Unscripted

Most people have been there. Most also have an opinion about the place.

The Gaillard Municipal Auditorium has been around for a long time. And who knows how long it will still be with us. One thing's for sure, it has its good points and its bad points. For amplified events, it's not too bad. Put classical music or ballet in there, though, and well — that's another story.

I'd like to know what you think of the Gaillard Auditorium. Tell us a good story, if you have any, and then tell us a bad one, if you have any. We'll work these up for the upcoming Fall Arts Issue. Be sure to put your name down, though, of course, it doesn't have to be your real one (this is the blogosphere after all).

In "Unscripted," my column, I wrote about the Charleston Arts Coalition, a new group of artists and arts supporters making the case for a community arts center — or, using the coalition's language, "a unified center for the arts," meaning all of them, including the performing arts. The group hosted a panel discussion last week called "Creative Spaces," the most high-profile of a series of similar events that began in April.

I don't think the coalition should focus on a building but instead on a organization that serves artists. But that's beside the point here. If the Charleston Arts Coalition is serious about rallying widespread support for an egalitarian center for the arts, it needs to be mindful of appearances.

That is, the appearance of its organizational make-up. Who are the people involved in the effort? Why are they advocating for a very public, community-wide, and grass-roots push to establish a public-private initiative being called "A People's Arts Center"? How can they speak for all of the arts when the group's members are clearly involved in the visual arts?

The group has asked us for our attention, but it doesn't seem ready for the scrutiny that comes with it. In other words, it has not gone far enough toward being open and transparent, aspects that come with a serious campaign for change. It has not gone far enough to enlist the help and participation of artists across the arts spectrum. If it fails to achieve these ends, the coalition can forget about gaining widespread support for its project.

The problems begin with its website: www.peoplesartcenter.com. There's little in the way of information about who individual members are. You can only discern who writes for the website, names that curious parties can only presume are connected with the whole campaign. The authors are: "Stacy," "Olivia," "Megan Lange," "SETH," "brilliant," "ASchenck," "jarod." Only two links lead to profile pages. None of the profile pages makes clear that in fact, among learning more about them, that some members appear personally invested in a new arts center.

The arts coalition will need to address this. And address it soon.

In the absence of clear and explicit information about the identities and backgrounds of individual members, the coalition runs the risk of appearing deceptive and, later, when the facts of the matter emerge about who they are, appearing to maintain conflicts of interest.

What coalition members also must address is the appearance of personal investments being at stake in a successful future for the visual arts in Charleston, in particular in finding a new venue for Redux Contemporary Art Center, a venue threatened by the loss of its lease at the end of 2009.

I should emphasize two things here.

One is that I'm talking about appearances, not reality. In fact, the Charleston Arts Coalition's website is a mess and was probably not conceived to provide what's needed to be open and transparent, i.e., full disclosure and background information that would elicit the proper level of trust in a campaign that claims to be aimed at the universal good. Bottom-line is this: Right now, the group just appears lazy (i.e., not being clear about things), but over time that will change. Eventually, it needs to be upfront about who they are and what they want to accomplish in order to avoid the appearance of deception. Again, trust is vital.

The other thing is that the coalition can change this simply by seeking out participants who are across the arts spectrum. They cannot continue to speak for all the arts when their backgrounds and resumes suggest they firmly stand on the side of visual arts. It has been said by coalition members that anyone can participate in organizing the panel discussions, but this is a cop-out. If the coalition is serious about rallying support for a people's arts center, it needs to actively enlist dancers, singers, actors as well as real estate developers, lawyers, doctors, and philanthropists.

Jonathan Brilliant

Former teacher and former artist-in-residence at Redux Contemporary Art Center. He currently holds a membership to Redux. Brilliant is the lead figure in the Charleston Arts Coalition and served as a panelist during last week's "Creative Spaces" panel discussion at Theatre 99.

He and Megan Lange, of Robert Lange Studios, were the only members to put their names on the press release announcing the "Creative Spaces" event. This seems to be a borderline conflict of interest. As a member and close associate of Redux, a center in search of a new home, Brilliant may have a credibility problem as he makes the case for a "People's Arts Center."

UPDATE: Brilliant called to say that he does not speak on behalf on Redux.

Jarod Charzewski

A current board member of Redux Contemporary Art and faculty member at the College of Charleston. He commented on a recent post of mine that was critical of the Charleston Arts Coalition but did not disclose his involvement with the group. Neither did he reveal that he serves on Redux's board. Charzewski's interests are twofold: building a new arts center that's for "the people" and in finding a new home for Redux, an arts center that's about to lose its lease by the end of 2009. If this is not a conflict of interest, it's close, as observers may wonder which interest — Redux's or the people's — Charzewski serves.

Olivia Pool

The publisher of ART Magazine and visual arts writer for The Post and Courier. She wrote a piece for the paper about the Charleston Arts Coalition's panel discussion at Theatre 99 last week. The piece contains passages identical to the press release. Pool did not disclose her involvement with the coalition.

She also sent an email to me recommending that I attend "Creative Spaces," but did not reveal her role in organizing the panel discussion. This omission suggests that she was independently endorsing the event as the editor of ART Magazine, not as a person invested in its success.

Pool's role is a clear journalistic conflict of interest. Her editors at the P&C should never have let her write about an organization and event that she was involved in. One minor point: She should not have used passages that were identical to the press releases. I wouldn't call it plagiarism, but I wouldn't call it good writing either.

Megan Lange and Andrea Schenck

Lange is co-owner of Robert Lange Studios. Schenck owns Plum Elements, an arts and crafts boutique. Each sent emails (here and here) urging readers to attend the panel discussion, but neither disclosed her relationship with the coalition in the email (Lange did in the official press release), giving the impression they were lending their weight as gallery owners to the cause.

Their stature in the community rests on their authority as visual arts advocates. The Charleston Arts Coalition has given lip service to being a cross-disciplinary group aiming for an arts center that includes the performing arts. But this interest in inclusion appears in conflict with Lange's and Schenck's (and Brilliant's and Pool's and Charzewski's) interest in the visual arts. The coalition, once again, needs to take steps in spanning what appears to be a sizable credibility gap.

In "Unscripted," my arts column today, I ask the Charleston Arts Coalition, a new group of artists and arts supporters making the case for a community arts center, to stop talking about building a facility and start talking instead about how to build a service organization.

Set aside, for now at least, discussion of "a unified center for the arts." Focus instead on informal gatherings in which there is movement toward the creation of a service organization. This would be just what it sounds like. A service organization would serve artists: providing advocacy, business advice, fund-raising strategies, and other things yet to be determined. A rough model already exists with the League of Charleston Theatres.

Most of all, this service organization would provide a singular voice for artists and help establish venues in Charleston. Note that's "venues" with an S. This organization would help find a new home for PURE, the CBT, and Redux. The service organization's mission should be finding many small venues for artists, not one huge venue.

The arts coalition believes consolidating artists is key. But given Charleston's unique nature, perhaps scattering artists across the city is a better idea. Fred Delk of Columbia Development Corp. told us last week that he's working to devise a "scattering model" in which he would replicate creative spaces throughout Columbia. This is worth looking into. It's practical thinking, not magical thinking.

Somehow we got to this point. It's not a bad place to be. It's not a good place either. Perhaps it was inevitable that this would happen. After all, we didn't know what we were doing when we started this whole thing. But now that we're here, it might be time to step back a minute and think about what we're doing before things get really messy — or worse, we lose focus on what's important.

What am I talking about? The so-called "People's Arts Center." Who's calling it that? A hodgepodge group of artists and art supporters who named themselves the Charleston Arts Coalition. Its goal, according to a press release announcing tonight's panel discussion at Theatre 99, is "to find and modify real estate through out the city of Charleston, to house production, presentation, and education space for the creative arts. The ultimate project goal is the creation of the People’s Art Center."

What is the People Arts Center? Well, it's nothing at the moment. I take that back. It's not nothing. But it's not something. It's just an idea right now, a seductive and potentially distracting and maybe even damaging idea that, like a lot of seductive and potentially distracting and maybe even damaging ideas, has got people talking. If at some point in the distant future we could achieve the ideal of a "unified center for the arts," as the group is calling it — it would be really, really great.

Think about what's happened since October. PURE Theatre left its space at the Cigar Factory. It'll be turned into condos. The American Theater is going to converted into space for wedding receptions. Buxton's East Bay Theatre got shuttered. The leases for Charleston Ballet Theatre and Redux Contemporary Art Center will run out at the end of 2009. As for live music venues, Cumberland's and the Map Room closed their doors. And this week, we learned that The Plex in North Charleston is going to be demolished to make way for an office building.

So a "unified center for the arts" is just what we need, right? A central location on the peninsula where all of the city's artists — visual and performing artists — have a place to be, to work, to share ideas. Performing artist would have a place to stage productions. Visual artists could make and sell their work. The visibility of a home would make a better case that the arts are vital to our city and our economy.

Does that sound good? Of course, it does. All fantasies sound dandy.

But is it the right way to go? No, I'm afraid not.

Let me be clear. If an arts center is in our future, that's great. More art in more space is more better. I would love to see a place where artists are working. I would love to see restaurants and bookstores move in around the artists doing their thing. The SoHo paradigm is utterly titillating. Who wouldn't love that?

Even so, I'm not convinced the so-called Charleston Arts Coalition knows what's involved in building or rehabbing a facility. Even if it were able to pull off the miracle of building the political will, raising money, rallying support among philanthropists and developers, there's the small detail of operating the facility. This, among other things, has me thinking the Coalition isn't serious about addressing the venue problem.

(One of these other things is the problem as defined by Jonathan Brilliant, a panelist and leading figure in the Charleston Arts Coalition. He said the main problem was that artists are leaving Charleston to pursue careers elsewhere. He said an arts center would encourage them to stay. If this is true, which I doubt, and if this is a problem, it's a minor one that's disproportional to the efforts he suggests go into its solution.)

Why don't I think the Coalition is taking this seriously? Because even an arts center won't address the problems taking shape since October (see above). Put simply, this is a performing arts problem, not a visual arts problem. Dance and theater companies have needs far beyond those of visual artists for the simple reason that their art is nearly always collaborative and needing more space for more people to do more things. But from the beginning of these discussions, starting in April at Redux, there has been a narrow grasp of the total venue problem, a fact reflected by those sitting on that first panel: seven visual artists, one theatrical, no dancers or musicians at all.

Tonight's panel discussion was almost entirely focused on the visual arts even though the immediate problem we face has little to do with the visual arts. In fact, as Chris Price, the lone belabored-looking panelist from the development group PrimeSouth, said, there are plenty of visual arts in Charleston. Just look around. Charleston is teeming with visual arts all year long, even during the long hot summer.

I'm aware of the struggles visual artists face in Charleston with getting their work sold, getting decent representation, with finding galleries that will show their work. Marshscapes are everywhere. The range of aesthetic can be limiting. Contemporary art is often defined too narrowly. But a theater company cannot function without a stage. A painter can still paint without a gallery. A failure to see the fundamental difference between these problems is a failure to take the whole issue seriously at all.

Like I said, if an arts center is in our future, I look forward to it. I just ask one thing — that the Charleston Arts Coalition be honest. This group of well-meaning artists and arts supports has shrewdly identified an opportunity to make the case for an arts center in a climate of anxiety and crisis. Many people attending these discussions are very concerned about music and dance and theater — and many are leaving feeling that they have wasted their time, that this is a dog and pony show, that that is fantasy.

What's worse is that the Coalition is going to push these naturally concerned supporters away and in doing so it's going to deepen the already deep divide between artists in Charleston. When these discussions began in April, I was surprised to see so much eagerness to take action, so much good will to work together. By distracting us from the real issue at hand — that is, it's a performing arts problem — the Arts Coalition may be doing damage where it intended to do good. The Coalition can't continue using the rhetoric of inclusiveness when it's clear not everyone is included. Truth matters even when you're mired in magical thinking.

It's funny what boxing teaches you.

The former location for Friday Night Fights, the lowcountry's monthly display of the sweet science presented by Jim Kelley Promotions, was The Plex in North Charleston. Kelley has since April moved the fights to Mt. Pleasant and its Omar Shrine Convention Center near Patriot's Point.

The move, along with a gaggle of rumors, signaled something was amiss at The Plex. Turns out that if the venue couldn't work out a deal with SCE&G which ended up buying out its lease with sights set on constructing a new office building next to the airport, then its future would be dim. During its squabble with the power company, which spanned much of fall and spring concert season, The Plex avoided booking national and regional acts. Was Bright Eyes the last big show? I don't know.

Anyway, in the program notes for Friday's event, Kelley noted what's going to happen to The Plex.

"The old venue will soon be razed for an SCE&G office building."

There you go. The latest installment of venue news in Charleston.