After serving the Grand Rapids art community for almost two decades, Lambert Zuidervaart, former board member and president of the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, will return to the city for a two-day lecture and symposium.

Currently a professor of philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto, Zuidervaart will host the free lecture, which is co-sponsored by the Grand Valley State University Department of Art and Design and the Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM), today at 7 p.m. in the GRAM’s Cook Auditorium. It focuses on his new book, “Art in Public: Politics, Economics, and a Democratic Culture.”

The symposium, which takes place Friday at the UICA from 1 to 4 p.m., will focus on what the arts need, conceptually and practically, to serve their public function. Co-sponsors for the 3-hour event are the UICA, the GVSU Department of Art and Design and the GVSU School of Communications.

“In the lecture, I introduce the current debate on government funding for the arts and explain why debates like that don’t go anywhere,” Zuidervaart said.

In his book, Zuidervaart proposes an entirely new conception of the public role of art with wide-ranging implications for education, politics and cultural policy.

“National, state, regional and local governments all need to be involved in funding the arts, but each level has a different role to play,” he said. “In the symposium, we will discuss the role of the arts at the national level, and the role of the arts in Grand Rapids.”

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