State of the Arts, Part Two
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But not all local arts institutions have been equally shortchanged. Another chart in the report mentions a Chicago Park District tax that goes only to the nine cultural institutions situated on Park District land. The tax took in $30 million in the 1989-’90 fiscal year, a windfall for those lucky arts organizations on park turf–which include the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Historical Society, and the Field Museum. The Art Institute, according to its most recent annual report, received close to $6 million from the Park District tax, while the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, directly across the street, received not a penny of it.
The Creticos & Associates portion of the report suggests several ways Chicago might boost its pitiful arts funding. Among the suggestions are a special lottery, a sales surtax at table-service restaurants, and a countywide tax that would shift part of the responsibility for supporting city arts institutions to suburban Cook County residents, who also use them. Such suggestions are surely well-intentioned, but for anything to happen the mayor and the City Council are going to have to realize that allocating more money for cultural affairs would help boost the economy and enhance the city’s image.
On another front, the CSO’s longtime chorus leader, Margaret Hillis, announced last week she would retire in the fall of 1992. Fogel praised Hillis for her role in developing the chorus, but several months ago a source in the chorus said Fogel had told members of the chorus’s contract-negotiating committee last year that Hillis would not be director when the chorus’s next three-year contract begins in the fall of 1993. The source said some chorus members had grown displeased with Hillis’s manner of treating them like children and that Hillis, who is 69, had hearing problems and difficulty keeping a tempo. At the time Fogel declined comment.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Charles Eshelman.
