In the business world, this would be illegal collusion. In opera, it’s a way to help struggling companies survive.

I wish I could say it was money, but it’s not. And the idea was too little, too late for the Baltimore Opera Company and the Connecticut Opera, which were too crippled to avoid being shut down in recent months. But maybe the information-sharing that Opera America decided to begin last fall will help its nearly 200 member

companies through this recession. It’s a little idea, but it may be a useful one for other arts organizations, too.

Since December, Opera America has been convening monthly telephone conference calls for its members’ general directors. During the calls, they discuss their operations, the remedial measures they’re taking, what works, what doesn’t. All very practical stuff.  

“We talk about strategies, and share our best ideas,” Marc A. Scorca (left), Opera America’s president/CEO, told me. So far, 80 pecent of his members have participated in at least one of the monthly calls. At that rate, they have to be learning something useful. After each call, Opera America circulates summaries of what was said to members, who presumably pass them on to their boards, Scorca said. (I certainly hope they are doing that — boards need this information.)  

The program has been so well-received that Opera America recently started…

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Every year the World Economic Forum, also known as Davos, selects a crop of 200 to 300 Young Global Leaders of Tomorrow. “Extraordinary” people all, they’re supposed to work together on global problems, using their knowledge and energy to make the world a better place. Drawn from the business, academic, non-profit, arts and media worlds, they meet at biannual summits, plus other Forum events, and collaborate on various initiatives. They network.

I have no idea what actual good comes of this. But I thought it would be interesting to see who from the arts made the 2009 list, which was announced last month. It has 230 names; from the arts come… 

[Read more…] about Who are the world’s arts leaders of the future?

Maybe the wave of censure directed at several museums for selling art from their collections has had a positive impact: yesterday, the Indianapolis Museum of Art announced that it has created and put online a searchable database of the art it has decided to deaccession, following a review of its collections begun in 2007. 

You can see what has been sold for what amount and what will be sold. In the future, IMA promises to link proceeds received from deaccessioned works to the new art they purchased. (That, of course, is the only way money from deaccessions is to be used, in accordance with Association of Art Museum Directors’ policies.) IMA also posted its deaccessioning policy.

If other museums do this, I haven’t seen it. I looked at some of the usual suspects (the Guggenheim, MoMA, etc.) just in case someone snuck it in while no one was watching, but — zip on deaccessions. Therefore, kudos to Max Anderson, head of IMA, for knowing the value of transparency.

I hope others follow his lead. If museums are going to clean house from time to time — and they are — let them at least do it in public, giving advance word.

You can see the IMA database here. 

For the last couple of years, IMA has also published a (sort of) real-time dashboard with statistics on museum energy use, the number of new works on view, the endowment’s value, the number of hours spent conserving art works, membership, and attendance, etc. One savvy person whose opinion I respect dismisses the dashboard as a gimmick — and maybe it is. I still like it.

Photo: American Art Gallery, IMA, Courtesy IMA  

Late last week, the White House seems to have appointed an arts czar — but no one seems to have noticed. His name is Kareem Dale, according to a short item in Saturday’s New York Times. As of 1 p.m. on Monday, there’s no press release on WhiteHouse.gov and no reports of the appointment at the Associated Press or Reuters.

I don’t know Mr. Dale, a lawyer from Chicago who is partially blind, but he doesn’t seem to have much of a profile. Searches on Google and Kosmix and in Factiva (which has articles from most major newspapers and many minor ones) turned up very little.

According to published reports, Dale hails from Chicago, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in advertising from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and stayed there to earn a law degree and an MBA, which he received in 1999. He founded and is CEO of The Dale Law Group, which has no website. Campaign finance records show that Dale contributed $2,300 to Obama’s campaign in 2008 (and about the same during the primary season); then he volunteered for it. At some point, he became the campaign’s Disability Vote Director. The only mention of arts I could find was during his campaign volunteer days, when Dale was a member of the campaign Arts Policy Committee, plus service on the board of Chicago’s Black Ensemble Theater.

I can’t help but think this is not what many people in the cultural world had in mind when they asked President Obama to appoint a powerful person in the White House to raise the profile of the arts in the U.S.

Another oddity: in mid-February, the White House announced that it had named Dale to the post of Special Assistant to the President for Disability Policy. He still seems to hold that post. 

Stay tuned.  

It’s a rare cultural institution — maybe even a unique one — that hasn’t had to cut its budget in these turbulent times. And everyone’s still worried about further declines and even closures. For some perspective, I decided to call someone who’s been both an advice-giver and an arts manager — Adrian Ellis, once a fulltime consultant in the arts and, since 2007, the Executive Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Like me, Ellis thinks there’ll be more casualities, because single-digit budget trimming isn’t enough. Museums, he believes, will have to close galleries to lower their fixed costs, and performing arts groups, for example, may have to band together to share resources. Ellis also says that the old “pyramid” model for fundraising — where 10% of the donors give 90% of the money — is “too steep.” Smart institutions will seek more money from smaller donors to broaden their base. They will also sharply focus their programs, because those that survive will be the institutions with clear, well-defined missions that have rabid fans — and the big ones integral to a community’s identity.

But is Ellis practicing, at Jazz, what he preaches?   

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