In the Red: creation from deficit
Paul Boultbee (Red Deer, AB)
Janson’s History of Art is considered by many to be the definitive text on the evolution of Western art. Its several editions have been used for decades as a text in any number of history of art courses. Cutting the images from this text highlights the losses we suffer when art and the funding that helps support it is cut from our lives and our livelihoods. Not all the images have been totally excised from this volume. Some partial images are still visible because sometimes arts funding isn’t completely cut. Sometimes partial funding remains. And what good does that do us? “At least you’ve got something,” we are told. “Something’s better than nothing!” Sometimes ‘something’ just shows us what we’re missing. Sometimes ‘something’ just isn’t good enough. The holes left after the images have been cut are there to remind us of the holes that funding cuts have left in our communities – the galleries that close, the art stores that suffer, the artists who despair.
Cuts to the Arts
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Photo Credit: L. O'Connor