Dallas—or rather a version of Dallas that you might recognize today—didn’t exist until 1963. In the October D Magazine, we look at how our city has changed since the assassination of John F. Kennedy. To read the entire package, click here. Here’s a story about Dallas’ evolving cultural landscape.
At the Dallas Museum of Art’s April gala fundraiser, the Art Ball, patrons were treated to a lavishly produced video spoof based on the PBS drama series Downton Abbey, calledDowntown Artsy. In the seven-minute video, Dallas’ most prominent cultural philanthropists took part in what might be called a social-class drag show—a wealthy car dealer plays a butler, for example. Even Mayor Mike Rawlings takes a subordinate role, playing the valet to the DMA’s new director, Maxwell Anderson. The plot involves “Lord” Anderson’s efforts to open the museum—reimagined as an English country manor—to the general public for free, just as he did with the actual DMA in January.
If the video fails as farce, it is because farce is fueled by hyperbole, and Downtown Artsy comes across as a realistic metaphor for how many art museums actually function: as civic institutions governed by plutocracies. And yet, anyone familiar with Dallas’ cultural history can’t help but see something else in the video: a more nuanced take on 50 years of tension between the public art museum and its wealthy backers.
