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Where there’s art, there’s a better child, a better nation, a better world. Where there’s art, there’s also the American for the Arts National Arts Awards. Exactly 50% of all living New York City mayors attended: Mr. Dinkins had traded his habitual tennis garb for a tux, and Mr. Bloomberg delivered a poignant homily, playfully hopscotching in substance from Fantasia, a 17ft Burmese python currently on display at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, to a wonderful chicken dish he’d enjoyed during his last visit to L.A., to various art-related comments.
While the missing Mayor Rudy was accounted for as being on the road job- and white-house-hunting, the absence of living New York City hizzoner number four seemed a mite puzzling. Mayor Koch’s conspicuous awayness in conjunction with the cryptic reference in Mr. Bloomberg’s speech to python Fantasia understandably occasioned a few alert attendees to do the math. (The presumptive repast has since resurfaced unscathed. The pall of suspicion over Fantasia the Serpent is lifted.)
The palpable mayor-centricism of this year’s ceremony at Cipriani 42nd Street was underscored by the presentation of a Special Recognition Award to The United States Conference of Mayors in honor of its 75th anniversary and for its longstanding support of funding for the arts in the cities.
A contingent of non-mayors figured prominently as well: minimalist painter and sculptor Ellsworth Kelly received the Lifetime Achievement Award; Wallis Annenberg of the Annenberg Foundation and actress Anna Deavere Smith were honored for Philanthropy in and Outstanding Contributions to the Arts respectively; and Music Industry and NAMM collected the Corporate Citizenship in the Arts Award. R&B singer-songsmith John Legend waltzed off with the Young Artist Award for Artistic Excellence.
The lineup of presenters featured Ronald S. Lauder, C. Terry Lewis, Grammy-winning soprano Jessye Norman, the aforementioned Mayor Dinkins, and whiz-bang economist Jeffrey Sachs. Yoko Ono neither received nor presented anything but contributed to the arts by rocking a spiffy silver top hat.
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