About Art in the Public Interest
What is API?
What is API's philosophy?
What API does
API Primary Staff
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What is API?
API is a nonprofit organization formed in 1995 to serve the information needs
of artists and organizations who are bringing the arts together with community
and social concerns. Based in North Carolina, API was founded by co-directorsLinda
Frye Burnham and Steven Durland. Burnham chairs API's national board of directors,
which also includes William Cleveland, director of the Center for the Study
of Art and Community in Minneapolis, Kathie deNobriga, consultant and former
director of Alternate ROOTS in Atlanta, and Alan Dachman, director of Little
City Foundation in Chicago. The name "Art in the Public Interest" was taken
with permission from the excellent book of the same name written by longtime
High Performance contributing editor and Village Voice art critic Arlene Raven.
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What is API's philosophy?
API is devoted to progressive thinking in the arts. We strive to support art
that reflects not only a commitment to quality but a concern for the culture
in which that work appears. We see the arts as an integral part of a healthy
society in which the artist provides both intellectual nourishment and social
benefit. [Top]
What API does
API's goal is to support the efforts of culturally engaged artists and organizations,
both by providing information to them about the field, and by providing information
about the field to the broader public. Vehicles for this information include
periodicals, books, pamphlets, archives, referrals, workshops, electronic
information sites and collaborations with other organizations. [Top]
API Primary Staff
Writer
and visual artist
, codirectors of Art in the Public Interest and editors of High
Performance magazine since its inception in 1978, have taught, lectured, juried
and served on panels at dozens of universities and arts agencies. They were
founder and executive director, respectively, of the 18th St. Arts Complex
in Santa Monica, California, where Burnham and Tim Miller founded Highways
Performance Space. Burnham is a widely published writer who has served as
a staff writer for Arforum and contributing editor for The Drama Review. She
received a Brody Arts Fund Award, an Artspace Award in Arts Criticism, a Vesta
Award and a Mayor's Citation from the City of L.A. Durland is a visual artist
who has received a Ford Foundation grant for book publishing, a South Dakota
Arts Council Fellowship and an Asia Cultural Council grant for travel and
research in Japan. They coedited "The Citizen Artist: 20 Years of art in Public
Arena" (New York: Critical Press, 1998). They reside in Saxapahaw, North Carolina.
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