


































Microsoft Word - vakhariabookreview_formatted final.docx


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

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
Copyright © 2015, the author      
 
 

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 Bonin-
Rodriguez 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, 



Vakharia            Book Review: Performing Policy 
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

                                                 
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Artivate 4 (1)   

 50 

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. Bonin-
Rodriguez 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 



Vakharia            Book Review: Performing Policy 
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

                                                 
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Artivate 4 (1)   

 51 

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 10-
year 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. 
 


