Expanding Internationalism - A Conference on ... - Mary Jane Jacob

known program is the Fulbright Exchange.
All our activities, however, are
linked together by our fundamental mission:
to encourage the free flow of
ideas and the sharing of intellectual and cultural resources across national
boundaries.
The Institute's involvement with the arts dates back at least forty years
to 1949 when it brought 22 artists to the United States for summer residencies
and administered the first Fulbright Fellowships in the creative arts. A few
years later, the Institute began management of a visual arts program which
continued until 1983, touring exhibitions in cooperation with the Smithsonian
Traveling Exhibition Service and the American Federation for the Arts.
The creation of the Arts International division in 1987 was a result of
our increasing cornnitment to the arts as envoys of society's most inportant
cultural messages.
With the guidance of Thomas Messer, its chairman and
director emeritus of the Guggenheim Foundation and M.lseums, Arts International
works in a number of ways to enc::ow:-ag€! international activities.
First, Arts International is manager of the Fund for U.S. Artists at
International Festivals and Exhibitions. This Fund is supported by the
National Endowment for the Arts, the U.S. Infonnation Agency, The Rockefeller
Foundation, and The Pew Charitable Trusts. It provides $1 million annually to
send U.S. performing artists to international festivals and to support u.s.
representation at international exhibitions such as this one in Venice.
This
year, The Fund has provided essential support for the Jenny Holzer
exhibition.
N
Last year, it sponsored the Martin Puryear show at the Sao Paolo
Bienal.
-14-