Follow The Money: Tax $ and Transgressive Art, Part 1

In October of 2011, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reviewed Neighbors, a production of the local Mixed Blood Theatre Company.  The Star Tribune reported,

"Some patrons have walked out in the middle of the play.  Others have seen it more than once."

" 'I felt like I had been assaulted after seeing it,' Twin Cities actor Greta Oglesby said."

What was the controversial subject matter that had theater patrons running for the exits, or coming back for more?  After checking with this website's Standards and Practices Department, it turns out that we can't discuss the subject matter or the controversial content.  Let's just say that if you recall the famous "pastry love" scene from the movie American Pie, this production ups the ante.

You, Dear Reader, will have to see for yourself,

• October 8, 2011--Minnesota Public Radio, "Adventures in uncomfortable theater"
• October 7, 2011--Star Tribune, "Play's [redacted] offends, engages"
• September 23, 2011--St. Paul Pioneer Press
• September 22, 2011--Star Tribune

A quote from that September 22nd review,

"Neighbors, which also kicks off Mixed Blood's Radical Hospitality initiative of expanded access through free admission, is no walk in the park.  A few patrons left during Wednesday night's performance, an occurrence sure to be repeated."
Those leaving the show couldn't demand their money back, since, courtesy of the state's taxpayers, admission was free.  It turns out that the Theatre's Radical Hospitality is entirely at your expense.  How did Minnesota taxpayers come to subsidize such "transgressive" art?  It's a long, but engaging story.

The Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment was a 2008 change to Minnesota's Constitution, which added a dedicated 3/8ths of a percent sales tax on top of the existing tax rate.

Sold as a way to bypass the stingy Legislature and raise funds to save the environment, the Legacy Fund includes a less-publicised provision that provides about 20 percent of the total taxes collected for a dedicated "Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund."

Of course, any time you involve taxpayer money and art, problems will arise.  Arise they did, with an early controversy involving the payment of $45,000 to a local author (plus $2,700 in "travel" expenses) for a four-hour appearance at a regional library.

Because of the mechanistic operations of the Fund, Minnesota taxpayers will pump some $1.2 billion over the life of the Amendment, or a little under $50 million a year, into Art and Cultural Heritage projects.  It is inevitable that some this money will support some less than popular projects.

Take, from the example above, Legacy Fund support for the Minneapolis-based Mixed Blood Theatre Company.  According to its most recent IRS Form 990 filing, Mixed Blood is a $1.5 million-a-year professional operation with 115 employees, organized as a 501(c)(3) charitable, non-profit organization.

Founded in 1976 by its current artistic director, the Theatre has accumulated an impressive collection of awards over the years.  It has also been successful in attracting funds from private sources, including more than $600,000 over the past eight years from the McKnight Foundation.

Mixed Blood has staged controversial fare before.  Its very first production, back in 1976, was Dutchman, by Amiri Baraka (born Everett LeRoi Jones in Newark, New Jersey).  In 2002, Mr. Baraka's home state honored his work by naming him the state's second Poet Laureate.  After writing a controversial poem about the September 11, 2001 attacks on nearby Manhattan, then New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey attempted to fire Baraka.  That effort failed, but the New Jersey State Legislature eliminated the position of Laureate in 2003.

Mixed Blood has staged two plays by Nobel-prize-winning Italian playwright Dario Fo.  You may recall Mr. Fo's 2006 unsuccessful run for Mayor of Milan, in a bid backed by the Communist Refoundation Party.

More disturbing is the 1985 production of In the Belly of the Beast, by Jack Henry Abbott.  Abbott was an author and convicted murderer, whose 1981 parole was supported by famous author Norman Mailer.  Six weeks after his release, Abbott stabbed another man to death.  So, at the time of the 1985 production, Abbott was already back in prison for his second killing.  Abbott committed suicide in prison in 2002.

Mixed Blood has produced more mainstream plays over the years, including three by the Pulitzer-prize winning (and now conservative) playwright David Mamet, the hit musical Avenue Q, and the anti-Reagan satire Rap Master Ronnie by Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau.

But what makes the controversial Neighbors unique is that the play was entirely underwritten by taxpayer money.  In 2011, Mixed Blood received a Legacy Fund grant of $191,648.  The award notes,

"To revolutionize access, Mixed Blood proposes FREE THEATRE-no-cost access to productions, eliminating the economic barrier to more effectively engage underrepresented populations."

This Legacy grant was part of a total of more than $470,000 in Legacy funds that Mixed Blood received in 2011, alone.

Minnesota is no stranger to controversies surrounding public funding of the arts.  Performance artist Karen Finley famously poured chocolate over herself at Minneapolis' Walker Art Center as part of a National Endowment for the Arts-funded show.

More broadly--whether the topic is the photography of artists Robert Mapplethorpe or Andres Serrano, or the religious-themed work of British painter Chris Ofili--the idea has taken hold that criticism of taxpayer-funded art is beyond the pale.  Only a craven censor would deny unlimited, public funding to transgressive art, and the more controversial, the better.

Expect to see more boundary-pushing work along the lines of Neighbors as the state government doles out its $ billions in public funding.  Under an application of Gresham's law (bad money drives out good), artists and arts organizations will necessarily save the most transgressive work for public money, as private donors or ticket buyers tend to demand accountability for use of their money.  Government funding carries no accountability whatsoever, for to do so would represent an act of unthinkable censorship.

Part 2 of this series continues the discussion.