CCA closing (Updated)
[**The latest rumors... suggest CCA will be saved, at least for the time being, though a fat annual, anonymous pledge and a decently sized one-time gift. Oh, the drama. Sources in the know acknowledge the generosity of the current pledges, but suggest that CCA's impressive debt can't be touched without significantly more generosity. Thus the question: Postponing the inevitable? If so, why? Lots of other organizations that aren't on the verge of folding could use the boon...]
Rumors confirmed: A press release issued late on Wednesday, Dec. 30 confirmed that CCA will continue operations “after a brief hiatus.” John S. Gordon, formerly a board member, will take over from Lea Rekow as executive director in an interim, pro bono capacity.
The news that Santa Fe’s Center for Contemporary Art will be permanently closing its doors as a special New Year’s gift really pisses me off.
I guess I could be sad–like, that sucks–but I feel genuinely betrayed. First, I have a dog in the hunt, having served as executive director to the organization in the 1990s. Second, CCA has been radio silent as far as I’m concerned in terms of real community voice in the last couple of years.
Didn’t we just rally as a community and save KSFR’s ass? I realize it would be tiresome in the extreme to bail out CCA (again), but shouldn’t we have had the option?
I’m sure some at CCA believe the organization is having an honorable, profound and somewhat inevitable death, but it’s all bullshit to me.
At the end of the day, if CCA hadn’t decided to alienate itself from the community, ie, its roots, the community wouldn’t have allowed it to die.
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December 23rd, 2009 at 7:32 pm
So say we all.
December 23rd, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Zane,
False and mean-spirited. Check your e-mail for statistics. -J
December 24th, 2009 at 8:45 am
jason,
how about you post statistics here?
December 24th, 2009 at 9:36 am
Statistics are swell of you’re applying for a grant–and cinema has been the bedrock of CCA for most of it’s existence, and will surely be most sorely missed. But denying the broader community’s disassociation from CCA lately is, well, denial. My intention isn’t to implicate the hard-working, ass-kicking staff, but being director or board members at CCA isn’t just a job or a social circle, it’s a community trust. One can fail without breaking that trust, especially in hard times, but I gotta call it like I see it here.
December 24th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Michael,
Statistics:
Since Oct. 2004, the CCA Cinematheque has provided:
– more than 360 community screenings (created in partnership with schools/organizations)
– attendance for those community screenings: 20,000+
– number of different community partners: 70+
– a partial list of partners:
AIA Santa Fe
American Film Institute
Amnesty International
Armies of Peace
Bioneers
Brave New Films
Building a Culture of Peace Conference
Closet Cinema
Collected Works
College of Santa Fe
Council of International Affairs
Creativity for Peace
CSF Doc Studies
Delancey Street
Earthship
EarthWorks
Equality Now
Ethnosphere
EVO Gallery
Fan Man Productions
Film Movement
HaMaKom
HBO Films
High Mayhem
IAIA
Indie 101.5
KNME-TV
KSFR
Lannan Foundation
Monte Del Sol Charter School
Mothering Magazine
Mt. Holyoke College
Museum of Fine Arts
NALIP
National Geographic All Roads
National Hispanic Cultural Center
Net Works Productions
New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness
New Mexico State Archives
NM Film Office
NM Middle East Cultural Alliance
NM Women’s Foundation
NY African Film Festival
Ortiz Middle School
Pond Foundation
Range Life
Santa Fe Opera
SEED Graduate Institute
SF Accueil
SF Brewing Company
Simple Change
SITE Santa Fe
Slow Foods
Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian
Spanish Arts Institute
Taos Center for the Arts
The Jewish Arts and Culture Group of Santa Fe
Through the Flower
Trust for Public Land
UNM Latino Studies
Veterans for Peace
White Dawn House
Women’s Film Preservation Fund
California Newsreel
December 24th, 2009 at 10:51 am
sounds like you are doing well. why are you closing?
December 24th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Michael,
Statistics on outreach, and this is just from my department:
Since Oct. 2004, the CCA Cinematheque has provided:
– more than 360 community screenings (created in partnership with schools/organizations)
– attendance for those community screenings: 20,000+
– number of different community partners: 70+
– a partial list of partners: AIA Santa Fe • American Film Institute • Amnesty International • Armies of Peace • Bioneers • Brave New Films • Building a Culture of Peace Conference • Closet Cinema • Collected Works • College of Santa Fe • Council of International Affairs • Creativity for Peace • CSF Doc Studies • Delancey Street • Earthship • EarthWorks • Equality Now • Ethnosphere • EVO Gallery • Fan Man Productions • Film Movement • HaMaKom • HBO Films • High Mayhem • IAIA • Indie 101.5 • KNME-TV • KSFR • Lannan Foundation • Monte Del Sol Charter School • Mothering Magazine • Mt. Holyoke College • Museum of Fine Arts • NALIP • National Geographic All Roads • National Hispanic Cultural Center • Net Works Productions • New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness • New Mexico State Archives • NM Film Office • NM Middle East Cultural Alliance • NM Women’s Foundation • NY African Film Festival • Ortiz Middle School • Pond Foundation • Range Life • Santa Fe Opera • SEED Graduate Institute • SF Accueil • SF Brewing Company • Simple Change • SITE Santa Fe • Slow Foods • Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian • Spanish Arts Institute • Taos Center for the Arts • The Jewish Arts and Culture Group of Santa Fe • Through the Flower • Trust for Public Land • UNM Latino Studies • Veterans for Peace • White Dawn House • Women’s Film Preservation Fund • California Newsreel
December 24th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Jason – I would agree with you on the temperament of this posting. What is important now is to support all the great staff at CCA during this time of their loss. As a community member I can cry or bitch about the CCA closing, but there are great people working overtime in the past years to keep it open that are now loosing their employment during Christmas. My heart goes out to all of you.
Ethan Bach
former volunteer at CCA
December 24th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
I agree with Zane. CCA was not supported by the community because it didn’t support the community itself. The theater will be missed but the art shows there where often forgettable and made little effort to serve the diverse and rich community of emerging / avant-garde artists in Santa Fe.
Id like to see a group like meow wolf, humble, or high mayhem show the community what can be done with that kind of space.
December 29th, 2009 at 11:33 am
CCA – a tremendous source of VISUAL pleasure – an environment that creates such intimacy with every one of it’s FILMS – a treasure in our midst ……………vanishing!
Sadness is hardly an apt description – you will be sorely missed – politics aside!
February 27th, 2010 at 8:26 am
In 1976 I founded, with Ann Scofield, the Performing Space, above the old Collective Fantasy movie theatre on Montezuma (now the defunct Jean Cocteau). Next door the Sanbusco warehouse was a beehive of studios where I had my own.
I exhibited my work at CCA, and put many volunteer hours into the Armory Center for the Arts.
I know how hard it is to support emerging and mid career experimental arts in New Mexico; there have been many efforts and I mention a few above that probably are not known to alot of Santa Feans who came after that time. We do this because we all believe deeply in the transformative nature of art, and the value of people who make it.
The arts community we tried to serve is and remains a low income constituency doing challenging work that has a relatively small audience. My thought is that CCA at this point still can be a serious regional center and balance core support for northern New Mexican Arts with a dynamic program that brings in artists from New Mexico to California. There is support for this in the foundation world, and there would be support from private individuals regionally. In Santa Fe, with a tight economy and a small pool of philanthropists, you have to be one of the top three or four not for profits to be competitive and sustainable, and generate the kind of support which is needed to run an experimental arts venue. CCA, with its difficult history, has to overcome the public perception that it has intractable problems which cannot be solved. I wish it best of luck and hope that Santa Fe does not let it disappear.