Cultural leaders confident of arts' role in L.A.
The heads of five prominent institutions look to the future, stressing education, community and collaboration.
They're all outsiders, drawn to Los Angeles from such established creative hubs as New York and Chicago by the potential of a city they see as still defining itself culturally.
They speak with confidence about the role that the arts can play in Los Angeles, and declare their willingness to work together to expand arts education and possibly sponsor a major citywide cultural initiative, such as an arts festival.
They're the leaders of Los Angeles' five most prominent cultural institutions: Deborah Borda, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn.; Placido Domingo, general director of Los Angeles Opera; Michael Govan, director and chief executive of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Michael Ritchie, artistic director of Center Theatre Group, which includes the Ahmanson Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum and the Kirk Douglas Theatre; and James N. Wood, president and chief executive of the Getty Trust.
The Times brought the five together for the first time March 2 for a wide-ranging roundtable discussion. They exchanged impressions of their adopted city, analyzed Los Angeles' emerging status as an acknowledged global center of contemporary art production, detailed challenges facing their institutions and laid out a collective vision of how the arts could play a greater regional role in the century ahead.
To begin with, most said they had been attracted to Los Angeles because its cultural identity is less formalized than those of other cities.
"L.A. has emerged very recently as one of the major centers of art production -- and it's on the rise," said Govan, former director of the Dia Art Foundation in New York City who came to Los Angeles about two years ago.
Ritchie, who ran the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts before taking over at Center Theatre Group in January 2005, agreed that the arts in Los Angeles are gaining worldwide attention. "Something is happening here, and everybody is discovering it together," he said.
A recurring question raised by the five arts leaders was how their institutions could attract individuals and groups that have traditionally had limited or no access to them.
There was a consensus that educational programming, directed at both children and adults, is key to any such community outreach effort. But there are obstacles and limits to what education alone can achieve, the leaders agreed.
