NEA head blasts dearth of Silicon Valley art

NEA head blasts dearth of Silicon Valley art

Sarah Lacy ( san Jose Bizjournnal)


Local boy turned National Endowment for the Arts Chairman, Dana Gioia, made his first official visit to Silicon Valley today, addressing an audience of about 100 business and arts leaders at Adobe Systems' San Jose campus.

Mr. Gioia, a California native, Stanford graduate and former resident of Sonoma County, spoke on the role of the arts in creating a vibrant economy and healthy community. Or as he called it, he "waxed philosophical" about the arts and how he sees the NEA's role.

Mr. Gioia corrected the popular misconception that the NEA subsidizes arts groups, saying the budget is about 0.75 percent of all arts funding in the U.S. and all the grants require matching funds. He also expressed his preference for funding organizations rather than individual artists, saying if you shut down the NEA it wouldn't have an impact on what art is created in the U.S., rather it would impact the accessibility of art to the general public.


Mr. Gioia spoke of the uniqueness of Silicon Valley saying that never had a place this small created so much wealth and so much innovation in such a short period of time. But he was critical of the valley's arts scene, calling Opera San Jose the closest thing San Jose had to a "world class" institution with any social heft.


"You've had an economic renaissance but haven't created the visual legacies of that," he said. "Florence at the height of the renaissance was smaller than Palo Alto but look what it left behind."