Andrew Taylor on the Business of Arts & Culture
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To change, or not to change
Posted: June 1, 2007
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Here's a final question from my series on The Getty Center convening on leisure trends and cultural organizations: Does the knowledge of dramatic shifts in the lives of your community require you to change what you do? It sounds like an obvious and leading question -- of course you do, duh. But I'm not sure it's that simple.
Several participants at the Getty Center session remarked on the change of tone in the conversation over the past decade. Not so long ago, a conversation among nonprofit and public cultural organizations would have been much more entrenched and less receptive to changing behavior -- Change the art? Respond to the market? How dare you even mention it.
But now, even the most entrenched cultural institutions are considering the idea of dramatic and structural change -- in their management, outreach, and yes, even in their programming. It's a refreshing and positive evolution, but as ever, the danger lies in oversimplifying the question.
Should you change the content, context, and process of your cultural work in response to your community? I'd say it actually depends. Artists and organizations that claim to be responsive and community-focused in their mission and marketing materials, and claim a portion of the public purse as a result, have essentially promised to be relevant, and therefore must change. But what about small, focused, innovative, expressive cultural organizations that don't make such claims and don't grab such money? Consider all the astounding works of expression that were completely disconnected from their audience when they were born.
There is and will ever be a continual tension between staying true to your voice and being relevant and connected to your audience. I'm thrilled we all seem more ready to explore that tension, and our individual responses to it, but we'll never make it go away.