Making The South Loop Dance

The mayor and Bloomington and the Mall of America have received a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to make the South Loop area by Mall of America a cultural and artistic haven attractive to tourists, businesspeople and residents alike.

Initially, the concept appears to be a sound one but is doomed to produce mediocre art and mediocre culture. Why? It is centrally planned by the mayor's office and from officials running Mall of America. Top-down directed efforts at moral and political reform, and the creation of art and culture always deteriorate into mush.

Like the old Medici patrons, these people should just give a writer like me an office, a place to write and discuss ideas, and $200,000/year for 3 years to see what I can come up with. There would be no external control, no strings attached. If the selected artists were not shams or cons, they would blend such artistic freedom with the work ethic and ambition of a indivduator. Then something fantastic, original and impressive would be created and sustained.

The Communist Party in Russia could not originate brilliant, talented artists and writers, and neither can the superficial commercial managers at MOA, or Mayor Winstead the Cautious and Inoffensive.

Talent can be disciplined, challenged, economically fostered and praised, but it wilts if suppressed, managed, delimited and dictated to.