Conceptual Art

As grantmakers, we have choices. Finding the right tool for the job and experimenting with tools to learn the range of their usefulness is what grantmakers do.

Immigrant and refugee communities historically have played key roles in the Bay Area's growth and rich diversity. As California enters the twenty-first century, demographic figures reflect significant increases in immigrant pop-ulations. Amongst these communities are myriad performance ensembles, in-dividual artists, teachers, and participatory arts events that strengthen comm-unity ties, reinforce a vibrant cultural heritage, and enrich the lives of Bay Area residents.

March 2003, 126 pages. The Richard Driehaus Foundation, 203 N. Wabash Ave., Suite 1800, Chicago, IL 60601, and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 140 S. Dearborn Street, Suite 1100, Chicago, IL, 60603

Download pdf: http://www.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7BB0386CE3-8B29-4162-8098-E466FB856794%7D/SMALL_BUDGET_ARTS_ACTIVITIES.PDF

2004, 20 pages, with accompanying DVD. La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94750, 510-849-2568, www.lapena.org

2004, 119 pages, ISBN 0-9759241-1-7. Global Business Network, 5900-X Hollis Street, Emeryville, CA, 94608, 510-547-6822

Download pdf: www.gbn.com/ArticleDisplayServlet.srv?aid=32655

The fall 2002 issue of the Reader (volume 13, number 3) introduced an ongoing feature, "Why Art?" as a response to GIA's goal to strengthen the role of arts and culture in philanthropy and in society as a whole. This Reader feature aims to help members and others make stronger arguments for the support of arts and culture by sharing examples of arguments, case statements, insights, and stories that convey the multifaceted role that culture, the arts, and artists play in our society, neighborhoods, and individual lives.

The full text of this article is not yet available on this site. Below is a brief excerpt.

Lawrence Lessig sees Big Media waging war against culture in America. And he, for one, is fighting the battle. A professor at Stanford Law School, Lessig achieved notoriety when he represented web site operator Eric Eldred in the ground-breaking case Eldred v. Ashcroft, a challenge to the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Eric Eldred was a man who wanted to build a library of derivative versions of public domain books (e.g., Hawthorne's A Scarlet Letter) and make them available for free on the Internet.

2005, 136 pages, ISBN 0-9514763-6-X. Centre for Creative Communities, 118 Commercial Street, London, E1 6NF, UK, 44-(0)-20-7247-5385, www.creativecommunities.org.uk

2005, 256 pages, ISBN 0-252-07208-1. University of Illinois Press, 1325 Oak Street, Champaign, IL, 68120-6903, 217-244-4689, www.press.uillinois.edu

In the author's own words, "This book is a report card on American Culture. Not the culture of Wal-Mart and the cineplex, but culture as it is lived closer to the ground, local culture, neighborhood culture... It is about dancing, not about watching somebody else dance on television. There is a big difference."