I’m traveling today for a think-tank/roundtable/confab thing-y exploring the state of America’s professional cultural infrastructure, and whether or not it has grown beyond the scope of all combined sources of potential revenue and resources. Perhaps not a happy topic, but certainly a persistent one over the past few years (in fact, almost exactly two years, in my case).
The goal of this particular convening is to define how we might ask that question in a more productive way: What would we measure if we wanted to know? What evidence would we gather? And what, exactly, do we mean by ”overbuilt” in the first place?
Not sure what will come of it, but I’m looking forward to the conversation. More to come in time…
Alta Peron says
Culture is one thing that carries along through the centuries and you can never get rid of the power of one’s culture. Money does move it easier, but culture will be waiting off stage when funds are not ready available.
Ravi Narasimhan says
As a non-artist, I am more skeptical about the rise of the arts manager cadre/caste and the relentless encroachment of management-speak into the discussion of arts and their future. Perhaps the current “cultural infrastructure” as you call it can’t support the non-artistic middle management and what’s overbuilt are the training programs for administrators. What ideas are emerging from these “think-tank/roundtable/confab thing-“ies that are any different from what has always come from them? There is a cost to doing all the accounting and tracking that you propose and unless the problem is exceedingly well bounded, those costs never pay for themselves in time and money. And exceedingly well bounded problems are the province of the manufacturing process, not the creative process.
David Pausch says
The creative process does not operate in a vacuum, however, and as the creative process is professionalized, it also becomes a manufacturing and management process–and problem. You very well may be correct, to an extent, about the proliferation of management types in the arts, but it is also necessary to point out that the proliferation of arts managers is likely a reaction to the continued and increasing professionalization of the arts, rather than the cause of it. As individuals choose to make professional careers out of the creative process and its resulting creations, and also choose to offer those creations in not just the creative/intellectual marketplace but also the commercial one, they and/or the organizations they create within become manufacturers as well as creators. They relinquish a level of artistic purity for commercial viability with this choice, and also create a need for business-minded management. I agree that it is easy to get overwhelmed and bogged down by “management-speak” and that, like any other industry, too much of it can be crippling and counter productive. But the growth of the professional arts as an industry and whatever ills or benefits that professionalization has caused is an equally shared phenomenon, not ones that any one group or interest individually has caused or been afflicted with.
Ravi Narasimhan says
I respectfully disagree. I think there have been professional arts organizations around for a long time and that there is also a need for less formal, less organized groups to do the work that will someday be looked back upon as revolutionary. The trouble is that all organizations are now told to put on the mantle of a professional organization, accumulate a board, a manager or five, and go down the path of retreats, facilitated brainstorming sessions, flipcharts, mission statements, and multiyear plans. The arts managers, as far as I can see, are in fact pushing for this because that’s what they do and where they fit in. The danger that I perceive is that grand management schemes and structures are building in immunities against failure: They simply redefine success as it suits them. A coarse example are the cable arts channels that are now nothing more than a means to push more celebrity-driven piffle onto the market. Where are the Arts in A&E? It’s manager simply says that anything they show is by definition Art. End of discussion.
I’ve been reading AJ for years and the special issue discussions with the various bloggers. What continually torques me is the lack of new ideas put forth by arts managers. They are great at tossing out provocative what-if scenarios and for getting behind the latest web hoohas as the next great thing. But what’s new is not true and what’s true is not new. Yes, artists do give up come creative purity as they go into the commercial marketplace. This is true of science, as well. On the other hand, forcing all science to go down a market-driven model is proving to be disastrous and I fear a similar future for the arts.
Ravi Narasimhan
Redondo Beach, CA
Brenda Harness says
“Professional cultural infrastructure”–my goodness, that’s a mouthful. I’m not sure I even understand what that means. Do you refer to patronage of the arts? If so, that’s the three dollar terminology you’ve used rather than the fifty cent term I’ve been using. I’m going to have to upgrade my vocabulary.
Andrew Taylor says
Hi Brenda,
You’re right, ”professional cultural infrastructure” is a mouthful…and I didn’t adequately define what I mean. In this case, I actually mean ALL the infrastructure intended to produce and deliver professional arts experiences (that is, arts experiences created by people who are paid for their creative work).
So, that means all the cultural buildings, equipment, professional arts organizations, and certainly all the resources provided for that system’s operation and growth (among them, patronage).
Hope that helps.