There have been lots of productive comments to my Wednesday post about euthanizing arts organizations. Nothing like a controversial metaphor to spark a conversation.
In my opinion, euthanasia is likely the wrong metaphor and approach to address the issue of sick arts institutions, or a supply-heavy industry facing declining revenue on many fronts. The term implies taking an active role in killing an organization that’s really just due for a transformation (although dissolution should always be one of the options). Rather, I’d suggest that artists and arts organizations lack a clear understanding of the full palette of choices already available to them for their structure, their size, and their lifespan. And they lack an easy path to make that change without feeling like they’ve failed.
As I’ve mentioned before, so many forces in the nonprofit arts system push organizations to get bigger and strive for longterm stability. Foundations almost exclusively give to 501c3 institutions, which leads to a biased selection process for new artists looking for a corporate structure. Individual donors generally want their gifts go to organizations that will last forever. And every other force of nature seems to nudge small organizations to get bigger, big organizations to get institutionalized, and institutional organization to become immortal through masses of invested capital.
It would be really interesting for clusters of smart and passionate people to help arts organizations at important transitions (in formation, in growth, in major forks in the road like leadership succession), helping them understand the many roads they might take to advance their art and maintain their vitality. Some could get smaller. Others could break into projects or pieces. Still others might decide that getting bigger actually serves their vision.
Perhaps I’m naive on the subject, but I believe if creative people had a better sense of their choices (beyond ”get bigger or die”), we’d end up with a much richer and more sustainable ecology of arts organizations and artists. In this process, some organizations would choose to dissolve, and we could certainly help them do so with grace. But others could choose to change in a thousand other ways than death.
I’d love to see a mission statement that said: “We aim to produce quality art for our immediate community, growing toward an annual budget of $xxx, where we’ll plateau happily for a while and then, when we become obsolete, exit with grace, humility and selflessness so that other more relevant art forms can have the money.”
Hear, hear.
One model that seems to be gaining steam with the dissolution of the Source Theater in D.C. is the idea that we can separate the producting organizations from the physical plant. There’s no shortage of willing, daring, homeless companies ready to produce good work, but in an era of skyrocketing urban real estate, it’s the performance spaces that are in real danger.
The Capitol Hill Arts Center (not a 501c3, btw) here in Seattle has decided to stop producing its own season and instead focus on a rental model. This makes sense to me. The fact that the managing and/or artistic directors of big theater companies have to worry about janitorial practices and HVAC systems seems counterproductive. Focus on the art.
Have you ever heard a Mahler Symphony played live in a good hall by good musicians? Tell me how you decide when this is suddenly obsolete. When 20 years of private musical education and apprenticeship plus 20 years of experience times the 100 musicians on stage equals 40,000 years of musical knowledge is worthless. When the one form we in the West have evolved using the laws of sound, to speak about our shared human experience and condition in relation to the world, is useless. Obsolete. Passe. Meaningless.
This is not a question of whether symphonic music — or any other art form — should cease to exist. It’s a question of whether certain organizations which produce and/or present symphonic music — or any other art form — should continue to exist after they have shown that their viability as an organization is compromised. The art certainly deserves to exist, but the art is not served well by poorly run or poorly placed organizations that consistantly have found financial and administrative troubles. It does not serve the art well, nor the artists. This is not about the art, it is about the vehicle to that art and whether that vehicle is still road worthy or worth the cost it takes to make it so.
Thank you for your post. I had imediately read our arts situtation here into the Darwinian argument for allowing an arts organization to implode when it is no longer useful. In our city we are in one long struggle to explain why any classical art form should receive ANY core funding at all. The city always contrasts classical arts with popular forms of entertainment, sports groups and social groups. “If they need so much operating money, perhaps they shouldn’t exist” is the perpetual call. Neither the symphony nor the art gallery could possibly run a tighter budget unless their artists and musicians volunteered their work. “You do it for love” is the response, “so why not do it for free?” At the moment our major organizations receive no core funding from the city and because of the way funding is structured in Canada, this prevents them from seeking funding from the province and the federal levels. Why do I imagine that our situtaion is not unique?
Excellent points!
I feel as if I’m on both sides of this issue, Joan. I work for a presenter of chamber music, which does have a classical focus but includes an alternative concert each season. We have evolved, as far as the “other” music we offer. But even the classical chamber music we present has changed — the younger artists we most often engage are more theatrical both visually and musically. I can say that given the natural changes that occur in classical music through time has attributed to our 27-year success.
On the other hand, we have a major donor who has stipulated that his funding go to a specific other institution if and when we ever dissolve. I admire this approach and recommend it for anyone looking for private funding sources.
And: government funding is not so hot in the US, either!