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On my Soapbox: Digitization of Live Performance

February 21, 2012 By 1 Comment
The Wooster Group

The Wooster GroupClay Lord has written a provocative and rather erudite post, The Work of Presentational Art in the Age of On-Demand Technological Empowerment, in which he cautions that as arts organizations embrace or respond to pressure to record and disseminate their live work that they not lose their identity and the core of what live performance (and theater in particular, perhaps) is all about. Clay mentions my post from last week in which I wrote: "If our goal for the next century is to hold onto our marginalized position and … [Read more...]

02/21/12 12:35 PM | filed under: Democratization of Culture, engagement, Innovation, Supply/Demand, Uncategorized |

If our goal is simply to preserve our current reality, why pursue it?

February 14, 2012 By 6 Comments
rabbit

About a month ago I read an article in the Atlantic (recommended to me by LINKED IN) on the phenomenal success of Finland’s primary and secondary education public school system—a success which, the article suggests, the US has failed to understand. There are some notable differences between the US system and Finland’s: Teachers in Finland are given prestige, decent pay and a lot of responsibility. Finland has no standardized tests; teachers are trained to create tests and assess students independently. (Periodically the … [Read more...]

02/14/12 8:34 AM | filed under: Democratization of Culture |

Making donor dollars stretch and perform miracles

February 5, 2012 By 2 Comments
shutterstock_66506893

The other day I received an email alert from the Philanthropy News Digest, which mentioned that a theater company had announced a $7 million endowment challenge grant. When matched, the 3:1 challenge grant (which requires the theater to raise $2.5 million) will boost its endowment from $500,000 to $10 million. Putting aside for a moment debates over the pros and cons of endowments for performing arts organizations, I was struck by the following quote by theater’s artistic director in the press: When reached, this unprecedented offer will … [Read more...]

02/5/12 3:27 PM | filed under: Asymmetric power dynamics, Undercapitalization |

AJ Discussion: Lead or Follow?

January 23, 2012 By 2 Comments
onion

In lieu of a Jumper post this week I have written a post (If this is leading, what is following?) for the Arts Journal Discussion, Lead or Follow.  Here's the question that launched the debate, posed by AJ's Doug McLennan: Increasingly, audiences have more visibility for their opinions about the culture they consume. Cultural institutions know more and more about their audiences and their wants. Some suggest this new transparency argues for a different relationship between artists and audience.  So the question: In this age of self … [Read more...]

01/23/12 7:34 PM | filed under: Uncategorized |

A planned ending for Merce Cunningham Dance Co.

January 15, 2012 By 5 Comments
Merce_Cunningham

Merce CunninghamIn last week’s post on direct subsidies to artists, I expanded upon a premise from artist/economist Hans Abbing--that direct subsidies to artists may provide incentives to more people to become artists, thereby increasing competition, and making it more difficult for any to make a living--and suggested that the same may be true of arts organizations. I wrote, "We have incentivized the exponential growth of the arts and culture sector in the US and, despite significant resources (government and private) flowing into the sector … [Read more...]

01/15/12 3:39 PM | filed under: Innovation, institutionalism, leadership, subsidization of the arts, Supply/Demand, Undercapitalization |

What are the aims of direct subsidies to artists?

January 8, 2012 By 12 Comments
why are artists poor

Polly Carl has posted a new piece on HowlRound, A Virtual Theater Movement,  in which she remarks on a recent trend in arts philanthropy: increased direct support for artists. This philanthropic trend prompts me to ask, “What are funders hoping to achieve by providing direct subsidies to individual artists?” and to raise the ideas of a colleague from Erasmus, artist/economist Hans Abbing, who wrote a book in 2002 called Why Are Artists Poor? The Exceptional Economy of the Arts, an excellent summary of the chapters therein you can … [Read more...]

01/8/12 4:25 PM | filed under: nonprofit model, subsidization of the arts |

Time to start pulling off the duct tape …

January 2, 2012 By 18 Comments
duct tape

In his article, Occupy the Arts, a seat at a time, NY Times critic Anthony Tomasini (like others) pounced on recent allegations of ‘elitism’ in the arts (growing out of the Occupy movement), decrying that there are loads of free and affordable arts events and that even those organizations that charge $400 per ticket also have cheap seats (and the experience is just as great from the nosebleeds, thank you very much!). Not only do Tomasini and others seem a tad defensive when they fly their Free Tickets Flag in the face of those seeking to … [Read more...]

01/2/12 9:30 PM | filed under: Asymmetric power dynamics, community, Democratization of Culture, engagement, Uncategorized |

On artists being tossed off the truck

December 19, 2011 By 11 Comments
people falling off truck

About a month ago I wrote a post on ‘'on artists making a living and artistic directors that could make a difference but don't.’ I had a significant number of comments (relative to other posts on my blog) including several from actors (thanks, all). One of the most inspiring posts came from Ron Russell of Epic Theatre in NYC. Epic (founded in 2001) has operating expenses of approximately $1.7 million (according to its 2010 990 filing on Guidestar) and recently renegotiated its contract with Actors Equity Association (AEA) to enable it to … [Read more...]

12/19/11 2:13 PM | filed under: institutionalism |

Instead of more data perhaps we should discuss why we keep ignoring the data we have?

November 26, 2011 By 12 Comments
shutterstock_55702153

I finally had found some time this week to read Scott Walter’s excellent second post in his trilogy (all three now published) looking at the 1% vs 99% issues in the US arts and culture sector. A compelling string of comments follows this post, led by one of my other favorite bloggers, Clayton Lord, who argues two points: (1) Is it effective to turn against the ‘top’ arts organizations at a time when the arts generally are under attack? and (2) We need to collect more data to understand how to improve the system. Walters responds that the … [Read more...]

11/26/11 7:03 PM | filed under: Asymmetric power dynamics, Democratization of Culture |

On artists making a living and artistic directors that could make a difference but don’t

November 14, 2011 By 51 Comments
Ethan Lipton

Saturday night I went to Joe’s Pub to see playwright-lounge lizard Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra perform  his new work, No Place To Go, about a playwright-lounge lizard that must decide whether to relocate or stay in the ‘the city’ when the company that has provided him with a steady ‘day-job’ (part-time no-benefits employment) for a decade decides to relocate to Mars.  It’s funny, satirical, and poignant. As you might have inferred, the piece is inspired by events in Lipton’s life. Some of my friends who are actors, … [Read more...]

11/14/11 10:13 PM | filed under: Artistic Standards & Quality, Asymmetric power dynamics, ethics, leadership |

So I’m at this meeting and, you’ll never believe it, there are NO press.

November 5, 2011 By 10 Comments
Mead Center from Sixth Street

So, I’m attending a meeting at Arena Stage in Washington DC today. The attendees are staff members at Arena Stage, about 18 nonprofit and commercial theater producers, and a handful of artists (playwrights, composers). The purpose is to discuss issues of common concern around developing and producing new work. I am here primarily to help document the meeting. There are no press at the meeting. A few months ago I attended a meeting of about 25 or 30 performing arts presenting curators and nonprofit theater artistic directors. The purpose … [Read more...]

11/5/11 1:58 PM | filed under: arts conferences |

It’s been a great year. Thanks!

November 2, 2011 By 1 Comment
hand turkey

I may be unable to post much the next few weeks as I'm on planes and trains, buried in research materials, visiting friends and family that I too rarely get to see these days, and sprinting to the finish line on a few projects. But I want to take the opportunity to thank Doug Mclennan for the opportunity to launch Jumper on ArtsJournal.com (a gift for which I will be forever grateful) and to thank everyone that has taken the time these past twelve months to read posts, post comments, send emails, Tweet, ReTweet, republish, or otherwise … [Read more...]

11/2/11 9:30 AM | filed under: Uncategorized |

The times may be a-changin’ but (no surprise) arts philanthropy ain’t

October 24, 2011 By 14 Comments
bullballerina

The Philanthropy News Digest recently sent me a bulletin with the headline, “Arts Funding Does Not Reflect Nation's Diversity, Report Finds” which linked me to an AP Newsbreak article with the headline “Report finds arts funding serves wealthy audience, is out of touch with diversity”. My initial thought was, “Seriously? We need a report to tell us this?” The report, Fusing Arts, Culture, and Social Change: High Impact Strategies for Philanthropy, was produced by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and written by … [Read more...]

10/24/11 10:43 AM | filed under: Asymmetric power dynamics, Democratization of Culture, engagement, ethics, nonprofit model, subsidization of the arts |

Digitisation in the arts: Is there a do-over if we get it wrong?

October 17, 2011 By 10 Comments
shutterstock_26267014 leap over gap

I've recently come across four articles/papers that have me grappling with the promise and the potential threats of digitisation in the arts and culture sector. At the end of September I read an article in “Inside Higher Ed” discussing some truly exciting advances in the 'digital humanities', a branch of the field that uses “technology-heavy approaches” to study and provide new ways of understanding and experiencing history, language, art and culture. The National Endowment for the Humanities recently hosted a conference with the 60 … [Read more...]

10/17/11 12:50 PM | filed under: Innovation |

What are we incubating and to what end?

October 2, 2011 By 9 Comments
starry night egg

A couple weeks back Thomas Cott published an issue of “You’ve Cott Mail” centered loosely on the theme of innovation and business incubators in the arts world, in which he linked to a post by one of my favorite bloggers/researchers/thinkers, Devon Smith. Devon contrasted the concept of ‘incubator’ in the tech world and the arts world. After reading her post I was curious to read up on technology and business incubators and ask myself what, exactly, arts incubators are incubating and to what end? Devon makes the point that in the … [Read more...]

10/2/11 8:53 PM | filed under: Artistic Standards & Quality, Innovation, Supply/Demand |
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