Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts
Volume 4, Issue 1
http://artivate.org
pp. 49-52
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

BOOK REVIEW
Performing Policy: How Contemporary Politics and Cultural Programs Redifined U.S. Artists
for the Twenty-First Century (London: Palgrave MacMillan)
By Paul Bonin-Rodriguez
Reviewed by Neville K. Vakharia, Drexel University
Current perspectives and approaches to cultural policy in the United States have
overwhelmingly focused on the role of the intermediary – the public and private funders, the
policymakers and governments, and the formalized cultural enterprises that all play a part in
shaping policy in their own way. Very little has been written or studied about cultural policy
from the perspective of the artists, those who are actually creating, performing, and producing
the public goods and benefits that cultural policy seeks to shape.
In Performing Policy, author Paul Bonin-Rodriguez provides a much-needed perspective
on the artist’s role both in cultural policy and in 21st-century American society. Bonin-Rodriguez
draws extensively from his own experiences as a performing artist, teacher, and scholar to
elevate the role of artists in cultural policy and to document their importance in being at the
“policy table.” His book is timely and relevant, as expectations of artists’ roles have been
elevated. Artists are more frequently expected to participate in the creation of social, cultural,
and economic capital, though effective policies and practices that collectively support this lofty
role are yet to emerge. The author’s frequent references to Pierre Bourdieu’s forms of capital
provide grounding for the reader in understanding the overall impact of artists in our
communities.
Bonin-Rodriguez begins by framing the somewhat broad term of “cultural policy” by
adopting Steven Tepper’s definition:
“Cultural policy represents the decisions (by both public and private entities) that either
directly or indirectly shape the environment in which the arts get created, disseminated,
and consumed.” (2003)
The author uses the culture wars of the 1990s as a point of departure for his assessment of
the emergence of a new cultural policy movement. He describes how several landmark reports,
studies, and convenings helped to redefine the practice and role of the artist in a community,
primarily in response to the polarized public perception of artists and the role of government
funding to support artists’ work.
Performing Policy builds on a historical foundation of the seminal research reports,
whitepapers, “gray literature,” and other studies that comprise a growing canon of cultural policy
literature. Bonin-Rodriguez describes how the work of leading research and policy think tanks
such as RAND (The Performing Arts in a New Era, The Gifts of the Muse, et al.), and the Urban
Institute (Arts and Culture in Communities, Investing in Creativity, et al.), as well leading
thinkers such as Kreidler (Leverage Lost: Nonprofit Arts in the Post-Ford Era), Markusen
(Crossover: How Artists Build Careers Across Commercial, Nonprofit and Community Work)
and others have helped the cultural sector and its workforce understand the internal and external
forces have that shaped the field’s current state. An ancillary benefit of this text is that BoninRodriguez has created a compendium of critical literature relating to artists, policy, and related
concepts suitable for anyone wishing to study these topics more deeply.
Bonin-Rodriguez coins the term “artist-producer” to define how artists today must now
“function as multidisciplinary professionals bridging the sectors of art, business, technology,
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Copyright © 2015, the author

Vakharia
Book Review: Performing Policy
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

policy and education” (p. 3). These artist-producers are also expected to create public value and
serve as a critical component in building their communities. The author views the artist-producer
taking on the role of policy entrepreneur, which he describes as the means by which “artists, as
well as other cultural practitioners, might advance the importance of artists’ work in
communities” (p. 144).
The core of Performing Policy comprises six distinct chapters that combine historical
developments in cultural policy with case analyses that demonstrate the role of artists in shaping,
or attempting to shape, cultural policy. Each chapter relates to the author’s definition of the
artist-producer and provides a critical assessment of the artists’ impact on policy. BoninRodriguez has been peripherally or integrally involved in all the developments and cases he
outlines in these chapters, which provides a level of detail and insight otherwise unattainable
though at times can seem to be singularly focused on his own perspectives of his professional
activities.
Beginning with an assessment of the American Assembly’s 1997 convening on “The Arts
and the Public Purpose” and ending with today’s current approaches to creative placemaking,
Bonin-Rodriguez deftly and deeply assesses the role that artists played, or in some cases did not
play, in forming cultural policy and practice. His firsthand knowledge of these activities and
convenings, which includes interviews with key participants and access to unpublished materials
combined with a historical and theoretical background, provides the reader with an unparalleled
perspective on the development of policy. Bonin-Rodriguez does not shy from sharing the
challenges or failures of artists’ participation in cultural policy development, using these as
examples for ongoing efforts and sharing the ancillary benefits that resulted. The cases highlight
critical successes, but also acknowledge that the development of cultural policy is a non-linear
process and is as varied as the artistic forms it seeks to support.
Bonin-Rodriguez cites the American Assembly’s 1997 gathering as one of the first
formal responses to the significant cuts to funding for the National Endowment for the Arts that
resulted from the ongoing culture wars of that decade. He describes how the Assembly’s final
report and its nine recommendations kept artists at arm’s length, viewing them in the context of
arts institutions and limiting their involvement in the creation of the report. Despite this, the final
report, “The Arts and the Public Purpose,” became a rallying point that brought validity to the
field at a critical time.
A more artist-centric case is evaluated in Bonin-Rodriguez’s assessment of the “Austin
New Works Theatre Community,” a loose collective of Austin, Texas theatre artists
collaborating “to make Austin a center for real [theatre] work” (p. 50). From his own interactions
and communications with many of these artists, he describes how these artists, fueled by a
planning grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and with the promise for potential future
funding, engaged in the policy process. His insights into the challenges the artists faced and the
benefits of their collaboration provide an intimate look into the inner workings of artists
attempting to plan for their future and engage in the policy process. While the overall outcomes
they sought may not have been fully achieved, their efforts were successful in the context of the
lessons learned and the continued collaboration that still exists today.
Support models for practicing artists and career expectations of emerging artists are
addressed in two cases that exemplify the author’s artist-producer approach while also building
on the current definitions of the “artist entrepreneur.” Bonin-Rodriguez’s involvement with and
study of the Creative Capital Foundation provides insights into how a market-driven approach to
supporting artists both financially and through professional development builds sustainable artist
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Artivate 4 (1)

50

Vakharia
Book Review: Performing Policy
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

careers. Creative Capital’s financial investment in an artist comes with the caveat that artists
repay a portion of their grant funds based on the revenue their work generates (that is, if the work
generates revenue), creating a potential cycle of new capital that sustains the Foundation as well
as the next generation of artists. Bonin-Rodriguez then incorporates the perspective of emerging
artists through a research survey on his own students, assessing their “Anticipated Career and
Education Outcomes.” Using the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project’s findings on
professional outcomes of fine arts graduates as a guide, he engages his own students in critical
thinking about their future careers and expectations. He seeks to eliminate the narrow focus, or
“curricular stenosis,” that is occurring in arts higher education due to a lack of responsive
curricula that provides artist graduates with the skills to work in a variety of creative fields. This
inevitably brings up the case for entrepreneurial skills and training, which aligns with the
author’s artist-producer definition. He describes the resistance to arts entrepreneurship in some
fine arts programs as an opportunity for a “critical cultural policy” approach that would ensure
that artists are part of the policy community.
Performing Policy’s final chapters delve into Leveraging Investments in Creativity
(LINC) and the increasingly popular creative placemaking movement. LINC was a major 10year initiative that recently concluded, which sought to “pursue innovative research-based
practices to improve working conditions for the nation’s artists” (p. 107) while creative
placemaking is an activity in which “partners from the public, private, nonprofit, and community
sectors shape the physical and social character of a neighborhood, town, city, or region around
arts and cultural activities” (p. 127). Bonin-Rodriguez identifies how LINC’s research-driven
approach provided important resources to artists but also sought to help artists serve as leaders in
their communities, again exemplifying his artist-producer framework. In his analysis of creative
placemaking, Bonin-Rodriguez sees the National Endowment for the Arts’ return to setting a
national arts policy agenda that ultimately grew into a broader national movement, bringing
artists into a broader community context. He views this relatively new movement, built upon
many of the other programs and initiatives outlined in his book, as a means by which artists
“actively contribute to the cultural identity and practices of a community” (p. 138).
In Performing Policy, Bonin-Rodriguez has identified and thoroughly investigated the
role of artists in shaping cultural policy. He adeptly weaves a common thread through three
decades of policy and practice, demonstrating how cultural policies of the late 20th century have
changed the role that artists must play in their communities. His first-hand experiences and
knowledge combined with historical context has created a work that is content-rich and
insightful. Part case study, part history lesson, and part collegial conversation, Bonin-Rodriguez
has re-framed how we talk about the artist’s role in cultural policy.
In some ways, Performing Policy is a call to action for artists to become producers in
their communities, to be creative entrepreneurs, and to move from a space-based and
individualistic perspective to a place-based, holistic approach to their work that puts them at the
center of the arts ecosystem. It is also a call to action for arts organizers, philanthropies, and
policymakers to remember that cultural policy efforts must bring to the table those who create
our culture.
References
Tepper, S. J., & Hinton, S. (2003). The Measure of Meetings: Forums, Deliberation, and
Cultural Policy. Princeton university.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Artivate 4 (1)

51