Public funding of the arts is such a vital issue to Mary Schmidt-Campbell, that the Dean of Tisch recently gave it blanket coverage in New York Newsday. Campbell has spent numerous years laboring on behalf of theatre, broadcasting and film and, as the Arts School's current head, oversees all phases of Tisch's ten professional training programs, as well as its preeminant academic programs.
Campbell's profile extends to scholar, author, film producer and previous New York City Cultural Affairs Commissioner under Koch. The former director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, Campbell has continued to promote education about African and African American culture, most notably in her organization of the 1994 international academic conference, Black Cinema: A Celebration of Pan-African Film. She began by focusing upon this aspect of her multi-faceted career...
Early in your career you taught English to refugees from the southern region of Africa. What did you learn from that experience?
MC: A real understanding of what cultural difference meant. I thought I was going back to my roots in Africa, but I really understood more profoundly that I was American and Western and African American.
You became Executive Director of the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1977; I understand that while you were there, the museum was moved to a space on 125th Street that was six times the size of the original space?
MC: At that time, the museum was a loft over a liquor store and Kentucky Fried Chicken, so you could always get the aromas as you walked into the galleries!
But the trustees had made the decision, actually, even before I had arrived: they wanted a museum that had a collection, and a permanent home, and that was of status that matched the content, which was African and African American culture. A bank gave us a building-- the roof was leaking, the windows were cracked, the basement was made of dirt. And we said ╥Great! We love it!╙ Over the years we converted it into a real museum space, and it╒s about to celebrate it╒s 30th anniversary now. It╒s thriving.
That must have been gratifying.
MC: It was very gratifying. For one thing, it was the kind of museum that had to be connected to the community. Harlem is a very pro-active community. I remember when we were about to move from this little loft into the big space, I was walking down the street, and somebody said to me, ╥So you╒re moving your museum.╙ I said ╥Yeah, we╒re going to have a real museum with a permanent collection and galleries,╙ etc.
He said, ╥If you don╒t get it right, we╒re going to come after you with the hook", referring to the Apollo Theater, where, when someone bombs, they get dragged off the stage. Though Harlem is a poor community╤economically poor╤the sense of aesthetic standards is extremely high. Whether it╒s music or art╤anything cultural--the people have very, very high expectations. And so, that always drove the museum. There was always a very close connection between the museum and the people who lived and worked there.
Do you have a strong personal connection to Harlem?
MC: Yes, I do. My second son went to Harlem School of the Arts, which is another cultural institution up there; and he was really nurtured there. He became an actor, and the school carefully guided his development. There are other places╤Dance Theater of Harlem, Boy╒s Choir of Harlem╤and I have this very strong feeling that places like Harlem have their own strength and resilience. Very often, when the media talks about them, they talk only about the difficulties and the problems╤corruption in the 30th Precinct, drugs, crime╤but there╒s an underlying strength that╒s quite remarkable, despite the difficulties.
And that was the first Black, fine arts museum to be accredited by the American Association of Museums?
MC: Yes, that was important to us because we felt that in order for us to do justice to the cultural artifacts, we should be meeting certain standards of excellence. And by seeking accreditation, we were making those standards very public. We were saying, very publicly, that we were buying into the notion of excellence and quality, and that we thought the culture itself merited our behaving that way.
You became the Commissioner of Cultural Affairs in New York, in charge of 32 major cultural institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum and Carnegie Hall. You must have loved your job...
MC: Yes, going to work meant going to the ballet, going to museums. I would say to myself, for example, 'For the next two months I am going to see only dance', and I would just immerse myself in New York's dance community. I╒d see small companies, large companies, contemporary dance, ballet...
You could do that for each discipline and still not see everything available in New York. It is a most astonishing place: the smallest and most out of the way location, could yield something that was absolutely sterling. There really is no other place in the world like New York City.
What we try to do at Cultural Affairs is try to keep the city a fertile environment for all of that kind of activity. New York City is a complicated city, with layers and layers of complexity. So we would always try to troubleshoot and help groups negotiate space, or leases, or develop relationships with various city agencies. Try to make their lives easier. I would always tell my staff that we are doing the business of cutting through the red tape for them, so they can do the business of making art.
The NEA's fight for survival must be highly disturbing for you.
MC: It╒s terrible, and very, very disturbing. The city should be the place, in the country, where the leadership is speaking on behalf of art and culture: the value of it, and the value of public funding of it.
Public funding for the arts is very young; it was really Richard Nixon who got the endowment up and running. We don╒t have a lot of experience in this country with that kind of public support, and it╒s a tiny bit of money compared to the way other countries support the arts. I think what has been disappointing is that we, as a community, have not really found a persuasive public argument for that kind of support. Public support of schools, colleges and universities, libraries, even parks seems to make sense; but we╒ve not quite articulated why we should be supporting a museum, or a theater company, or a dance company.
While you served as commissioner, you spoke of serving the whole range of New Yorkers. Are you concerned that people of low economic class won╒t have access to high art?
MC: I have an interesting philosophy about that, actually, particularly about this country. We have such a thriving popular culture, that, in fact, there are moments when our popular culture and our high culture are interchangeable. Shakespeare could have been called popular culture at one point.
So, a filmmaker like Martin Scorcese is an artist in my mind, the highest sort. Or a musician like Duke Ellington, was a musician of the highest sort. I think that if we think more deeply about American culture, we╒ll realize that most people are touched by art and culture almost every day of their lives. It╒s that kind of awareness that I think we have to awaken in people. The reason we want public funding of it, is so that we can continue to train people to be literate, to be able to deal with ideas, to be able to write, to be able to play instruments, to keep popular culture and high culture very much alive in this country.
In 1991, you became the dean of Tisch and in March of last year, organized the week-long Black Cinema conference, which involved both African and African American artists/scholars participating╤╩Sembene Ousmene, Wole Soyinka, Spike Lee, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Manthia Diawara and bell hooks, to name a few. What was it like?
MC: People literally came from all over the world for the conference; we had thousands of people who congregated. The conference itself was a mecca. I╒m happy to report that after we finished the 300 pages of transcription of all the panels, we also had substantive text. We sent all the text out to all the panelists, and they╒ve returned it to us now.
People are still connected to that event. We will probably develop a publication, and we have 20 hours of broadcast-quality video, so we╒ve been talking to the Bravo channel about developing a television program based on it as well. That conference was valuable for the participants, but also for NYU, because it allowed us to install a whole new subject area here╤ the area of Black Cinema╤on a global scale. We╒re going to now try to get a permanent faculty member in that area. There has been much resonance as a result of that conference.
What are your goals for NYU?
MC: We╒re at a quite extraordinary, historical moment at Tisch. As a film school, that half is facing a revolution. Almost all the tools of filmmaking are shifting. Not only that, but the art object itself is changing. We╒re seeing the development of CD-ROM. Who knows what is going to come out of further mergers between telephone companies and computers and television?
I see my role as shepherding the school through that. I see that in three separate areas. Certainly at the film school, we need to re-tool, bring ourselves up-to-date. Secondly, we have a program called interactive communications, and our plan is to probably expand that. The third area, is that I think we ought to be doing some experimental things in a cross-disciplinary way, having opportunities for our students to work as collaborative teams.
What do you predict for film in an age where television is taking over?
MC: I think these technologies don╒t replace each other. It╒s interesting how talk radio has had a resurgence recently. It has really resurrected itself in a major way, and has had a major impact on American policy and American politics. I think every medium has its own strength and its own appeal, and that each will find its place in an increasingly complicated landscape.
One of the most fascinating books I╒ve read recently is The Gutenberg Elegies:The Art of Reading in the Electronic Age. It asks the question ╥What becomes of reading in all of this?╙ It╒s a good question. As the landscape becomes more complicated, what happens to the art of thinking deeply? What happens to conversation? What happens to those things that are our basic connections and intimacies? I think that╒s actually the more fundamental question.
