnessed their art getting thrown out by storeowners. Such defacement of protest art is unfortunately a recurring violation. Now, here’s the good news: the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (“VARA Law”) may be the key to protecting and preserving these artworks. Here are eight important issues about VARA Law for artists.

Artworks created in the streets are by nature ephemeral and have the ability to capture raw and immediate individual and community responses; the meaning of these pieces is negotiated and shifts over time. The Urban Art Mapping research team, an interdisciplinary group of faculty and students based at the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota, began working in early June to collect digital documentation of street art that emerged in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, ranging from monumental murals to small stickers and including commissioned art as well as unsanctioned pieces. We have seen that the art made in response to this act of injustice is an expression of the anger, frustration, and pain felt in communities across this country and around the world that needs to be preserved. Beyond serving as a repository for this art, the database was created as a resource for students, activists, scholars, and artists by way of metadata, including a description of key themes, geolocations, and dates of documentation. We are actively seeking contributions to the database through crowdsourcing in order to capture the global scale of this powerful call for change.