Category: issues

“Donations to the arts trail gifts to religious groups and educational and health-care institutions. Arts groups fear the pain will be worse in a recession.”

“Relations between the Arts Council and artists are now at rock-bottom. Even during the dark funding days of the late 80s and 90s, artists felt that they and the funders were on the same side. That is no longer the case.”

“Boston is experiencing a creative brain drain – a slow exodus of talent that is depriving our cultural scene of many potential bright lights… While Boston does a good job of supporting its flagship institutions, like the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Museum of Fine Arts, it does a lackluster job of supporting smaller arts organizations.”

Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts has been criticized ever since its opening in 2001 for being incomplete, flawed, and less functional as a public space and concert venue than it should be. Inga Saffron says that it’s time to correct the mistakes. “The key is to think big.”

“The founding director of the National Museum of the American Indian was away from the office more days and spent more Smithsonian money traveling last year than other museum directors at the institution, a newly released review of Smithsonian travel found.”

“Long before President Dwight D. Eisenhower broke ground for the Lincoln Center performing arts complex in 1959, the area from Columbus Circle through the neighborhoods called Lincoln Square and San Juan Hill was already something of an arts center.”

“Graying audiences are a problem for nonprofit arts and entertainment groups nationwide, but the problem gets magnified in Allegheny County, the second-oldest big county in the country. Whether younger people will grow into arts patrons — the kind of people who will fill seats, buy subscription plans and kick in to fund-raising campaigns — is weighing on the minds of local arts professionals.”

The Heinz Endowments’ “Arts Experience Initiative” argues that “audiences are desperate to have emotional and personal connections with the arts. Too often, they are instead told to be still and quiet, and the museum or theater or dance troupe they are watching will direct them how to react and feel.”

“Hardly one minute into the job and he is already talking of local film festivals all over the country, of artists, actors and musicians being appointed to the boards of our nation’s great arts institutions. And who can forget, since he himself repeatedly reminds us, that he was one of the architects of free admissions to museums when special adviser to Chris Smith in the 90s. Perhaps Burnham will even rustle up some government money to buy new art to put into those museums. Likely? Of course not.”

“The problem is not a lack of artists and fans on arts boards as how much say they get in governance. In the case of artists, very little. I am forever being rung by creative souls who are about to resign from arts boards that treat them as window dressing.”