It’s a huge draw, and really fun for residents,” Mayor Holstege said at the meeting. Funding generally runs through PS Resorts, a consortium of the city’s high-end hotels, who, in 2019, forked over as much as $62,500 for the festival, but this year offered only $10,000.
Desert x mirage house install#
28 meeting, the Palm Springs City Council voted not to underwrite a portion of the cost to install artist Christopher Myers’ sculpture, The Art of Taming Horses, telling the fictional story of two cowboys, one African American, and one Mexican.
And then we were very happy to take part.”Ī year later, the organization has yet to disclose how much they were paid by the Saudi government and other questions persist. And so when we were invited to participate in this, you know there was a certain amount of soul searching. But even without pandemic worries, Desert X has a long shadow to crawl out from under.Īfter setting last year’s show in the desert of AlUla, an ancient oasis in Saudi Arabia, the festival came under fire for taking money from the government of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who the CIA recently cited as the pivotal figure behind the brutal murder of American resident and journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.Īt the time three Desert X board members resigned in protest, including Ed Ruscha who said in an interview with the Desert Sunthat moving the festival to Saudi was like, “inviting Hitler to a tea party.” Los Angeles Times’s art critic, Christopher Knight called the decision “morally corrupt.” At the time, co-curator Neville Wakefield, who this year shares duties with César García-Alvarez of The Mistake Room, defended the move to KCRW saying the ambition of Desert X is, “to reach beyond the immediate confines of the Coachella Valley and out into the world beyond. The organizers of Desert X, the biennial site-specific art festival spread throughout Southern California’s Coachella Valley, ought to be pleased that this year’s event, running through May 16, is naturally socially distanced.
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