{"id":926,"date":"2006-08-04T00:05:13","date_gmt":"2006-08-04T07:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2006\/08\/of_death_and_dying\/"},"modified":"2006-08-04T00:05:13","modified_gmt":"2006-08-04T07:05:13","slug":"of_death_and_dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/of_death_and_dying.php","title":{"rendered":"Of death and dying"},"content":{"rendered":"

There have been lots of productive comments to my Wednesday post<\/a> about euthanizing arts organizations. Nothing like a controversial metaphor to spark a conversation.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/i> 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-926","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}