Last friday, a panel discussion in Denton re-hashed the potential of the North Texas metroplex as a major player in the international art scene. The talk, titled “DFW is the new black!” with a nod to the ironiy implicit in such a quixotic quest, brough together five “panelists who work in the art industry” to make recommendations: according to Leila Grothe, assistant director of external affairs in the Meadows School at SMU, “We need more collaboration . . . We also need some artists to act as anchors. We need emerging public art.” Veletta Forsythe Lill, executive director of the Dallas Arts District thought the Dallas Arts District is “30 years into what I think will be a 50-year process,” and that Dallas needs more “in-your-face” art. The diagnosis seems to be that there’s something wrong, but the underlying syndrome is that Dallas isn’t New York, and it’s incurable.
Diagnosis: Dallas
