About the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program

The USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program is a Fellowship that immerses midcareer arts, culture and entertainment editors, producers and writers from around the world in the distinctive cultural cauldron of Los Angeles.  

Jerry Podany, Head of Antiquities Conservation at the Getty Villa, shows the Fellows how the Altamura krater is reconstructed.

Traditionally, six to nine international arts journalists have come to Los Angeles for three weeks every year since 2002 with the expectation not of working on stories, but of reinvigorating their imaginations mainly by spending time in the company of artists, innovators, thought leaders and creative people. In recent years, however, more and more time has been spent focusing on changes in arts journalism, both in the ways it’s being practiced in this time of technological revolution, as well as changes in the cultural landscape that necessitate that we do our work differently.

For the 10th anniversary USC Annenberg/Getty Fellowship this fall, the program maintains, as is our tradition, the focus on Los Angeles culture and arts, but we chose not to add new fellows to the mix. Instead, 28 returning Fellow Alumni were selected to work collaboratively on six experimental arts journalism projects, called Engine29, that were competitively chosen in response to a call for proposals among the 64 Fellowship alumni. The projects focus on art criticism, audience engagement, investigative cultural reporting, innovative technology and new forms of storytelling. The 2011 Fellowship will be held from November 4 to 13. Click here to read more.

For the 2012 Fellowship, we will again issue applications to admit new Fellows to the program. Six arts journalists who bring distinction to the field will be chosen from the applicant pool. Below is a short description of what you may expect as a fellow.

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If selected, during the three weeks on the Fellowship, you will be away from your desks and habits. Moving through Los Angeles on a minibus that serves as a mobile classroom of sorts, you will experience the arts first-hand in all their manifestations, high and low, renowned and unknown, in familiar languages and strange, in concert halls and community centers, on screens large to palm-sized.

The late sculptor Robert Graham with Fellow, Loretta Williams, in front of his bronze LA Cathedral doors. Fellows with members of the Los Angeles Poverty Department theater company on Skid Row.

Some benefits Fellows in the past nine years have acquired from this Fellowship are:

•   Skill in deciphering culture and art forms outside of usual beats
•   Rewarding connections and arts contacts in Los Angeles
•   Strengthened critical thinking and aesthetic-judgment skills
•   Increased sophistication in digital-media use for better multimedia storytelling
•   Increased entrepreneurial savvy
•   Improved outlook on arts journalism as a profession

Funded by The Getty Foundation in Los Angeles with support from USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism since 2002, the Fellowship accepts journalists who practice in all media and may possess intellectual strength in one distinct art form. Past Fellows have concerned themselves with the visual and performing arts, architecture and literary criticism, community arts and pop culture. They have come from online, print, radio and television. They have been staff journalists and freelancers for dailies, weeklies, magazines and websites . They have represented small, medium and large media markets. There are approximately 10 applicants for each seat on the Fellowship.

This mobile Fellowship treats Los Angeles as a 21st-century urban laboratory in which creative achievements spring as much from new populations and digital methods as from the sun-drenched California modernism of the past. Day-to-day offerings range from visiting video artist Bill Viola in his studio to a discussion of journalism's future in Mister Jalopy's Maker Movement shop, from a Googie tour of vernacular architecture to a video workshop led by ArtsJournal's Douglas McLennan, and on to a screening of an obscure film set in Los Angeles with The New York Times critic, Manohla Dargis. 

Lecture demonstrations and seminars on digital media, on understanding non-profit law and public policy, on art + politics + activism, on learning how to see dance, and on contextualizing pop culture are some of our most effective offerings. The Fellowship emphasizes technology in service to journalism and journalism in service to the arts and artists. There are as many direct face-to-face conversations with artists as a Fellowship day can hold.

Ramaa Bharadvaj leads fellows in an Indian dance exercise as part of a lecture-demonstration.

The Getty Fellows also interact with the Master's degree students from USC Annenberg's M.A. program in Specialized Journalism (The Arts), presenting their work to them in class, exchanging ideas in one-on-one sessions or inviting them to join in some of the Fellowship excursions.

Days are packed, robust and energetic.

During the past nine years, the USC Annenberg/Getty Fellowship has convened arts and culture leaders in multiple ways, such as with the 2008 panel-discussion "What Is This Thing Called The Slow Journalism Movement?" where media experts, Los Angeles artists and Annenberg students discussed the growing practice of journalists sharing resources and caring less about beating their competition to the big story. In 2007, the Fellowship co-produced a live taping of Senior Fellow and host Kurt Andersen’s radio show, “Studio 360,” at The Getty Center’s Harold M. Williams Auditorium. In 2006, the Fellowship and USC's Fisher Museum of Art co-presented a joint seminar about antiquities and cultural property, “Who Owns the Past in the Future?” moderated by Ashton Hawkins, formerly legal counsel for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“I think being able to see Los Angeles as a visitor, as an anthropologist might, in a way, I emerged from the Fellowship with a renewed awareness about the wonders, dilemmas, contradictions and fissures inherent in the [human ]condition.  It was a startling experience.  I came away intellectually rejuvenated.”

~ Daniel Hernandez, author, news and culture reporter (pictured left)

 
About the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism

Located in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California, the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism is among the nation’s leading institutions devoted to the study of arts journalism and criticism. It offers an innovative, nine-month graduate degree program focusing on arts journalism in partnership with USC’s five arts schools (http://annenberg.usc.edu/specialized). In addition to its programs for working professionals, USC Annenberg enrolls more than 2,200 students earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in journalism, communication, public diplomacy and public relations. For more information, visit http://annenberg.usc.edu.

 

About The Getty Foundation

The Getty Foundation fulfills the philanthropic mission of the Getty Trust by supporting individuals and institutions committed to advancing the understanding and preservation of the visual arts locally and throughout the world. Through strategic grants and programs, the Foundation strengthens art history as a global discipline, promotes the interdisciplinary practice of conservation, increases access to museum and archival collections, and develops current and future leaders in the visual arts. The Foundation carries out its work in collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Research Institute, and the Getty Conservation Institute to ensure that the Getty programs achieve maximum impact. Additional information is available at www.getty.edu/foundation. 

 

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