Jumper

Diane Ragsdale on what the arts do and why

Archives for 2011

On artists being tossed off the truck

About a month ago I wrote a post on ‘‘on artists making a living and artistic directors that could make a difference but don’t.’ I had a significant number of comments (relative to other posts on my blog) including several from actors (thanks, all). One of the most inspiring posts came from Ron Russell of Epic Theatre in NYC.

Epic (founded in 2001) has operating expenses of approximately $1.7 million (according to its 2010 990 filing on Guidestar) and recently renegotiated its contract with Actors Equity Association (AEA) to enable it to (among other things) (1) put an ensemble of actors on a 20-week off-Broadway contract that includes teaching responsibilities and (2) to pay each actor a weekly salary of $900 per week (which, according to Ron, is ‘higher than the highest non-commercial minimum of any contract in NYC’). This 20-week contract also allows actors to get a year of health insurance at the end of the period. You can read about the specifics of the contract in a post on Ron’s own blog (evidently the first in a series).

Ron writes that, for years, Epic had an unspoken rule of thumb that the weekly salary of its actors would be equivalent to 1% of its total operating budget. The ratio began with its first show, which paid actors $200 per week (at the time its budget was $200,000 per year). But Ron remarks in his post that in recent years the ratio was not maintained. It was out of concern for this trend and a strong feeling that artists are critical to a thriving theater company that Epic condensed its production schedule, thereby enabling it to offer an ‘ensemble’ of actors nearly half a year’s work and a salary increase. He mentions in the post that AEA was cooperative when Epic approached the union to discuss its ideas.

In my post this was exactly the sort of thinking and action I was encouraging – however, I wasn’t aiming my comments at smaller theaters like Epic (which are often lightly institutionalized). I was directing my post to larger theaters.

If you’ve browsed the comments you’ll note that the response to the post was mixed. While most artists and many running theaters agreed that it’s an important issue and should be addressed, some theater staffers were quick to point out that theaters are barely getting by as is and that, in the most recent recession, it was administrators that took cuts to their salaries even while the weekly salaries of actors working at their theaters increased. (I feel compelled to point out that, while trimming administrative costs, many theaters also reduced the number of shows in their season, or their productions weeks, or the size of their casts, or all three–changes which would seem to negatively impact the total wages paid to artists even if their weekly rates were increased.)

More than a few people asked, “Where’s the money going to come from to pay for this?” Looking at Epic as an example, I would suggest that the short (and admittedly rather glib) answer is from other areas of the budget–as a result of restructuring and getting priorities straightened out.

While there were several comments that were quite moving, I was perhaps most struck by a comment from Zak Berkman (also from Epic) who wrote:

Reading your post and response to Carl reminded me of my experience reading OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE – and something Zelda F told us co-founders of Epic Theatre Ensemble ten years ago. I’m paraphrasing but it was essentially this: “when we started the regional movement, somewhere along the way the playwright fell off the truck and we never turned around to pick them back up.” I think as the economics and cultural dynamics of the regional theater evolved with various larger theatres disbanding or diminishing their rep/resident companies it does seem like even more artists are tumbling from the truck… And in the process the image of the artist as someone outside of the institution, outside of the community, is more and more perpetuated: not just by the public or by funders, but even by the artists themselves.

I read Zak’s comment and imagined a jalopy filled with artists lumbering across the US and all along the route a hand reaching out and hauling arts administrators onto the flatbed while quietly giving artists a gentle shove over the side. When the vehicle arrives at its destination it is filled with a bureaucracy of administrators, who have traded in their dilapidated wheels for something spiffier that they can proudly park at the Country Club when they meet with donors.

I recently listened for the 3rd or 4th time to a terrific 2005 TED talk on ‘institutions vs. collaboration’ by Clay Shirky, in which he discusses the ways that technology and the shrinking costs of communications have enabled systems to be designed that allow groups to coordinate their activities without institutional models (this is the theme that he addresses at length in his terrific book Here Comes Everybody). In his talk, Shirky describes four side effects of institutions: (1) institutions don’t simply require employees, they require managers to oversee employees; (2) institutions require structures, which bring costs; (3) institutions are exclusionary (they can’t hire everyone); and (4) as a result of this exclusion institutions end up with a ‘professional class’.

Shirky posits that there is a tension between institution as ‘enabler’ and institution as ‘obstacle’ and elaborates on this point saying:

Institutions hate being told they’re obstacles. One of the first things that happens when you institutionalize a problem is that […] the first goal of the institution immediately shifts from whatever the nominal goal was to self preservation.

He goes on to say that when institutions are told they are obstacles they go “through something like the Kubler-Ross stages of reaction to being told you have a fatal illness.”

For decades the goal of the nonprofit arts sector was institution building. We celebrated each time an organization could beef up its administrative staff and increase its budget and survive a leadership transition. Today, many arts institutions are increasingly perceived to be obstacles rather than enablers. And as Shirky and others might predict, their impulse to this threat is to self-preserve: to say, “No matter what, I think we’d all agree, that this institution must exist; the only question is, how do we sustain it?”

Instead, as difficult as it seems, I think the impulse needs to be to ask ourselves quite seriously whether the institution (as we currently conceive of it) needs to be sustained in order for great art to be created, presented, distributed and preserved. We’ve spent decades building exclusionary, professional, hierarchical institutions; perhaps it’s time to start moving to a cooperative infrastructure model (as Shirky suggests) and releasing control of at least parts of our major institutions to artists, community members, and other stakeholders.

It’s time to get not only artists back on the truck (as Epic has done) but the ‘communities-at-large’ that presumably ‘own’ our nonprofit institutions.

Instead of more data perhaps we should discuss why we keep ignoring the data we have?

I finally had found some time this week to read Scott Walter’s excellent second post in his trilogy (all three now published) looking at the 1% vs 99% issues in the US arts and culture sector. A compelling string of comments follows this post, led by one of my other favorite bloggers, Clayton Lord, who argues two points: (1) Is it effective to turn against the ‘top’ arts organizations at a time when the arts generally are under attack? and (2) We need to collect more data to understand how to improve the system. Walters responds that the time for action has come and that collecting data has become, essentially, a way of postponing action.  As much of a data geek as I have becomenow that I’m working on a dissertation (and as much as I would advocate for transparency and the collection of better data in the sector generally), I tend to agree with Scott Walters that data is probably not going to make the difference here.

My suspicion arises from what I pointed out in a Jumper post written in response to the Fusing Arts, Culture, and Social Change report when it was first published: the issues outlined in that report have been in existence, and have been reported on, for decades. Furthermore, every single year that I was a grantmaker I read the annual ‘funding snapshot’ published by Grantmakers in the Arts, which discussed (among many topics) the distribution of funding. Every year, GIA seemed to report that the majority of funding was distributed to a minority of organizations and every year the percentages remained about the same.

Here’s another example of funders and arts organizations disregarding data (and a bit of a tangent, but I think it is a related and serious issue). I was recently at a meeting looking at the findings of a major new study examining the causes and impacts of the massive investments in arts facilities in recent decades. At the convening, it was discussed that at least one (and I suspect more than one) study had been done prior to this one – perhaps not as comprehensive, but certainly raising many of the same issues and concerns – and that the behavior of funders and arts organizations had not changed in response to learning the findings.

How many arts leaders (and their capital investors) were told when planning to build/expand/renovate facilities and (invest in such facilities projects) the statistics on what happens to organizations in the first five years after those buildings are built? Probably all of them. How many went ahead anyway? Probably most of them. How many arts groups struggled  to pay off debt or laid off staff or struggled to stay true to their missions and keep the building open 3-5 years after completing the project? How many donors who made ‘one time’ gifts to the capital campaign were asked to consider large operating gifts to help the organization after opening because audiences and contributed income were not as high as projected and expenses were higher than projected? Again, I’d wager a majority of them. (We could get into the related issue of the opportunity costs of so much funding getting sucked into a single organizations, but I’ll stop here.)

It seems to me there are two issues here. The first one I raised in my post a few weeks ago. The wealth/class/race disparities that we are experiencing today are, I believe, to a large extent by design. High art / low art, upper middle class / ‘the rest of us’ distinctions were very much embedded in the development of the ‘fine arts’ end of the nonprofit arts sector. For all the talk about the ‘blurring’ of lines and democratization of the arts, in reality, we seem to have a system that is still trying to maintain these distinctions. There are arts leaders and those that would fund them that would wholeheartedly agree that they are elitist and would say that this is a positive thing (meaning  that they want to do the finest work possible for the people that have the time, money, and education to appreciate it). I’ve wondered in a previous post whether such organizations should perhaps be restructured as country clubs (and have the nonprofit tax status that is given to such clubs rather than the kind that goes to charitable or educational institutions).  But that’s a topic for another day ….

The second issue is that data (facts) do not seem to change behavior unless people have an emotional connection to them, especially if the status quo is working in their favor. I tend to think that change will come in the arts sector with a change in leadership (which will bring with it a changed worldview). When I look at my generation and the generations below mine (I’m at the upper end of ‘X’) I am inspired. Of course, if we don’t turn the reins over to people now 40 or under for 20 more years and if they have no interest in working for the arts when ‘their time’ comes, then my hope in the next generation may be for nil.

In the meantime I would offer this: foundations and service organizations should not be collecting data unless they are prepared to take firm action when they get the results. I have repeatedly seen both types of organizations pursue strategies that seem to be in direct contradiction to the very research that they have commissioned. If you are not prepared (if the data implications suggest it) to stop funding or celebrating the practices of the historically leading institutions of this country then do not commission research that may lead to this conclusion. It’s a waste of tax deductible individual gifts and grant dollars.

Even better, before paying for any new studies perhaps funders and service organizations should take several months and simply read all the studies that have already been done and see whether there isn’t a preponderance of evidence already in existence that might compel us all to make different choices. I suspect it’s out there and that what we need is not more evidence but a candid discussion about why nothing has changed despite the evidence that already exists.

And to Clayton’s excellent question about whether we should turn against the leaders at a time when the arts are under attack – I am probably oversimplifying things here, but it seems to me that the majority of the attacks against the arts are political and stem from them being perceived or easily portrayed as elitist and out of touch with (and doing very little for) the majority of Americans. Just punting here, but … I wonder what would happen if the top 1% of arts organizations (who capture the majority of foundation, corporate, and individual support) willingly gave up their federal, state, and local government cash grants (perhaps the grants could be tapered off over 3 years, giving them three years to develop individual donors to replace those funds) so that those funds could be redistributed to the 99%?

Perhaps we would remove the largest weapon that the other side has to use against the arts while simultaneously redistributing government funds to smaller organizations that (let’s be honest, Mr. Kaiser), will never be competitive in the fight to attract board members or individual donors when battling against organizations 10 or 100 times their size that are armed with glossy publications, celebrity-studded galas, Fortune 500 CEOs on their boards, well-branded if not exceedingly talented artistic leaders, and a battalion of development staffers.

1% image by ThreeArt and licensed by Shutterstock.com

 

On artists making a living and artistic directors that could make a difference but don’t

Ethan Lipton

Saturday night I went to Joe’s Pub to see playwright-lounge lizard Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra perform  his new work, No Place To Go, about a playwright-lounge lizard that must decide whether to relocate or stay in the ‘the city’ when the company that has provided him with a steady ‘day-job’ (part-time no-benefits employment) for a decade decides to relocate to Mars.  It’s funny, satirical, and poignant. As you might have inferred, the piece is inspired by events in Lipton’s life.

Some of my friends who are actors, playwrights, composers, or directors are able to make something close to a living alternating between paying gigs and unemployment (if you can call having a gross income just above poverty level and no health insurance ‘making a living’); but many of them have (like Lipton) been able to pursue their careers as artists only by working day jobs (many of which have become harder to obtain or hold onto during the rather brutal current economic climate).

There was a time when one of the first principles of resident theaters in this country was that they would hire a company of actors and then cast them in multiple productions throughout the season in a combination of large and small roles. I recently re-read a speech given by W. McNeil Lowry at the Ford Foundation in which he mentions that Ford started investing in theaters in the 1960’s in part to improve circumstances for actors. While ‘acting ensembles’ still exist they are mostly in the form of ‘artist-driven collectives’ that produce shows but operate with a bare bones administrative budget. There are exceptions, but by-and-large, and for a variety of reasons, resident theaters lost their resident acting companies decades ago.

Over the same period of time, however, the administrative staffs of these same theaters became quite substantial to the point where  NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman has recently questioned whether we need “three administrators for every artist” in America. I’m not familiar with the research that underpins that question/statistic, but it certainly seems that artists with salaries are generally artists that have become arts administrators.

The past year or two I’ve begun to hear artistic directors express dismay at the fact that we give administrators salaries but we hire actors, directors, designers, and writers on a ‘contract’ basis. Unfortunately, these conversations never seem to go anywhere. I don’t hear anyone going so far as to suggest that theaters try to ‘get the acting company back together again’ or even that theaters should be paying higher wages to artists to compensate for the fact that they no longer provide stable employment.  They all seem to shrug their shoulders and shake their heads as if to say, “I wish I could do something about this”. It’s like they’ve forgotten that they are the leaders of these organizations and responsible for setting the priorities and values.

I’m no artistic director, but I can think of a few things larger theaters in the US might do for actors short of reconstituting their acting companies and their repertory models:

  • What if theaters maintained a minimum ratio between ‘wages or fees paid to artists’ and the total operating budget?
  • What if investments in the buildings, administrative budgets, and salaries of full-time staff of theaters were matched with a relative increase in artistic budgets and, specifically, wages or fees paid to artists?
  • What if LORT A theaters paid wages to artists comparable to a Broadway production contract?
  • What if, in consideration of the fact that an actor must begin working on a role before rehearsal begins and often needs time to find employment after a show ends, actors were paid a minimum of 12 weeks of salary at any LORT theater (even though they were working at the theater for only 8 of those weeks)?
  • What if theaters opting to do a play with 5 or fewer characters doubled the weekly wages of the actors?

I know …these ideas are preposterous.

I remember hearing Michael Halberstam at Writers’ Theater in Chicago speak at a TCG conference (at a brilliant session with Mike Daisey discussing his insightful and rather incendiary work How Theater Failed America) and learning that Writers’ Theater had long ago made a commitment to invest in actors (and local ones at that) and pay wages comparable to the wages paid by larger theaters. It sounded so right when I heard it, and it was clear that in this room filled with artistic and managing directors from around the country that Michael Halberstam was considered a radical for doing this.

Why is it an outlandish idea to pay as much as you can to the artists and to keep administrative or other production costs as low as possible in order to do so?

And why do we accept this strange idea that doing a play with more than 5 characters is going to bankrupt a theater with a $5- or $10- or $15 million operating budget?

Pffff.

Ethan Lipton is clearly a talented artist. As much as I’d like to hope that he will suddenly be able to make his living fulltime as an artist in this country, realistically I know that I should probably hope that he gets another part-time day job that will let him continue working as an artist.

This makes me sad. I bet it makes many artistic directors sad, as well. But we need to do more than shake our heads when we discuss that arts administrators can make a living wage in this country and that even really talented actors (and musicians and dancers) too often cannot.

We want to tell ourselves that it is not possible to do more for artists but this is simply not true.

At large institutions across this country, of course more can be done.

I welcome other outlandish suggestions …

 

So I’m at this meeting and, you’ll never believe it, there are NO press.

So, I’m attending a meeting at Arena Stage in Washington DC today. The attendees are staff members at Arena Stage, about 18 nonprofit and commercial theater producers, and a handful of artists (playwrights, composers). The purpose is to discuss issues of common concern around developing and producing new work. I am here primarily to help document the meeting. There are no press at the meeting.

A few months ago I attended a meeting of about 25 or 30 performing arts presenting curators and nonprofit theater artistic directors. The purpose was to discuss issues of common concern around the development and production of new work. I was there to help moderate the discussion. There were no press at the meeting.

Putting field conferences and such events aside, over the past ten years, on almost a monthly basis, I have attended meetings of anywhere from 15 to 100 people, various types in the arts and culture sector, who have gathered for anywhere from ½ day to 3 days to talk about issues of common concern: heads of major university presenting organizations, the artistic and managing staff  of one arts discipline or another to talk about ‘issues in the field’, staff and board members of leading orchestras in the country, those running single choreographer dance companies, those running dance presenting institutions, independent producers, people interested to come together and talk about the L3C model, etc.

I could fill this page with examples of such meetings. And in spirit and intent they were all rather similar to the meeting I am attending now. Meetings, in case anyone has never attended one, can be an effective way to have conversation with other people that you’d like to talk with. They can also, incidentally, be a colossal waste of time.

So, anyway, this will perhaps not be surprising to people who attend meetings on a regular basis but the press were not invited to, nor were they in attendance at, any of these meetings I have attended on an almost monthly basis to address various issues of common concern to people in the arts and culture sector. They just happened. People showed up and talked. Sometimes things were said that were really, really boring. Sometimes things were said that would perhaps been quite interesting to the world-at-large. However, there was an understanding that the purpose of the meeting was not to speak (at least not immediately) with and to the world about the topic, but rather to enable a productive conversation about the topic among a particular group of people.

While I’m not 100% certain about this, I would hazard a guess that the press were not alerted beforehand that these meetings were happening.  The reason is probably pretty obvious but I’ll just state it here. If the purpose is to get a group of people together to talk about something and you don’t think it will be interesting to the press or you don’t want the meeting to be a public one, you don’t send out a press release about it beforehand.

For some reason, after having invited 20 or so people to a meting, which all attendees were told was not going to be streamed on the web or in any other way made public, Arena Stage sent out a press release. And because the topic of the meeting sounds rather interesting, members of the press were eager to attend. But the agreement Arena had with all of the attendees going into this meeting was that the press would not be in attendance.

By agreeing to come to this exclusive meeting Peter Marks at the Washington Post has suggested that I and other people are part of the “1%” and “that we are required with opportunities such as this one to fling open the doors to the other 99”.

Really?  I am a big fan of transparency in the nonprofit sector and in documenting and sharing field discussions, but I think it is rather crazy to suggest that every meeting or gathering of people in the nonprofit cultural sector should be required to be open to everyone for viewing and that if attendees go to meetings that are not open to the public they are somehow betraying those who were not invited.

Leonard Jacobs (Clyde Fitch Report) Tweeted and asked me whether by ‘condoning’ this meeting “I truly believe that the 1% vs 99% argument couldn’t apply to you?” The implication that I’ve endorsed something rather egregious by showing up and documenting a meeting is strange to me. I wonder if every meeting that Leonard Jacobs attends has press in attendance?

Meetings happen. Some are intended to be public discussions and some are not.

This one, evidently, was not.

Arena did nothing wrong by wanting to have a meeting that was not public.  This happens every week of the year in nonprofit arts institutions and foundations across the US and around the world.

The only questionable move from my perspective was sending out a press release, which put the meeting on the radar of the press and then put Arena in the position of needing to defend why it had decided not to make the meeting public. Peter Marks deserved better and so did the attendees of this meeting who have now been made to look like jerks just for saying yes to an invitation to come together and talk to each other.

 

It’s been a great year. Thanks!

I may be unable to post much the next few weeks as I’m on planes and trains, buried in research materials, visiting friends and family that I too rarely get to see these days, and sprinting to the finish line on a few projects. But I want to take the opportunity to thank Doug Mclennan for the opportunity to launch Jumper on ArtsJournal.com (a gift for which I will be forever grateful) and to thank everyone that has taken the time these past twelve months to read posts, post comments, send emails, Tweet, ReTweet, republish, or otherwise engage.

In a year of transitions — single to married, no kids to stepmom, living in the US to living in the Netherlands, living in a cultural capital and seeing shows several nights a week to living in the suburbs and cooking potatoes several nights a week, working fulltime at a private foundation to going back to school — the transition to ‘blogger’ has been one of the best.

OK, not better than marrying my amazing husband, becoming a stepmom, and being adopted into my amazing Dutch family, but truly rewarding.

I will continue to challenge myself to make it worth your time to check out Jumper now and again; and I will continue to be grateful whenever you do so.

I will be back in full force in December.

Until then, gobble gobble.

 

The times may be a-changin’ but (no surprise) arts philanthropy ain’t

The Philanthropy News Digest recently sent me a bulletin with the headline, “Arts Funding Does Not Reflect Nation’s Diversity, Report Finds” which linked me to an AP Newsbreak article with the headline “Report finds arts funding serves wealthy audience, is out of touch with diversity”. My initial thought was, “Seriously? We need a report to tell us this?” The report, Fusing Arts, Culture, and Social Change: High Impact Strategies for Philanthropy, was produced by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and written by Holly Sidford.

Here are a couple paragraphs from the executive summary:

Every year, approximately 11 percent of foundation giving – more than $2.3 billion in 2009 – is awarded to nonprofit arts and culture. At present, the vast majority of that funding supports cultural organizations whose work is based in the elite segment of the Western European cultural tradition – commonly called the canon – and whose audiences are predominantly white and upper income. A much smaller percentage of cultural philanthropy supports the arts and traditions of non-European cultures and the  non-elite expressions of all cultures that comprise an increasing part of American society. An even smaller fraction supports arts activity that explicitly challenges social norms and propels movements for greater justice and equality.

This pronounced imbalance restricts the expressive life of millions of people, thus constraining our creativity as a nation. But it is problematic for many other reasons, as well. It is a problem because it means that – in the arts – philanthropy is using its tax-exempt status primarily to benefit wealthier, more privileged institutions and populations. It is a problem because our artistic and cultural landscape includes an increasingly diverse range of practices, many of which are based in the history and experience of lower-income and nonwhite peoples, and philanthropy is not keeping pace with these developments. And it is a problem because art and cultural expression offer essential tools to help us create fairer, more just and more civic-minded communities, and these tools are currently under-funded.

I am as discouraged as anyone by where many (but certainly not all) private foundations and wealthy individual donors give their support, and where they do not. However, my sense has never been that this behavior persists (and has perhaps become more pronounced as the demographics of the country are shifting dramatically) because the heads of foundations or the wealthiest donors in America were lacking a report explaining that too much of their money was going to arts organizations producing Western European ‘high art’ for white, upper middle class audiences.

The book Patrons Despite Themselves told very much the same story back in 1983 in its analysis of the ‘indirect’ system of funding the arts (that is, via the tax system rather than via direct grants from government). Feld, O’Hare, and Schuster concluded (among other things):

On balance, income to the arts is paid for disproportionately by the very wealthy and is enjoyed more by the moderately wealthy and the well educated. The demographic characteristics of the audience – the beneficiaries of the government aid – do not vary much across art forms. While the system tends to be redistributive, it is only so in a limited sense: from the very wealthy to the moderately wealthy.

Three of the recommendations in PDT regarding philanthropic decisionmaking are: (1) “decisions should reflect expertise in the subject”; (2) “public decisions in allocation of government support for the arts should reflect many varied kinds of tastes”; and (3) “arts decisionmaking must be independent of malign influence, that is, influence represented by narrow partisan politics or self-serving interests.”

We can see how much traction the authors had in the arts and culture sector with this message given the ‘elitism redux’ (and with more urgency) message in the new National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy report.

This is why I find it ironic when funders throw their arms up in the air, discouraged by declining attendance at ‘out-of-touch’ symphony orchestras and other fine art forms. It would seem that the growing gap between these organizations and their communities exists in large part because they continued to find support and legitimacy from high profile foundations even as they were raising ticket prices and failing to update their programming and becoming increasingly ‘non-representative’ of their communities over the past 30 years.

Moreover, if we are wondering why this decades-old message just doesn’t seem to ‘stick’ and change behavior, it may be worth taking a moment to recognize the “alliance between class and culture” that emerged with the very development of our nonprofit arts system in the US: “High art” was meant to serve the needs of urban elites and the hierarchical distinction between “high culture” and “popular culture” was meant to distinguish not simply two forms of culture but the types of people that patronized these forms of culture (DiMaggio 1982).

We have (and have had) a cultural divide in the US and the arts continue to contribute to it – not all arts, but certainly a large part of the sector that is often heralded as ‘leading’, ‘excellent’ and ‘world class’. You don’t end up with the large majority of your audience being white and wealthy by accident. Nor do you end up with the large majority of your funding portfolio going to assist those organizations that are primarily serving those white and wealthy people, by accident.

This is by design, folks.

I by no means want to suggest that it is a waste of time to periodically document the fact that private funding for the arts continues to primarily support upper middle class white people. This is, perhaps, a message that needs to be transmitted continually if the situation is to change. And, as the report accurately suggests, this issue is becoming more acute as arts funding fails to keep pace with dramatic socio-economic changes that are occurring.

Indeed. Taking the message one step further, I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that organizations whose value is reliant upon old institutions, old habits, and old social networks (centered around an old concept of ‘the cultural elite’) may very well find themselves on the wrong side of a cultural change in the years to come.

Arts organizations and their funders would seem to have a choice: be part of the change or fight to the death to uphold the dying system that for decades gave their work meaning. Perhaps their own survival (if not an interest in fairer and more civic-minded communities and a sincere desire to upend social norms and support social change) will ultimately prompt some of these institutions to change their behaviors?

 Poster designed by adbusters for #OccupyWallStreet.

 

 

Digitisation in the arts: Is there a do-over if we get it wrong?

I’ve recently come across four articles/papers that have me grappling with the promise and the potential threats of digitisation in the arts and culture sector.

At the end of September I read an article in “Inside Higher Ed” discussing some truly exciting advances in the ‘digital humanities’, a branch of the field that uses “technology-heavy approaches” to study and provide new ways of understanding and experiencing history, language, art and culture. The National Endowment for the Humanities recently hosted a conference with the 60 recipients of its Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants. Here’s how one is described in the article:

Heidi Rae Cooley, an assistant professor of new media studies at the University of South Carolina, presented [a]project, called “Desperate Fishwives.” The game “intends to introduce students to the kinds of social and cultural practices that would have been in play in a 17th Century British village,” Cooley explained. Students will be tasked with accumulating resources, completing social rituals, and solving some societal ill “before church or state intervene,” she continued. Afterward, students would render a prose account of their experiences — “and thereby learn of the nature and complexities of historiography.”

On the heels of reading about these innovative projects, which appear to have the potential to not only enrich research but also rejuvinate the humanities and open them up to a wider audience, I received an announcement from the NEA about the winners of the Knight/NEA Community Arts Journalism Challenge, which awards seed funds to projects pursuing innovative models for local arts journalism.

It’s also a terrific list of projects representing a diversity of approaches: a collective of trained journalists publishing across media platforms (Charlotte, N.C.), mobile video booths where audience members can record reviews (Detroit), an online marketplace and mobile app where citizen journalists can pitch stories on the local arts scene, team up with traditional media outlets, and produce the stories (Miami); a partnership between a university (staff, student, faculty, journalists) and a daily newspaper to expand arts coverage (Philadelphia); and a local arts event mapping feature + mobile app which enables people to add comments, reviews, and images (San Jose).

I was sincerely buoyed by the openness and forward-looking enthusiasm by those leading the projects featured in both of these articles, and  by the government agencies and private funders providing a platform for them along with some seed funding.

Then, last week, I came across the article on the Metropolitan Opera’s Fundraising Feat for FY11: it was announced that the Met had successfully raised $182 million for its most recently ended season. [To be honest, I’m not sure that I would characterize this as ‘great news’ …] In any event, the article also highlighted that the Met’s HD broadcasts had made a “profit” of $11 million (though the article does not clarify how this profit is calculated) and that, since 2008, attendance has flattened and even declined modestly for its live performances at Lincoln Center. On this point, the article states:

Mr. Gelb acknowledged for the first time that competition from the HD transmissions may have cannibalized box office sales, particularly from people in nearby cities like Boston, who might have traveled to New York before. But the financial loss was offset, he argued, by donor contributions from across the country that were generated by the excitement surrounding the broadcasts.

***

As I think I may have mentioned in a previous post, I was assigned as the lecturer for a course called “The Creative Economy and Creative Organizations” at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. One of the texts we read and discussed this term is a paper by David Hesmondhalgh, “The digitalisation of music” (a chapter in Pratt & Jeffcutt’s 2009 book Creativity, Innovation, and the Cultural Economy). Hesmondhalgh’s primary argument is that we need to understand the competing interests between those that produce and circulate “goods and services based on acts of symbolic creativity” (think: ‘operas’) and those that create the devices and processes on and by which they are increasingly experienced–many of which change the way we experience culture (think: file sharing, smart phones, etc.). He makes the point that these two sectors of capital have differing goals, notions of  creativity, and abilities to lobby government.

The Hesmondhalgh paper and the articles mentioned above have been circling each other in my mind for the past few days and have raised some questions for me related to the nonprofit arts and culture sector:

  1. Are we conscious of the competing interests of different sectors of capital and how they may be shaping our future?
  2. As we embrace digitalization, is the nonprofit sector, in particular, holding itself accountable for making sure that artists are supported and not further exploited by the progress that digitalisation provides in reaching more people with great art? Put another way, in this ‘knowledge economy’ race to own, control, and exploit the global intellectual property rights in perpetuity to anything and everything, will and should nonprofits hold themselves accountable for fostering diversity and not consolidation, keeping culture accessible, and making sure that artists are able to retain rights to the work they produce or, if not, get their fair share of profits?
  3. As new media technologies enable us to develop new tools and methods for creating, distributing, documenting, and discussing the arts and humanities are we conscious that we are not simply providing additional outlets, we are forever influencing the ways that people experience these forms of culture and that in all likelihood a good number will prefer these new methods to the old ones. I don’t know the statistics on this, but I would imagine that it’s likely that HD broadcasts are a complement for the live performance for some and a substitute for others and that this balance will evolve over time (that is, that for more and more people the broadcasts may become a substitute for the real thing).

This last point, in particular, I do not put forward in an effort to quash enthusiasm for the HD Broadcasts (or Desperate Fishwives, for that matter). I am a fan of the broadcasts and they have clearly expanded the reach of the Metropolitan Opera productions in a way that is pretty mindblowing. But when I read the line in the article noting that Gelb suspects that the broadcasts “may have cannibalized box office sales” for the live performances in NY I thought, “Of course … it’s only natural that they would. And surely you thought about this before you pursued the HD path? Surely, having come from Sony, you understood where this would lead?”

These three projects are not the same and by lumping them into one post I don’t intend to imply that they are easily compared. But I would suggest (following Hesmondhalgh’s point) that they are all changing the ways that people experience the arts and humanities. It’s good we are marching forward with the times … these are exciting developments. One of the best parts of these NEH and NEA programs is the opportunity to experiment with new models and discover what happens as a result.

If there is a point I want to make at the end of this way-too-long post it is perhaps this: Better that we in the nonprofit sector wrestle sooner than later with commerce v. art, principles v. pragmatics, preservation v. advancement of art forms, tradition v. innovation, diversity v. consolidation, local v. global, and the ethics and legalities of it all than simply follow the practices of the commercial herd and hope for the best.

 

What are we incubating and to what end?

A couple weeks back Thomas Cott published an issue of “You’ve Cott Mail” centered loosely on the theme of innovation and business incubators in the arts world, in which he linked to a post by one of my favorite bloggers/researchers/thinkers, Devon Smith. Devon contrasted the concept of ‘incubator’ in the tech world and the arts world. After reading her post I was curious to read up on technology and business incubators and ask myself what, exactly, arts incubators are incubating and to what end?

Devon makes the point that in the tech world it is ‘demo or die’ and that, in contrast, many arts incubators tend to be about process without the expectation of a deliverable on a certain time frame. Devon characterizes it as ‘we’re here to support you in however much you get accomplished for however long you are here’. Beyond the expectation to ‘demo or die’, however, there’s something else I learned in my reading: business incubators, philosophically and practically speaking, perceive themselves to be incubating the entire enterprise. At the end of 33 months (the average amount of time spent in a business incubator) it is expected that the startup can leave the nest with a viable business model and product and fly on its own.

How do these business incubators develop the whole enterprise? Devon talks about this in her post, as well, but I found a couple things particularly interesting. First, while they don’t necessarily provide venture capital, business incubators often serve as brokers and introduce entrepreneurs to venture capitalists, other successful entrepreneurs, or people that have knowledge and skills needed by the startup. Second, a successful tech incubator will provide access to high-end technology, as well as high-level marketing support, comprehensive adminstrative support, and hands-on business planning.

After reading about business incubators it struck me that it seems important to distinguish the purpose of an ‘incubator’ from (1) a one-to-three week ‘workshop’ or ‘residency’, which is meant to give an artist time to further develop a particular project and (2) ‘access to affordable office space, basic equipment, and business classes’ — which seem to be common types of support offered to artists and arts companies. These are not without value; but I would suggest that (particularly when provided by separate hosts) they do not an incubator make, if ‘incubation’ suggests a range of support and services aimed at making a venture viable and launching it into the world with a greater chance at success.

Devon suggests that art incubators seem to be reluctant to hold the groups they are incuabting accountable for success beyond a ‘good process’ and hypothesizes that perhaps arts incubators are ‘too nice, too forgiving’. I wonder whether the laissez faire nature of many arts incubators is a symptom of two things. (1) The rejection for the past 100 plus years of the notion that great art works can be born of a ‘shared vision’ between patron/investor and artist. (2) The widespread belief in the ‘fine arts world’ that ‘being truly artistic, excellent and innovative’ and ‘keeping an eye to the market with the goal of eventually selling the work to a mainstream audience’ are mutually exclusive endeavors.

Yes, it’s important to distinguish between the processes that best support the making or preservation of culture and those that best support its exploitation. But distinguishing between these two processes does not suggest that the two cannot coexist or that we should necessarily reject the latter as a goal if we care about the former.

What is the goal of a successful arts incubator? What should it be? Is it wrong to think that it should be not only about improving the quality of the work but also about discovering avenues by which to exploit it (i.e. derive full value from it) in the marketplace?

 

 

 

 

50+ years of backing away from the hazardous ledge of imagination

Last week the NEA announced a round of 34 grants totaling $11.5 million as part of a new program, ArtPlace, which aims to integrate artists and arts groups into local efforts in transportation, housing, community development and job creation as an important tool of economic recovery. ArtPlace is a joint-initiative of the NEA and a consortium of foundations, corporations and federal agencies. Luis A. Ubiñas, president of the Ford Foundation and chairman of the ArtPlace Presidents’ Council, is quoted saying: “The arts are inherently valuable, and they’re also part of what’s going to get us out of this economic problem we’re in.”

I must admit I winced as I read this quote. The nod to the inherent value of the arts seems somewhat insincere nuzzled as closely as it is to the rather bold statement that the arts are going to save us from our economic woes. On a whim, I pulled from the shelf my copy of the W. McNeil (Mac) Lowry edited book, The Performing Arts And American Society. Lowry was the much revered grants officer at the Ford Foundation. As director of the arts and humanities program (starting in 1957) Lowry recommended massive infusions of capital into the cultural sector over a period of approximately twenty years.  On p. 5 he lays out the ten claims, as he calls them, that were being made for the arts in American society in the 1950s: “The arts were said to be:

  1. Important to the image of the American society abroad.
  2. A means of communication and consequently of understanding between this country and others.
  3. An expression of national purpose.
  4. An important influence in the liberal education of the individual.
  5. An important key to an American’s understanding of himself, his times, and his destiny.
  6. A purposeful occupation for youth.
  7. In their institutional form, vital to the social, moral, an educational resources of an American community.
  8. Therefore good for business, especially in the new centers of population.
  9. Components for strengthening moral and spiritual bastions in a people whose national security might be threatened.
  10. An offset to the materialism of a generally affluent society.”

At the end of the list Lowry remarks,

Note that the arguments advanced for the arts in the fifties almost totally accept their role as a means to some other end. It is equally noteworthy that many of the proponents of these claims were busy translating their interest in the arts into buildings, a rash of cultural centers across the country. The so-called ‘cultural explosion’ of the fifties and sixties was in great part promotional.

Indeed, when you think about what was going on in the world in the mid-twentieth century and read this list it’s quite clear that the arts were being promoted as a symbol of freedom and capitalism and democracy.

Later in his book (p. 206) he writes,

At [a] philosophical and moral level, we must deal with what remains of the Puritan dilemma in American history—the ideal versus the useful, the sacral versus the materialistic. Though we are more than three centuries beyond Plymouth and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, how strongly does this influence persist? Or is it largely our historical consciousness of a stereotype that makes us wonder whether the public accepts artists or their creations only as instruments to educational and social ends? Who needs them?

And (on p. 181) in a section sub-titled The Hazard of Imagination:

The metaphysic of intellectual and moral energy is no simple matter. The human imagination, poetic or scientific, has few limits. It is impossible, and once one might have thought it undesirable, to try to control either. Imagination—lyrical, artistic, or mechanical — is the mortal enemy of habit and routine. Anything  threatening habit or routine, those relatively safe paths by which we endure to survive our hazards of accident or circumstance, causes suspicion and fear in various kinds of degrees. The scientist, since he or she is associated with metrics which impinge upon the necessity of maintaining breath and blood, is always protected and supported more than poets or artists whose imaginativeness, invention, or fantasy are both unmeasured and immediately unmeasurable.

Economic impact arguments may fail to fortify the footing of the arts in society in any meaningful or sustainable way; but by George, they sure do succeed in talking us back from the hazardous ledge of imagination, invention, and fantasy (oh my!).

And thus, over the past 2-3 decades, in the absence of good metrics for assessing the value of our distinctive qualities and in the midst of one economic crisis after another, we have increasingly defaulted to economic impact arguments to make the case for the arts. Even in this so-called ‘creative economy’ it seems it’s not actual artistic invention that is valued; rather, the arts are valued for symbolizing and signaling the trendy variety of ‘creativity’ that is perceived to lead to economic regeneration and that cities, regions, and industry so desperately want to coin.*

Is it worth noting that the inherent value of the arts is no more easily measured in France than in the US?

But, of course, they do have something the US doesn’t have. Among other interpretations, Mr. Lowry’s book (written in 1977) can be read as a plea for the articulation of a cultural policy. Absent a cultural policy (as we remain nearly 35 years later) we are left to induce the purpose or role of the arts in US society from the nature of grants made (or initiatives supported) by the NEA and the public statements issued about them.

PS: Those who have been following this blog since I started it last November will know that I am not a fan of the economic impact defense. (See my first two posts on this blog here, and here for some thoughts on the topic.)

20 Sep 2011 amendment to this post: Carol Coletta has clarified that “ArtPlace is not a program of the NEA”. My sincere apologies for misconstruing it as such.

* For more on this topic see Chris Bilton (2006), Management and Creativity, pp. 158-66.

 

Works-in-process in an everyone-is-a-critic-now world.

If inviting general audiences into the artistic process now means potentially inviting them to share their feedback with the world does this change how we think about presenting works-in-development for public audiences?

Perhaps I have a skewed perception, but it strikes me that over the past couple decades (at least in the US) arts organizations have increasingly presented half- or nearly-baked works to the public and (in many cases) charged them money for the privilege of seeing this work. For a variety of reasons, we have invited patrons into the process and have sold them on the idea that (1) this will increase their knowledge and understanding of an artform or (2) their presence and feedback will be valuable to the creators.

It is perhaps worth questioning whether we are sincere when we say these things and under what conditions these statements are true.

A related phenomenon: sometimes we haven’t invited patrons into the process as much as thrust it upon them. Sometimes works ‘in development’ are not advertised as such; they are rather deceptively called ‘previews’ or ‘world premieres’. By this I mean (for example) preview periods which producers or artists use to make significant changes to a piece, or works that are essentially being developed in performance at one or more venues on their way to New York (though being sold to audiences as if they were finished).

Recently there has been a good deal of chatter and discussion about the impact of amateur critics or passionate patrons (and recently a professional critic or two) blogging or tweeting reviews or comments on works ‘in development’ or shows ‘in preview’. In general it seems these have been seen by artists and producers as breaches of trust. But given the growing power and influence of consumers, and given that we have welcomed them in and charged them money and promoted the importance of their presence and opinions, is it any wonder that they now want (or feel entitled or even encouraged) to blog about their experiences?

While some may wish that we could enter into ‘contracts’ with patrons and require them to respect the artistic process and hold their tongues, this strikes me as impractical, unenforceable, and potentially destructive to relationships with patrons. Here are some other options, posed as (quite sincere) questions:

  • Do we need to do away with works-in process for the general public and simply present work that is finished and ready for review?
  • If we do works-in-process, do we need to be much more honest and explicit with audiences about our reasons for doing them and what we consider their role to be (or not to be)? (We might start by figuring this out for ourselves.)
  • Is it possible that if a work-in-process gets a dig by a patron or amateur critic that readers are astute enough to know that the piece is still being rehearsed and will wait to form their opinions on whether or not to attend?
  • Is it possible that if a blogger writes a piece dismissing a work in its development he or she may return and write again about the evolution of the piece and that this story might be more interesting than simply hearing about the finished product?
  • Is it possible that any conversation about a work (negative or positive) is better than no conversation at all and will likely make people more inclined to see the piece?
  • Is it possible that among the opinions expressed by passionate patrons and amateur critics about works-in-process that we might actually find some valuable insights?

One final question regarding works-in-process that are disguised as ‘previews’ and ‘world premieres’: putting aside for the present moment the (perhaps quite legitimate) reasons why such things occur, we might ask ourselves whether a public performance that is being used to make major changes to an artistic work should be called something else.

Dress Rehearsal, perhaps?

 

But What Does Barry’s List Mean?

So Barry’s Blog posted its annual Top 25 Most Powerful and Influential Leaders in the Nonprofit Arts list last week. In years’ past I would see this list and bemoan the fact that it seemed to be dominated by funders. I never said anything because I thought it would probably come across as sour grapes since I was, at the time, a funder (but not one that made the list).  As it turns out, this year I squeaked onto the list … barely. And so (with this new found and, no doubt, short-lived position of influence) I have decided to raise the question:

What are we to make of this list and who is on it?

One point of clarification: my aim is not to debate the merits of individuals on the list. My concern is with the overall makeup of the list. I attempted to raise this issue by commenting on Barry’s post last week. Here’s an edited version of what I wrote, building on a comment by Rachel who noted the absence of arts organization leaders beyond Michael Kaiser:

Where are the amazing managing and executive directors of arts organizations on this list? For that matter, where are the artists and artistic directors? I find myself troubled by the fact that this list is so dominated by funders, bloggers (like me), policy wonks, and people running intermediary organizations – despite the fact that some of these people are friends and many are people I deeply respect. Even when I worked at a foundation I thought that it was not such a great thing that so many funders show up on this list each year.

Barry gave a thoughtful response in which he clarified (rightly so) that his list was about arts administration and organizational leadership, and that artists did not appear on the list because nominators were asked not to recommend artists. He also noted that while there were countless things about the sector that troubled him the fact that the list was dominated by funders and policy types was not one of them. Another commenter (following mine) asserted that we need the ‘wonks’ and encouraged them to ‘wonk on’.

These are all valid points. I deny neither the need for policymakers, or funders, or service organizations nor their importance as entities that (often, at least ideally) have both the benefit of a systems perspective on the field and the ability to intervene and have positive impact. They are powerful and influential; and some of them should be on the list.

But I would argue that we should not be content that among the 44-ish people that appear to represent the top 25 and those ‘bubbling under’ only one (Michael Kaiser) actually runs or works in a nonprofit arts institution (that is not related primarily to arts education). Notably, Barry agreed (with Rachel’s point) and said he thought there were “any number of exemplary leaders of performing arts organizations that not only could be, but really ought to be on this list.”

Believe me, I fully understand why the list is constituted as it is. But it suggests a power/influence imbalance in our sector that one-third or one-half of the list is not made up of leaders within arts organizations (and by ‘leaders’ I do not mean to imply ‘directors’) and particularly artistic leaders (yes, being influential and powerful in such areas as arts administration, funding, advocacy, and organizational leadership). As I also wrote in my comment on Barry’s Blog:

If this were the 1960s or 70s W. McNeil (Mac) Lowry at the Ford Foundation would no doubt have been on the list, but so would have been Zelda Fichandler (founding artistic director of Arena Stage), Joe Papp (at the Public) and several other artistic/producing directors (and that’s just the theater).

Robert (Bob) Brustein, founder of Yale Repertory Theatre and American Repertory Theatre (ART) at Harvard University has written (I believe) 16 books on theatre and society over the past three decades or so—the majority of those while he was serving as a director at ART. Regardless of whether one embraces his viewpoints, one cannot deny that the theater world is better off because he was actively contributing to the conversation on such topics as the role of theater in society and what systems (including management, financial, political) support or hinder the making of art. He was not at all hesitant to challenge the decisions of policymakers, funders, and others. In 2000 he contributed an essay to a great book, The Politics of Culture, (G. Bradford, M. Gary, and G. Wallach eds.) entitled “Coercive Philanthropy.” The title (rather wonderfully) speaks for itself.

We are not having an enlightened dialogue about the current state or imagined future of the arts if among the 25 (or 44?) most powerful people thinking about the systems for funding, managing, and administrating arts institutions (again, excluding the arts education subset of the list, which seems to have achieved a better ‘balance’) none are artistic directors, or artistic staff, or artists.

Cynically, I wonder whether artists (etc.) would end up on the list even if Barry removed the rule that excludes them from being nominated. I say this not because we don’t have another generation or two of Roberts, Zeldas, and Joes working in the arts and culture sector (please forgive the theater bias; it’s the history I know best), but because I don’t trust they’d get nominated.

Barry writes in the introduction to the list:

Like every other field or profession, there are those in the nonprofit arts who are powerful and influential. To pretend that any world (ours included) is not stratified, tiered, territorial and subject to politics and disproportionately controlled by an oligarchy at the top is naïve. I believe the people who work in our field are passionate and motivated and seek the higher good, but I also recognize that they are human beings, and that our field isn’t some separate and perfect world – and that power and influence are tangible currency – sometimes spent wisely, other times needlessly squandered.

What I take from this passage is that the field should be engaged with which names are on this list and which are not. Thus, I’d be curious what people think of the list. Again, I’m not asking for opinions on individuals who are either on or off the list (as Barry notes, people are bound to have diverse points of view on the merits of individuals on the list). Rather, I’m interested to hear reflections on the overall makeup of the list—the types of people on it—and what this might say about the sector. In other words, what (if anything) does this list mean? Do you give the list much thought? If so, what do you think about it? And if it means nothing to you, why is that?

I wonder whether the shape of this list reflects the fact that arts organizations (and by that I mean the individuals working within and for them) have, over the past three decades, ceded too much of the power and influence over the arts and culture sector to funders, government agencies, and service organizations? Am I wrong about this?

Despite having concerns about the lack of people working in arts organizations on the list and some questions about the methodology used to generate the list (I wonder how representative it is), I would be disingenuous if I said that getting on the list meant nothing to me. I sincerely enjoy writing my blog and am deeply gratified when people read it much less take the time to Tweet about it, or post comments, or otherwise engage with the ideas. But I would also be remiss if I did not say that (with very few exceptions) I am largely influenced (and inspired) by those working in the trenches, in arts organizations. This is because I spent the majority of my career working in arts organizations and I know that the picture on the inside is much different than the one often envisioned or theorized by researchers, consultants, funders, and policy makers.

The lesson in my new tree for arts policy makers

About my tree:

Last month my husband and I hired a small family-owned landscaping business to help us renovate the small gardens in the front and back of our house. They planted three new trees, two of which are young (thin) but already quite tall. They planted the trees with support poles on either side to ensure they grow straight (see pic). As I have never had a garden I asked how many weeks the poles would need to stay. The answer: three years.

About the production houses in the Netherlands:

For years the Netherlands has had a unique system of support for promising performance artists and theater makers who have finished their training: dedicated production houses. As I understand it, these houses are often affiliated with larger theaters, drawing on resources they can provide, but are funded by the government and operate independently. They provide multiyear production support for artists after university (e.g. cash resources so artists can invest time in the research and development of their works and pay other artists, tech support, dramaturgy, promotion, etc.). During these post-grad residencies the emphasis is on strengthening the artist’s work.

I was with a gathering of artistic directors and performing arts curators last week at which we met several artists, including two that had come through this system and who spoke of the importance of the production houses in helping them become better artists and develop successful careers. We asked how long the support lasted. Their initial residencies were three years.

About the funding cuts in the Netherlands:

Among the many orchestras, dance companies, and other arts organizations that are going to be defunded in 2013, the Ministry of Culture has determined to shut down all 23 production houses in the Netherlands. This strikes me as a particularly unenlightened decision. For one, these production houses are relatively inexpensive to operate (they are a big bang for a small investment); second, the production houses play a critical role in the arts ecosystem here; third, they seem to help the Netherlands attract and retain truly talented theater/performance artists.

I am unsettled by what appears to be a strategy in the Netherlands of maintaining investments to the most high profile fine arts organizations while leaving many smaller organizations, artist companies, and intermediary organizations to fend for themselves. The rhetoric that is being perpetuated in the case of the production houses is that they will be taken under the wing of bigger institutions or become more entrepreneurial and find other sources of support. Given the short timeframe (the cuts go into effect in 2013) both scenarios seem highly unrealistic.

In any event, it seems that not many in the arts sector are buying the rhetoric. Quite a number of the artistic directors and artists our group met with spoke of planning to leave the Netherlands by 2013. Of course, as someone said to me a few days ago, this could be considered a positive outcome from the standpoint of the government.

Pfffffff. Cue the flashback reel of the US in the 80s and 90s.

The Netherlands is not alone in wanting to encourage private sector support for the arts. But there are smart ways and not-so-smart ways of doing this.

About ArtSupport Australia:

Several years ago now (after changing the tax laws to make it easier and more beneficial for individuals to set up small trusts and foundations), the Australia Arts Council started an arm’s length organization, run by visionary Louise Walsh, whose role is to broker relationships between small and midsized arts organizations and small private family foundations and trusts. ArtSupport Australia (ASA) meets with donors, talks to them about the importance of supporting the arts, and identifies organizations that might fit with their values; it mentors arts organizations to help them develop realistic funding strategies and prepare effective proposals; and it makes matches between the two. It’s a brilliant system and has had tremendous positive impact over the years.

While Kickstarter and other crowdfunding models seem to be working for some types of individual artists and projects and larger institutions have the capacity to buy fundraising expertise and (as a result of being high profile) tend to be attractive major private donors and foundations, a mechanism for connecting smaller family foundations with smaller and midsized arts organizations and ensembles/companies seems like a missing cog in many arts funding systems (including in the US). Even community foundations and donor advised funds aren’t really set up to fulfill this particular role.

When ArtSupport Australia was founded it received three years of support from the government. Even before the end of the initial funding period it was clear that it was working and the government has funded it consistently ever since. There’s an important tangential point here:  a big part of what makes ASA work (which, not unlike the production houses, is a lean organization that provides big bang for the buck) is that the Australia Arts Council is committed to funding it. It would change ASA (and compromise its mission) if it suddenly had to raise all of its operating expenses by skimming off a percentage of every gift or competing against the organizations it exists to support by competing directly for support from private donors.

Over the past year I’ve been asked rather frequently for my thoughts on how to encourage private support for the arts in the Netherlands, in light of the pending cuts. I’ve directed people to an an essay I wrote about some of the issues we face with the US system and I’ve said the same thing to everyone: the ArtSupport Australia model is brilliant and I think it would work very well in the Netherlands. I could easily imagine such a system, for instance, helping to broker relationships between a number of enlightened families, individuals and small firms and the production houses here.

***

As I’ve written before, cutting off the sprinklers to the grass and small shrubs while continuing to water the old, tall trees is not the path to a vibrant arts and culture sector. Too often, arts policy makers develop policies that demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding about such things as: the interdependencies between large organizations and small ones, and the commercial arts sector and the subsidized sector; what makes a city attractive to artists; how good artists become great artists; what motivates donors to give; how difficult it is for some very worthy organizations to be competitive in the funding process; and the time and personal connections that it takes for donors and arts organizations to form relationships that are beneficial and that will be sustained through good economic times and bad ones.

My young tree needs supports if it is going to become a healthy, large tree. Young artists need developmental support if they are going to become great artists. Countries without a culture of asking and giving need a support system if effective long term relationships are going to be built between private donors and the arts sector, particularly if there is a hope that more than just the large, historically leading organizations will be supported by private donors. Policy makers need to be smarter about how the arts ecosystem works so that they know where to provide support structures and for how long.

Australia got it right. I’ll be interested to see what the Netherlands does in the coming months and years.

How to avoid a strip-mall future for the arts sector: Lessons from the boutique label, Pi

This past week I came across a New York Times article featured on ArtsJournal examining the remarkable success of the indie Jazz label, Pi. The article demonstrates that Pi is bucking trends in the music industry. It is managing to not just keep its head above water at a time when many music labels are struggling, but it is having tremendous impact despite being a relatively small Jazz label focused on the leading edge of its artform.

Here are a few keys to Pi’s success (which I gleaned from the article):

(1)   Unlike many labels that flood the market with product (often as a hedge against the uncertainty of not knowing which will succeed or not), Pi releases a handful of albums per year and is highly selective in choosing which artists to get behind. Virtually everything it releases meets with critical acclaim. Because it has earned a reputation for consistently putting out great albums and has a very clear niche, it has a devoted (and growing) fan base.

(2)   Given its limited release schedule, and the limited revenue potential of each of its releases (these are not mainstream artists), Pi keeps its overhead low. Its owners are pragmatic and disciplined. By staying small they have been able to maintain artistic integrity.

(3)   Pi has a long courtship with an artist before it makes a commitment. Once in, however, Pi invests deeply in the development of its artists and ensures that each receives sufficient resources, attention, and support from the label. This is a critical factor in the label’s remarkable track record and reputation.

Pi’s strategies are serving both its artists and its customers.

Given an overabundance of product and seats to fill on any given night in many communities (relative to current ‘demand’) and (sorry to say) the not-quite-ready-for-primetime-quality of much the so-called ‘professional’ work that is produced and presented in the US, it’s worth considering the lessons of Pi (which are not new, of course).

It seems that more than a few overleveraged and underperforming professional nonprofit arts organizations need to both better differentiate themselves and hold themselves to higher artistic standards; to right-size their institutions and reduce fixed costs given the amount of income they can reasonably expect for the forseeable future; and to provide more time, attention, and resources to artists and to the development, production, and thoughtful promotion of artistic works.

I’d much rather live in a community with a sustainable number of boutique arts organizations than one with a deluxe mall featuring four high-end department-stores (the ‘flagship’ orchestra, theater, opera, and ballet companies) that suck up the majority of the resources and a bunch of strip malls made up of undercapitalized retail chains and mom-and-pop shops that either saw their best days in 1985 and haven’t been able to make improvements since, or were formed in recent years and (while perhaps promising) are struggling for attention, customers and capital.

I seriously fear that the strip mall nonprofit arts sector is our future. There are arts boutiques out there, but in many cities they are few and far between and seem endangered.

How and why so many arts organizations in the US have grown to unsustainable levels in recent decades is a topic that requires more reflection than I can give in a blog post. However, I will say this: it often seems that capacity building in the arts sector is (1) aimed primarily at securing the administrative futures of arts organizations and (2) resulting in an erosion of quality and distinction in artistic processes and experiences, today. I by no means wish to suggest that the answer to an overbuilt sector is to starve it into a more sustainable state; but it is reasonable to think that we need to seriously rethink how existing resources are distributed (within and among institutions).

We tend to think of a ‘sustainable state’ for the arts and culture sector as being one in which existing arts organizations have achieved equilibrium and can crank along in perpetuity. This is wrongheaded: even if we could achieve a state in which all existing organizations could secure adequate resources to keep running year-after-year, the lack of creative destruction in the sector would eventually lead to its stultification (oh wait, we may be there now). This is one of the consequences of letting some institutions get ‘too big to fail’ (and too big is relative to the size of city you are in and the other arts organizations in your market): the majority of arts sector resources get sucked into the incumbents and rather than creative destruction (reinvention of those firms or their replacement by younger, more innovative ones) we end up with plain old destruction (losing the boutiques and watching the big organizations calcify).

Pi may or may not last for another 50 years (much less beyond the lives of its owners/founders). But while it exists it is having positive cultural and social impact. That’s more than we can say about many professional nonprofit arts organizations in the US.

Generic strip-mall image by Mark Winfrey, licensed at Shutterstock.com.

 

No algorithms needed for this show recommender system

I’m back from my honeymoon and a brief hiatus from Jumper. Despite a volatile stock market, downgrading of the US credit rating, questions about the fate of the Euro, and arts budgets hither and yon that are already slashed or soon to be so, the 2011-2012 arts season begins (although sadly with the loss of some very good organizations). I’ll be honest, since moving to the Netherlands I have not seen nearly as much work as I would have liked. This is primarily due to other commitments (family, Dutch lessons, work) and logistics (I have a long commute home, particularly if a show lets out past 10:30 pm). But it is also partly due to the fact that I have had a difficult time figuring out the performance scene here, despite knowing a number of artists, companies and organizations before I arrived.

In any event, one morning this past week I engaged in what now feels like a rather old fashioned way of getting information on an arts event: I perused a thick brochure describing shows featured in the upcoming ten-day Nederlands Theater Festival in Amsterdam. The festival features remounts of some of the best theater works produced in the last season (selected by an outside
jury that also awards prizes) as well as other works and activities. After browsing the 62-page program book I determined that (at a minimum) I would see the three works that advertised English surtitling; but beyond that, I was uncertain which shows I might enjoy. I handed the materials to my husband, Jaap, saying “I wish I knew more about these companies.” He paged through the materials and came to the last page and read out loud to me (translating from Dutch to English):

“Would you like to receive personalized advice about the performances?”

“Oh yeah, call me back!”

I thought, “Oh, that’s cool. They have their box office staff call people to give advice on purchases.” Wrong. There was a form asking for my name and telephone number and asking who among the following I would like to call me:

  • a member of the jury,
  • one of the theater makers (an actor or director from one of the shows featured in the festival),
  • the director of the festival,
  • or a professional theater adviser (I’m not quite sure what this means).

I’ve long thought that ‘concierge services’ are sorely needed in the live professional arts scene. One of the recurring themes from my talks at marketing conferences is that arts organizations could create greater value for their patrons by giving personalized advice aimed at helping people navigate the arts scene and make better purchase decisions. I’ve suggested that arts groups could use citywide arts and culture portals to do this (using a recommender system + patron reviews/comments + top picks by arts staff, artists, and culture vultures) or box office staff or volunteers specifically equipped to give such advice (via chat or telephone).

Never in my wildest dreams did I think that an arts organization might offer the director of its festival, or a member of the jury, or the actor or director associated with a particular show as the person to give such advice (except perhaps as a benefit to major donors and other VIPs, which I imagine happens on an ad hoc basis all the time). It’s certainly the first time I’ve encountered such a service for the general public.

I kept looking at the form with amazement and (I must say) a wee bit of skepticism. So, these people will call me back, I thought, but will they enjoy doing so or is this an ‘audience development’ program that has members of the artistic staff rolling their eyes? Will the advice really be personalized, or are the advisers programmed to ask a few standard questions (classical, contemporary or experimental? drama or comedy? bare bones or highly produced?) and then nudge people towards one or two obvious slots?(Which isn’t to say that a call-center-style service, in and of itself, might not be of value.)

My amazement and skepticism is based on years (in the US) of having my mailbox flooded with artfully designed postcards with no information on a show (sometimes not even a date or location); years of taking the time to read the descriptions of shows in promotional materials and feeling that I might as well pick which show to see using the eeny meeny miny moe method; and trying to use the filters on online cultural calendars and finding that no matter what I plug in the site wants to send me to something like Beauty and the Beast on Ice. In other words, it’s based on years of the arts scene sending the message: If you can’t figure out what to see based on the information we’ve provided that’s a good indication that you may be happier driving to the local Cineplex and seeing Bridesmaids (which I loved).

I also love the work of Ivo van Hove and Toneelgroep Amsteram and Dood Paard, which are two of the companies I plan to see at the Nederlands Theater Festival. And I love the spirit and aims of this ‘at your service’, high-level, personalized callback program (though I am also very curious to learn whether they have many takers of the service and, if so, if it becomes a burden for those on the hook to make calls). While rather incredulous, I’m betting on being pleasantly surprised. I plan to fill out the form and await a return phone call from no less than the director of the festival, Jeffrey Meulman.

 

 

Arts Orgs: Places 2Meet or Not2Meet?

I’m getting married in a couple weeks and then headed on my honeymoon so this will be my last post until mid-August. Enjoy these summer days!

Seats2Meet - Utrecht

So, I recently learned about an innovation in meeting spaces that was founded in the Netherlands and has begun to spread across Europe. It’s called Seats2Meet. The concept is a communal space where independent contractors or those simply in need of a temporary workspace can come to plug-in, meet-up, and network. I visited a new location at Utrecht Central Station, near my home.

The day I visited the place was buzzing but still conducive to taking care of business. The vibe was relaxed and social, but definitely work-focused. The users of the space, each invariably armed with a laptop or tablet, worked solo or clustered in 2s and 3s at round and rectangular tables throughout an open space. Additionally, I spied a private ‘board room’ and a ‘quiet room’. There was also a coffee station in the middle of the room.

Talking with the staff, I learned that work tables/seats are free to use, however, Seats2Meet requests that anyone interested to use the space sign up at least one day prior. This allows them to alert potential users if the space appears to be maxed out at certain times of the day and, if so, to encourage users to come at a different time or go to a different location. All users have access to free coffee and tea throughout the day, and (in some locations) a free lunch (that’s right, a free lunch). Seats2Meet also stresses in its materials that it is both an online and live space to network and share knowledge.

How is this paid for, you ask? Well, according to the person that gave me the scoop, the free seats are subsidized by the those who pay to use private meeting spaces and spots in the quiet work rooms, which are rented in blocks of time for an hourly fee; (so, at least in part, it operates with a Freemium business model). I gather that the company also has a partnership program whereby entrepreneurs can license the Seats2Meet name and start franchises in their communities.

If I were (re)designing an arts venue these days, I think I would look into the feasibility of a Seats2Meet franchise being located in the space. Arts venues would seem to have at least a few advantages as locales for these work/meeting spaces: they often have space that goes unused during the day; they are associated with ‘creativity’ (and Seats2Meet is particularly interested in appealing to creative freelance types); and arts organizations could go one better than a ‘free lunch’ — they could potentially host happy hour performances or exhibitions at the end of the workday or week. For those organizations with excess real estate, or striving to be a ‘community hub’, or endeavoring to get more people to use their spaces during the day, perhaps a Seats2Meet franchise (or something similar) is worth exploring? Here’s a link to information on the partnership program.

But beyond the potential incorporation of the Seats2Meet concept into the planning of an arts facility, I keep thinking about the expectation (actually one of the stated rules on a sign when you visit) that Seats2Meet members (unless they are in the ‘quiet room’, presumably) should be open to sharing their knowledge and talking with others. Seats2Meet is striving to create an online network and to be a community, not simply a work space for the knowmadic.

Ostensibly nonprofit arts organizations are in the community-building business; but you sure wouldn’t know it when you visit many of them. I wonder how many arts groups would hang a sign in the lobby saying, “By coming here today you are not simply viewing a performance, you are participating in a community event. We ask you to introduce yourself to those standing and seated around you and to be open to conversation from others. After the performance, we’ll keep the bar open and continue to serve drinks and desserts for a couple hours; we encourage you to stay awhile and talk with others who came to see this performance tonight.”

Of course, it’s much easier to get people to stay if you have a cozy space where they can sit and talk. Hmmmm …. perhaps an evening use for that Seats2Meet location? … Workspace by day, lounge by night?

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