{"id":14280,"date":"2022-01-18T15:40:42","date_gmt":"2022-01-18T15:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/citylore.org\/events\/art-work-how-the-government-funded-ceta-jobs-program-put-artists-to-work\/"},"modified":"2022-01-20T11:01:41","modified_gmt":"2022-01-20T11:01:41","slug":"art-work-how-the-government-funded-ceta-jobs-program-put-artists-to-work","status":"publish","type":"mec-events","link":"https:\/\/citylore.org\/events\/art-work-how-the-government-funded-ceta-jobs-program-put-artists-to-work\/","title":{"rendered":"ART\/WORK: How the Government-Funded CETA Jobs Program Put Artists to Work"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Sarah Wells (1979) for the CETA CCF Artists Project. \u00a9 Estate of Sarah Wells 2021<\/p>\n

City Lore <\/strong>and Artists Alliance Inc. (AAI), a New York City visual arts non-profit supporting emerging artists and curators, <\/strong>are pleased to share a major exhibition highlighting the history and significance of the federal Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) jobs program (1973-1981), which employed over 10,000 artists and cultural workers across the nation, and 600 in New York City\u2014a scale of artist support not seen since the Works Progress Administration of the 1930s. Yet CETA has been virtually forgotten.<\/p>\n

The exhibition,\u00a0ART\/WORK: How the Government-Funded CETA Jobs Program Put Artists to Work<\/em><\/strong>, curated by Molly Garfinkel and Jodi Waynberg, is presented by City Lore and Artists Alliance Inc., as part of a long-term initiative, undertaken in conjunction with the Delaware Art Museum, exploring the impact of CETA on arts workforce development across the United States, and its relevance to recent efforts to include the arts community in the nation\u2019s pandemic recovery. CETA\u2019s legacy serves as a precedent for envisioning how we can create sustained investment in artists today, and for considering models for permanently infusing the creativity and resourcefulness of artists into our workforce.<\/p>\n

On view at City Lore Gallery and AAI\u2019s Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space, both on Manhattan\u2019s Lower East Side, ART\/WORK\u00a0<\/em>spotlights the achievements of CETA-funded artists projects in New York City, which sent over 600 visual artists, poets, dancers, performers, and photographers, among many other specialists, into New York area schools, libraries, museums, nursing homes, prisons, and more. In the process, CETA nurtured a diverse artist workforce, provided art services and engagement to communities, and launched the careers of now-prominent artists and arts administrators, as well as beneficiaries who brought their experience to arts-adjacent fields or transferred it to other sectors. It also helped to nourish the community arts movement in New York and throughout the U.S.<\/p>\n

City Lore\u2019s\u00a0ART\/WORK<\/em> exhibition features more than 100 rich and evocative historical photographs and archival documents from the program. Says exhibition co-curator and City Lore Co-director Molly Garfinkel, \u201cWhile the history and impact of CETA funding on artists, communities, and the arts ecology in the United States is woefully under-documented, CETA provides valuable precedents and lessons for the current moment.\u202fCETA helped demonstrate that artists and cultural workers deserve to be considered a critical part of the U.S. labor force. Moreover, artists applied to CETA-funded public service employment projects to do something personally and publicly meaningful with their time, skills, and resourcefulness. CETA funds enabled cultural workers to take risks, to grow, and to engage in new forms of collaboration\u2014both with each other and with their communities. It helped many existing cultural organizations to establish a foothold and expand programming and capacity. City Lore is thrilled to collaborate with Artists Alliance Inc. on this timely and exciting exhibition.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exhibition continues at Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space, where this seminal but nearly forgotten moment in our cultural history is explored through the voices, photographs, and archival documents of the artists, administrators, and officials who designed, managed, and participated in the program. Jodi Waynberg, exhibition co-curator and Director of AAI, adds, \u201cWe are so pleased to co-host this collaboration at our Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space. There is hardly a more fitting moment to reflect on the benefits to our communities, individual arts workers, and cultural institutions when the United States invests in its labor force. We are thrilled to be afforded the opportunity to amplify this extraordinary history and reimagine sustained recovery that could extend beyond this moment of insecurity in order to truly rebuild.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSupporting culture matters,\u201d says City Lore\u2019s founding director Steve Zeitlin. \u201cCulture should be supported because it is part of our daily lives and an integral part of civic life. Expression of culture has much to do with how well we understand ourselves and each other, build relationships with and get along with one another. Being able to do this is as relevant now as ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

ART\/WORK<\/strong> is supported by The Andr\u00e9 and Elizabeth Kert\u00e9sz Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, and John Kreidler,<\/em> and is presented in partnership with Creatives Rebuild New York.<\/em><\/p>\n

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On view at City Lore Gallery [56 E. 1st Street] from December 10, 2021 through March 31, 2022<\/b><\/p>\n

On view at Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space [88 Essex Street, inside Essex Market] from December 10, 2021 through February 19, 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n

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About City Lore<\/strong>
\nFounded in 1986,\u00a0City Lore<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>is New York City\u2019s center for urban folk culture. With a mission to foster New York City \u2013 and America\u2019s \u2013 living cultural heritage, City Lore encompasses a Lower East Side gallery space, performances, lectures, the People\u2019s Hall of Fame, a POEMobile that projects poems onto walls and buildings, and programs throughout the five boroughs. We document, present, and advocate for New York City\u2019s grassroots cultures to ensure their living legacy in stories and histories, places and traditions. We work in four cultural domains:\u00a0urban folklore and history; preservation; arts education; and grassroots poetry traditions. In each, we seek to further cultural equity and model a better world with projects as dynamic and diverse as New York City itself.\u00a0City Lore<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is a nonprofit 501(c)3.<\/p>\n

About Artists Alliance Inc<\/strong>.
\nFounded in 1999,\u00a0Artists Alliance Inc.<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(AAI) is dedicated to launching, strengthening, and advancing the vision of emerging and underrepresented artists & curators through funded residencies, paid exhibition opportunities, and commissioned projects. Rooted in the Lower East Side (LES), a long-standing epicenter for creative experimentation and cultural diversity, AAI cultivates contemporary art practices that challenge the way we experience ourselves and our communities. As a dedicated advocate of sustainability for NY-based artists and the enduring community benefits of free and accessible contemporary art, AAI develops programming within larger institutions that hold vital social and cultural significance on the LES.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

City Lore and Artists Alliance Inc. (AAI), a New York City visual arts non-profit supporting emerging artists and curators, are pleased to share a major exhibition highlighting the history and significance of the federal Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) jobs program (1973-1981), which employed over 10,000 artists and cultural workers across the nation, and 600 in New York City\u2014a scale of artist support not seen since the Works Progress Administration of the 1930s. Yet CETA has been virtually forgotten.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":13699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"tags":[231,233,234,232],"mec_category":[215],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citylore.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/mec-events\/14280"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citylore.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/mec-events"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citylore.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/mec-events"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citylore.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citylore.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citylore.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citylore.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citylore.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14280"},{"taxonomy":"mec_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citylore.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/mec_category?post=14280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}