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primary funder of institutions like the
Eliot Feld Ballet, the Next Wave Festival of the Brooklyn Academy of Music,
the American Center in Paris, the Center for Music Experiments at the University
of California in San Diego, and the La Mama Experimental Theater. He was
deeply involved in advising and negotiating for those organizations as well.
Klein was the originator of the International American Music Competition,
a program designed to encourage the performance of the work of American
composers, and was the founder of New World Records, a "bicentennial" project
begun in 1976, which produced and distributed a collection of 100 records
tracing the social and cultural history of the U.S. through music. It received
more than $3.6 million of foundation money. Artists like Philip Glass,
Robert Wilson, Steve Reich, and Robert Ashley rank along with Paik among
those whom Klein supported substantially throughout his tenure at the Rockefeller
Foundation.
In evaluating this kind of career, it becomes clear that a certain mystique and mythology pervade images of an institution like the Rockefeller Foundation and its power figures. Looking at history, it is easy to forget that it is not the institution that effects change, rather individuals within those institutions. A field as small as the media field has survived only because powerful individuals like Klein took an interest in it and chose to defend it and nurture its growth. While one can question the ways in which much of this money was disbursed, the fact remains that Klein alone was responsible for vast growth in the field of video art, and it would be markedly different today had it not been given his interest and support.
1 John D. Rockefeller Sr. tried first to obtain a corporate charter from Congress for the foundation, for which a bill was introduced in the Senate in 1910. Despite numerous compromises and amendments, which would have given Congress the power to regulate the foundation, three years of heated debate ensued. Rockefeller eventually gave up and had the foundation chartered in New York State with no controlling amendments. See Robert Shapien, Toward the Well-Being of Mankind.- Fifty Years of the Rockefeller Foundation (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1964), and Raymond Fosdick, The Story of the Rockefeller Foundation (New York: Harper and Bros., 1952). 2 Frederick Gates from his unpublished autobiography, quoted in The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty, by Peter Collier and David Horowitz (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976), p. 59. 3 The Rockefeller Brothers Fund published a study, begun in the early 1960s and published in 1965, called The Performing Arts: Problems and Prospects, and the 20th Century Fund published Performing Arts: The Economic Dilemma, both of which, according to Klein, "set the agenda for arts discussions and support for the next 20 years." 4 Grants made in media from 1965 to 1967 (as seen on the accompanying list) were initiated by assistant director Boyd Compton and director Norman Lloyd. The first grant for which Klein was directly responsible was in 1967 to the State University of New York at Stony Brook for an artist-in-residency for Nam June Paik- 5 Howard Klein, interviews with author, New York City, March and June 1986. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes from Howard Klein are from these interviews. 6 David Loxton, interview with author, New York City, April 1986. All quotes from Loxton are from this interview. 7 Howard Klein, "Music: 'A Happening' Opens a Festival," New York Times, Aug. 26,1965. 8 Nam June Paik, interview with author, New York City, October 1985. All quotes from Paik are from this interview. 9 Published in the exhibition catalogue Nam June Paik. Videa 'n' Videology 1959-1973, ad. Judson Rosebush (Syracuse, NY: Everson Museum of Art, 1975). 10 Brice Howard, telephone interview with author, June 1986. All quotes from Howard are from this interview. 11 Brice Howard published a book through NCET in 1972 called Videospace and linage Experience, a dense rumination on image making and patterns of thought and a highly esoteric view of the possibility of artists working in television that is indicative of the intellectual atmosphere at NCET. 12 Paul Kaufman, quoted in Video: State of the Art, by Johanna Gill (New York: Rockefeller Foundation, 1976) p. 15. 13 John Reilly, telephone interview with author, November 1986. 14 Connor was the director of the newly-founded TV/Media Program at NYSCA when he began to work on the idea of Cable Arts Foundation, in response to the general feeling at the time that there was promise in the wide-open field of cable. Connor got the initial NYSCA grant for Cable Arts Foundation the same year he left the council to run it. 15 Russell Connor, interview with author, New York City, March 1986. All quotes from Connor are from this interview. 16 Howard Klein, introduction to Television: International Exchange of Cultural Programming (New York: Rockefeller Foundation, 1978), p. 1. 17 James Day, telephone interview with author, March 1986. All quotes from Day are from this interview. 18 Gail Waldron, telephone interview with author, March 1986. 19 In comparison to the New York State Council on the Arts, which awarded an average of $900,000 for TV/media (and an average of $2.3 million for film, TV/media, and literature) annually during the 1970s, and the National Endowment for the Arts, whose funding increased from an average of $2 million in the early 1970s to more than $8.6 million in 1979 for film, television, video production, and radio. 20 Robert Haller, telephone interview with author, November 1986. 21 Alberta Arthurs, telephone interview with author, November 1986. © 1987 Marita Sturken Media Arts Center Conference Steering Committee meets at Minnewaska in 1979, with (from left to right) Alan Jacobs, Howard Klein, Robert Sifton, and Robert Haller. Photo by Amy Greenfield. Media Arts Center Conference Steering Committee meets at Minnewaska in 1979, with (from left to right) Alan Jacobs, Howard Klein, Robert Sifton, and Robert Haller. Photo by Amy Greenfield. Brice Howard (left) and Paul Kaufman of the National Center for Experiments in Television (NCET) in 1971. Photo by Richard Bellak. Howard Klein and Nam June Paik at the opening of Paik's 1982 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Photo by Francene Keery. Media Arts Center Conference Steering Committee meets at Minnewaska in 1979, with (from left to right) Alan Jacobs, Howard Klein, Robert Sifton, and Robert Haller. Photo by Amy Greenfield. Stills from the 1967 series "What's Happening Mr. Silver?" Courtesy of WGBH Ron Hayes working with the Paik-Abe synthesizer. Courtesy of WGB |
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