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 of strife rather than merely effects. He also suggests, as he did during a keynote here in Madison last month, that there is a fundamental imbalance between the demand for cultural activity (at least as provided by the nonprofit model) and the supply.
At the same time, the academics, service organizations, and others who could be offering a wider perspective on the field, seem distracted by ‘making a case’ for the arts rather than really understanding their function in contemporary society:
Meanwhile, our obsession with side-effects has left the heart of the issue neglected. The heart of the issue is: ‘What constitutes a vibrant cultural organization or community and what do we need to do to ensure we have one?’ rather than ‘Why do we need one?’ This means that relatively little attention is being paid to issues affecting the internal dynamics of the sector as opposed to its effects on other sectors.
As candidates for the deeper issues at work, he offers this short list to start the conversation:
- The impact of low levels of capitalization on organizational effectiveness;
- The impact of changing funding criteria on the pattern of arts activity;
- The impact of technology on patterns of cultural consumption and production;
- The impact of changing demographic on attendance patterns;
- The impact of changes in school curricula on levels of amateur participation;
- The circumstances most conducive to artistic innovation, including the management of artistic risk;
- The impact of the vertical integration of the commercial entertainment industry on non-profit provisionŠ
I’d also add the importance of understanding the role and influence of the nonprofit model, itself, in forming these problems to begin with.
