{"id":1086,"date":"2024-11-12T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/?p=1086"},"modified":"2024-11-06T06:30:10","modified_gmt":"2024-11-06T06:30:10","slug":"so-that-happened-now-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/scenechange\/2024\/11\/12\/so-that-happened-now-what\/","title":{"rendered":"So. THAT Happened. Now What?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Regardless of the elections, the issues haven\u2019t changed for US nonprofit arts organizations. But the stakes are higher than ever.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Life can happen just about anywhere. (Photo by svklimkin from Pixabay)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been a week since election day, and rather than discussing that process, let\u2019s take a moment to congratulate whichever ones of us survived the last couple of years. We may not last through the next four, but at least we\u2019ve gotten this far. And that, dear friends, is something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all, this is the least habitable place in our current universe on which to live (except, as Churchill might have said, all of the other ones). Of the billions of life forms that have ever existed on Earth, well over 99% of them are now extinct. Remember the quote we used to describe theater companies that go out of business? \u201cEvery Broadway show that has ever been produced has closed, except for the ones open right now.\u201d The same is true, in much grander ways, of life forms on this treacherous blue marble we call home. Extinction is not a bad thing. It\u2019s relatively inevitable, unless, well\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There\u2019s always a future if you\u2019re a cockroach. (Photo by Erik Karits from Pexels)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a lot of dumb luck involved in living. I\u2019ll always remember the song that parodied Max Ehrmann\u2019s \u201cDesiderata<\/a>,\u201d a 1920s-era poem that was adopted by the flower children of the 1960s. The parody, \u201cDeteriorata<\/a>,\u201d by the National Lampoon, was produced as a song, with the chorus, \u201cYou are a fluke of the universe.\/You have no right to be here.\/And whether you can hear it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back.\u201d And gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson once said that \u201cLuck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it.\u201d If that doesn\u2019t describe the difference between being and not being, I don\u2019t know what does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At the same time, the retort to the National Lampoon, sung in summer camps across America \u2014 \u201cWe\u2019re here because we\u2019re here because we\u2019re here because we\u2019re here\u201d \u2014 now makes perfect sense. After all, there was no instruction manual (all religious texts were, at the very least, scribed by human beings) and there is no purpose for our existence except that which we determine ourselves. We are here, for the most part, because we are here; not as a fatalistic or nihilistic experience, but as an experience intended to generate wonder and anticipation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For nonprofit arts organizations, the pool in which I swam in for 30 years or so, there is a love for hierarchy \u2014 even among the most vociferous of radical artistic leaders. Hierarchy is one method of making order out of chaos and lightens the organizational load. However, hierarchy is, at its heart, a tool of subjugation. \u201cDo what I say because I know more than you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chaos, on the other hand, allows for almost any result \u2014 something treasured by the most creative minds among us. So, when hierarchy meets chaos and neither side budges, the friction can cause sparks. Sparks of purpose are reminders that our current universe was created by a bang and a near-infinite number of sparks, the purpose to which we\u2019ll likely never know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(Photo by cottonbro studio from Pexels)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Of course, if only hierarchy wins, there are no sparks. Generally speaking, the larger the arts organization, the more likely that the supposed predictability of hierarchy prevails. It\u2019s a Pyrrhic victory, because the art is highly controlled by agents, marketers, and the influence peddlers on the board and staff. The last bastion of the chaos in nonprofit arts organizations is that which enables a Grand Dilemma, and later, a Grander Compromise:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Us (the non-artistic taste-makers on the board) make a bargain with Them (the keeper of the artistic chaos) to compel Their creation of Their own, personal \u201cartistic vision,\u201d then Us can control Our status and They will be placated by vainglorious control of others\u2019 artistic exploits and the illusion of being one of Us. Then, when things get out of hand, this bargain dictates that Us fires Them and hires a new Them with the same stipulations.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Okay, maybe not so cut-and-dried. I\u2019m sure there are a lot of unrepresented society doyennes and toxic donors on the left and ambitious MFA grads and circus impresarios on the right. (Photo by Rakvereteater via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All of this brings us to this week. As far as the US election is concerned, que ser\u00e1 ser\u00e1<\/em>. As far as your nonprofit arts organization is concerned, ponder this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n