Post by Mark Barry
The Baltimore Office of the Mayors Advisory Committee on Arts and Culture got morphed into the tourism office, Baltimore Office Of Promotion and the Arts.
Everything a city government does tends to be promotional anyway, that’s politics.
There’s some tension and maneuvering going on over budgeting but art still has a niche in City Hall. The Mayor is interested in using artists and art organizations to develop blighted areas of the city.
There is a small wave nationwide of appreciating the value and potential of a strong urban “creative class,” started by Richard Florida and his book, The Rise of The Creative Class. [ed. note–check out Flood’s website — scary for its hard sell approach to the subject and its author, but useful for city rankings on indices like “creative class” and “innovation.”]
Happy Bloomsday. — Mark Barry is a Baltimore artist and regular contributor to artblog
