initial funders and board members of the Sundance Institute for Film and Television, an organization begun by Robert Redford designed to help independent filmmakers, and he supported the Black Filmmaker Foundation when it was beginning operations.

He was also one of the initial funders and supporters of the National Alliance of Media Arts Centers (NAMAC), along with Brian O'Doherty, director of the media program at the NEA.  NAMAC was conceived as a means of creating a national presence for centers dealing with film and video. He was the initial funder for NAMAC's first two conferences in 1979 in Lake Minnewaska, NY, and in 1980 in Boulder, CO, and offered the organization advice and services.  Robert Haller, one of the founders of NAMAC, says, "He never gave too much money, but enough so that we could go somewhere with it."20

In 1986, Klein brought in John Hanhardt, curator of film and video at the Whitney Museum, as a consultant to the arts and humanities program.  His task was to design a program within the foundation to fund video and film and inform the department about the scope of his work.  Hanhardt conducted a series of seminars for the program staff, which in addition to Arthurs and Klein included associate director Steven Lavine and program associates Ellen Buchwalter and Lynn Szwaja.  He wrote a report recommending a fellowship program, which was pending before the board of trustees in December.  If this program is approved, it could mean a $300,000 fellowship program with an international focus for film and video artists.

However, other policy changes have transpired that make the foundation's funding of media and the arts in general subject to much larger changes.  In the summer of 1986, a decision was made to change the guidelines for the arts and humanities program.  Thus, it is quite possible that a policy of international exchange will become part of the arts and humanities mandate, a change that will probably eventually mean reevaluating the fellowship programs as they now stand.  Decisions on this will be finalized in spring 1987.  Alberta Arthurs stresses that the foundation will continue to support artists and will most likely increase its funding to media artists.  She qualifies this change to an international focus as being a response to the fact that much interesting, recent work deals with international and cross-cultural issues. 21 Certainly, the media grants awarded by the foundation in 1986 are indicative of this approach, especially as they reflect the foundation's new focus on the third world.  The rewriting of the arts guidelines, however, marks a vast discrepancy between Klein's philosophy of funding the arts, in which "support for the creative person "is paramount, and that of the foundation, in which a mandate of content will most likely be the key issue.  Klein chose to take early retirement from the foundation in October 1986.

While Klein's role in the arts is far from complete, his legacy of almost 20 years at the foundation will be that of one of the most influential individuals in arts funding during that time.  While his influence in media was substantial, his impact on other art forms, especially the performing arts, has been equally if not more important. Klein was a

-->> next page