Public Eye

Sasha Anawalt, the director of the arts journalism master's degree programs at the Annenberg School for Communication at USC and Councilman Victor Gordo's appointee to the Pasadena Arts and Culture Commission, has resigned because of the City Council's decision to review the public art that was to have been placed on the Civic Auditorium plaza.

Many know her name from her years as dance critic at the Herald Examiner and on KCRW, and I wrote about her great Slow Journalism Conference in mid-November.

It's an impassioned plea in which Anawalt blames both a failure of journalistic coverage of the issues -- and herself. Here's the full text of her letter:

Dear Colleagues:
I resign my position as Commissioner for the fifth district on the Arts & Culture Commission. My eye is fixed on the artists, Hans Peter Kuhn and Dennis Oppenheim, whose work was left undefended last night by us on the Commission.*

My eye is also on our citizens who must see $150,000 and three years of work be regarded as negligible; this is an unconscionable waste. On the Commission, we approved a particular position on December 10 and we were superseded by City Manager, Michael Beck, and staff who presented a different position last night. To me, the democratic process established by the Arts & Culture Commission is not democratic when a few can dictate and alter what the body has in good conscience decided, using its collective expertise and valuable volunteer hours.

The decision last night not to move ahead and approve Kuhn and Oppenheim's works was a poor and cowardly decision for which the citizens ultimately pay. The word is out among the artists in Pasadena, in Los Angeles, and it may spread across the network of America's 100,000 arts organizations and also abroad: Engage with Pasadena at one's own peril. Public art can and will be censored by a powerful few. And, yes, censorship is an appropriate word.

I am sorry for my decision to resign, because I very much enjoyed the company of each and every one of you and of my fellow commissioners. I know I can do more on the outside for Pasadena than I can on the inside. Had there been a more healthy, robust coverage of this issue in the media, perhaps the Council, the Commission, Michael Beck and the Pasadena Cultural Affairs staff would have stopped to think, question and examine the repercussions of participating in a late date decision that the art is, for whatever reason, unworthy.

In fairness, I have been taxed by the amount of time this Commission has taken in my schedule and have been weighing whether I can keep it up for some time now. The scales tipped last night. But I still believe in my heart in the value that an Arts & Culture Commission can have -- perhaps at another time in my life and in the Commission's.

I wish you all the best in the next stage.
Sincerely yours,
Sasha

* Amendment 01/29/09 - I include myself foremost in this charge and regret that I did not speak up more loudly before or at all during the Council meeting. It concerns me that at this financially critical time, the Council's decision also means not giving jobs and work to those who would have forged and installed the sculptures. The Pasadena Civic Auditorium is regarded as "sacred," its plaza, too - so said several citizens who addressed the Council. But I believe that Kuhn and Oppenheim and their works, as well as the potential builders and installers are just as sacred. These artists and artisans were not treated with the same respect given the building and space that they worked so hard to honor. For this, I apologize.

--
Sasha Anawalt