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Archives for January 2017

Are Orchestras A Ticket Or An Art? Maybe We’re Thinking About The (Made Up) Model Wrong

January 26, 2017 by Douglas McLennan 13 Comments

As recently as 1990, American symphony orchestras accounted for an average of 60 percent of their budgets in earned income. This meant, at the time, that if you weren't selling enough tickets (and other services) to make 60 percent, then you weren't considered healthy. A report in 1991 - The Financial Condition of Symphony Orchestras - conducted by The Wolf Organization, said that attendance at … [Read more...]

Five Highlights From This Week’s AJ: The Big Ideas You Need To Know, Says MIT

January 22, 2017 by Douglas McLennan 1 Comment

This Week: Trump, the arts, the culture budget and protest... Harvard ART school gets suspended...MIT's list of 10 things you need to know... Writers and money - the straight dope. Trump Inauguration And Artists: Obviously the biggest story this week was the American inauguration and the demonstrations the day after. There were dozens of stories pondering the role of art and artists in … [Read more...]

Killing NEA, NEH And PBS Is Just Collateral Damage In The Commodification Of American Values

January 20, 2017 by Douglas McLennan 22 Comments

So it begins. A report in The Hill, then picked up in the Washington Post, says that the Trump administration intends to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and sell off PBS. It's part of a plan to cut some $10.5 trillion over the next decade. Zeroing out the culture budgets isn't about money; together, the NEA, NEH and PBS account for … [Read more...]

Context: Hollywood’s Political Bias? It’s Money

January 17, 2017 by Douglas McLennan Leave a Comment

Unquestionably, a majority of the people who work in Hollywood lean politically left. More than lean, in many cases. But how much of their politics makes it onto the big screen? Rory Carroll takes up the question in the Guardian, writing that: "the industry as a whole could disappoint those hoping for a liberal, inclusive wave from Los Angeles to counter rightwing populism from … [Read more...]

Five Highlight Reads From This Week’s AJ: Did Originality Steer The Arts Wrong?

January 15, 2017 by Douglas McLennan 3 Comments

This Week: The Trump era is a challenge to America's arts institutions... Artificial intelligence is teaching us how to better-design concert halls... How originality has failed art... The Metropolitans Museum and Opera are struggling... Is Canada becoming the first "post-nation" state? The Role Of Arts Institutions In The Era Of Trump: As what follows any seismic shift in the landscape, … [Read more...]

Douglas McLennan

I’m the founder and editor of ArtsJournal, which was founded in September 1999 and aggregates arts and culture news from all over the internet. The site is also home to some 60 arts bloggers. I’m a … [Read More...]

About diacritical

Our culture is undergoing profound changes. Our expectations for what culture can (or should) do for us are changing. Relationships between those who make and distribute culture and those who consume it are changing. And our definitions of what artists are, how they work, and how we access them and their work are changing. So... [Read more]

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Recent Comments

  • Margy Waller on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “THIS x — I’ve been wanting this so much. We need a think tank — or a think tank with…” Sep 10, 12:28
  • Franklin on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “William, Ahem, so where’s our Dutch Golden Age? We’re to take such narrowly viewed and decontextualized anomalies as a norm?…” Sep 2, 07:52
  • william osborne on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Ahem, so where’s our Dutch Golden Age? We’re to take such narrowly viewed and decontextualized anomalies as a norm? It’s…” Sep 1, 06:13
  • Franklin on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “I agree with Douglas that public arts funding is too politically fraught in the United States to grow it to…” Aug 31, 11:55
  • william osborne on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “About “static models.” Private funding systems are sometimes promoted exactly because they are thought to be more flexible than public…” Aug 30, 15:56
  • william osborne on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Douglas comments that our current private funding model “no longer works as it was intended, so we need to rethink.”…” Aug 30, 15:18
  • Douglas McLennan on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Franklin – thanks for this. Very useful. A few things – your example of the movies – the creative side…” Aug 30, 12:28
  • Douglas McLennan on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Earl: This is a whole different topic of course, but one I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I…” Aug 30, 08:41
  • Franklin on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Sorry, “in conjunction with one another” in the first paragraph, and not really influence peddling in the last one, but…” Aug 30, 04:25
  • Earl G. Blackburn on Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea: “Douglas, I can’t thank you enough for this post. I’ve been working on a new model of executing management for…” Aug 29, 21:46

Top Posts

  • We Asked: What's the Biggest Challenge Facing the Arts?
  • "Art Is Good?" Not Much Of An Argument For Art Is It?
  • Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea
  • Too Many Artists Or Not Enough Value?
  • So What Exactly Is A "Quantitative" Measure Of The Arts?

Recent Posts

  • Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea August 23, 2020
  • Five Things to Fix in the Arts August 9, 2020
  • How Technology is Shaping Opera May 18, 2020
  • Parlez-Vous Screen? (online arts and other considerations) May 1, 2020
  • Arts: Rebuild What? And Why? April 30, 2020
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An ArtsJournal Blog

Recent Posts

  • Five Things: #1. Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea
  • Five Things to Fix in the Arts
  • How Technology is Shaping Opera
  • Parlez-Vous Screen? (online arts and other considerations)
  • Arts: Rebuild What? And Why?

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