With Cancellations of FRONT and CAN Triennials, Cleveland Artist Tribunal Brainstorms Possible Replacement

Liz Maugans, the director of YARDS Projects in the Warehouse District, held an emergency arts tribunal to brainstorm ideas for how to replace the Front and CAN festivals. Credit: Mark Oprea

The decisions came swift, and within weeks apart: the FRONT International and CAN triennials, recent additions in the Cleveland creative world, were cancelled. Funding was scarce, its directors said. The financial landscape of the arts in Cleveland had changed.

Last week, Liz Maugans, an abstract artist and director of YARDS Projects in the Warehouse District, felt the urgency to do something. On Friday, nestled in painter friend Gadi Zamir’s Negative Space Gallery in Midtown, some 40 members of Cleveland’s artistic milieu gathered to answer a call Maugans had framed as dire: What are we do when arts festivals don’t fund art?

“I think [funders] looked elsewhere,” she told Scene at Negative Space. “We’re in severely impoverished city with a lot of decline. We treat our Black women the worst. We have a lot of vacancies. We’re on a lot of the lists you don’t want to be on.”

“But we still have to do something,” she added.

On February 9, after eight years of bringing regional and international art to the city, FRONT’s board decided it was “significantly” short of raising the requisite $5.5 million to host a satisfying festival. And two weeks later, the Collective Arts Network folded its own triennial, blaming the “current funding environment.”

Other than bring in millions of dollars to the local economy, as FRONT claims it has over the years, citywide festivals are often vehicles for locals to sell paintings and sculptures, along with havens for out-of-state collectors to come put a face to a work. (And, ideally, bring home that work.)

Tamar Cloyd, a local poet, suggested the group lean into the same realms of social justice that investors steered toward. “Because everybody and they mama all of a sudden want to fund Black-led organizations, right? Credit: Mark Oprea

On Friday, for about an hour an a half, the 40 or so artists speculated in tones dire and searching, as Maugans jotted down ideas on a large notepad. The conversation, which rarely mourned FRONT and CAN, volleyed from the concrete to the financial. That is to say: How can we, as artists, keep growing Cleveland as an arts destination while ensuring we find enough money to fund it?

“I would like to see $1 million set aside by the city to market Cleveland as an arts city center,” Mindy Tousley, director of Artist Archives of Western Reserve, told Maugans and fellow artists, hinting at tourism board Destination Cleveland. “Just the way Charlotte has done, the way Chicago does, the way New York does. I want to see a real marketing plan made, so that surrounding states see that you can come here and buy art.”

Others were quick to highlight the major dollar amounts on everyone’s mind: the $3 million of American Rescue Plan Act money the city has set aside for arts purposes; and the $250,000 a year the Cuyahoga Arts Council doles out, not without ire and controversy, to a select few.

“What if we sought funds through more of a social justice lens?” Tamar Cloyd, a local poet who is Black, said, highlighting clear gaps between East Side and West Side art. “Because everybody and they mama all of a sudden want to fund Black-led organizations, right?”

“They’re talking about environmental justice, talking about public health,” she added. “That’s how you get the funding.”

Gadi Zamir, the founder of Negative Space Gallery, where Maugan’s arts caucus was held last Friday. Credit: Mark Oprea

As for what exactly to host or build in FRONT and CAN’s absence, the ideas were wide-ranging and at some points scattered. Many artists, like Linda Zolton Wood and Jacinda Walker, urged the caucus to backtrack a bit to what they saw as the premise of Maugan’s meeting—to fine tune the whys before we arrived (and got the funding for) at the hows.

Still, ideas flowed. One artist mentioned throwing money at the future “Low Line” of the Veterans Memorial Bridge. (A highlight of Ingenuity Fests of years’ past.) Others suggested partnering with June’s Design Week; hosting a shipping container cluster with neighboring cities. Another artist, 20-year-old Jacob Cloyd, suggested the next festival skew younger, and appeal to Gen Z’s growing addiction to experience. “A whole bunch of galleries is just not going to keep our attention,” Cloyd said.

“Well, how about an ‘Art Tailgate Party?'” Loren Naji said, recalling a latent Browns-adjacent idea he claimed to form in 2014. “It’s easy. All the cars come. The parking lot is free. People open their tailgates and sell art out of the back of their car.”

“Okay, so your motivation is selling art?” Towsley rebutted.

“It could be like a gallery!” Naji clarified. “People create their own gallery space within their car!”

Maugans stopped writing on her notepad, and chimed in: “I think we could sell more art if it’s fun,” she said. “Fun and accessibility, for me, beats just ‘selling art.’

“I mean, sometimes I never sell any art,” she said. “And I sometimes I can just have a great party.”