In this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, architect/space maven David Rockwell had an interesting jab against the mother of all multi-venue performance spaces. As an aside in a quick Q & A about his latest design project — the reconceived flagship F.A.O. Schwarz store in Manhattan — he had this to say about Lincoln Center: […]
Archives for November 2004
Problems at the PACs
The news over the holiday break was chock-a-block with tidbits about performing arts centers, especially those in smaller markets. Just as Kansas City was announcing resident companies for a $304-million performing arts center (see architectural renderings here), a PAC in Saratoga Springs, New York, was reeling from a scathing outside assessment of its management practices […]
Thanksgiving break…go eat something
NEWS FLASH: For those tracking the progress of the Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich discussed in an earlier post, the auction closed on eBay this evening with a final winning bid of $28,000. For those that came in with lower bids than that, congratulations! For the winner, bummer. I’m taking this week off from my […]
The forest and the trees
Arts consultant Adrian Ellis has a nice piece about the problem of perspective and scale in arts and cultural management. He suggests, as most would agree, that arts managers are often so buried in the detail and daily demands of their work, they lose perspective on the patterns that might actually help them address causes […]
Evidence of insanity
So, here I am, burning up perfectly good brain cells pondering the public value of culture, how audiences attach value to the creative experience, and how arts organizations can make a better connection…and along comes this little tidbit to throw it all akimbo: A grilled cheese sandwich is now for sale on eBay, with a […]
They’re busy, but happy about it
A new study from Public Agenda, sponsored by the Wallace Foundation, explores the motivations and realities of after-school programming for kids (there’s a news article about it here, and the full report is available here). The study surveyed 609 middle and high-school students and 1,003 parents to discover what they were up to after school, […]
Continuing sagas from Boston
I’ve noticed some recent activity on some weblog entries I posted a while ago. Both related to Boston’s arts market, and both warranted a quick catch-up: The saga of the Boston Ballet and their production of ‘The Nutcracker’ continues as they prepare to open this year’s effort. As faithful readers might recall, the company was […]
Outreach Midori-style
My students and I had the great pleasure of talking with the violinist Midori during her recent visit to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And it struck me to find a touring performing artist so equally committed and creatively engaged to the work she does on-stage and off. She was in Madison for one of her […]
Government and funding and museums…oh my
The International Herald Tribune has a useful overview of the European struggle to sustain their museums, as the traditional model of government patronage continues to fade. It’s not really a new story, since privatization of public services of all kinds has been a matter of debate in Europe for more than 20 years. But the […]
Okay, pretend we didn’t ask
The UK National Lottery just turned 10 this week, and celebrated a history of public gambling that brought £16 billion of construction and contribution to the country’s social infrastructure (you can see some of the funded construction projects here). As part of the celebration, they asked the public to identify the lottery projects that had […]