Category: issues

A longtime Seattle newspaper editor is issuing a call for a newly invigorated vision for the city’s arts scene. Noting that the city’s Bookfest is held at a substandard facility, and that it was forced to charge an attendance fee for the first time this year to make up a deficit, Lou Guzzo thinks that the city needs to make the arts a far greater priority, even if it means using tax dollars to match private contributions. “Taxpaying citizens have an equal share in all the cultural organizations that provide not only a wealth of great programming for the public but also the teachers of their children in every phase of music, drama, ballet and all the rest of the arts.”

What kind of art outrages people today? “It’s not just obscene art that gets people riled; art with any suggestion of same-sex affection or eroticism will do almost as well. In a more closeted era, gay artists would speak in a subtle and complex code to gay audiences, a code that usually went over the head of the general populace. Today, the general populace is quite good at discerning even the sliest feints in the homophile direction.”

The Scottish Arts Council announces another destabilizing funding cut. Why must we keep going through this? “Aside from the actual funding decisions themselves (and who would deny our neglected creators of children’s drama their new money?), I think it is time to question the whole way in which arts funding is structured in this country. The annual round of funding announcements appears to breed short-termism on the part of the SAC and chronic insecurity on the part of our arts organisations.”

It’s seven years until the Winter Olympics come to Vancouver. So what role will artists have? “Discussions are just beginning in Vancouver over the role artists can play in the games. Some figure it’s going to be a great opportunity to get money and attention for new projects; others worry they will simply be eclipsed.”

Vancouver has become quite adept at creating win-win situations for developers and arts groups, with the city making a push to increase its cultural visibility, even as it fills a need for new housing in the urban core. “In exchange for increased density for their buildings the developers are paired with non-profits that need new public facilities. The developer gets more condos or more offices to sell; the non-profit groups, 13 to date, get free use of programming space built specifically to their needs.”

It’s not a good time for the arts in America, with budget cuts, looming deficits, and dwindling audiences seemingly national problems. But somehow, the Spoleto USA festival, based in South Carolina, keeps chugging healthily along, balancing its books and keeping its considerable audience happy with innovative presentations and high-quality music. “Last year’s festival set a box-office record, with ticket sales totaling slightly more than $2.5 million. The festival recently concluded a $26 million fund-raising drive that, among other things, increased its endowment fund from $600,000 to $7 million.” Among the highlights being planned for next year’s Spoleto: a full performance of an 18-hour opera from 16th-century China.

A local arts advocacy group in Calgary is marketing a ticket package designed to get sports fans to the symphony. “The $70 package includes a ticket to a regular season Calgary Flames hockey game as well as tickets to two arts and culture events, including performances by local theatre troupes, a jazz dance ensemble or the the Calgary Philharmonic.” Sports and arts are not generally considered to have much audience in common, but some on the Calgary arts scene see the package as important audience-building.

“There are the so-called ‘widow villages’ throughout the United States, where Korean wives gather to live for their children’s education. Meanwhile, the ‘wild geese dads’ in Korea send all of their paychecks to their families in the ‘widow villages.’ The amount of money that Korean husbands send to America is reportedly astronomical. All of this indicates that something is not quite right in Korea these days.”

Corporate giving to the arts may be down in recent years, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that America’s business community is getting out of the culture game. In fact, signs of corporate commitment to the arts are all around, says Kurt Anderson. “By embracing art and artists as small parts of their businesses because they’ve decided that it’s good for their corporate images,” American companies may be showing us the future of private arts support.

The internet has always held great financial promise for nonprofit arts groups and charities, but few of these groups have ever built a truly successful online fundraising apparatus. Now, with presidential candidate Howard Dean raking in record numbers of contributions from his online campaign efforts, nonprofits are taking notice. “They’re using e-mail lists to solicit donations and mobilize support. They run educational campaigns through e-mail to keep their community informed. They even arrange ‘meet-ups’ offline to keep supporters involved.”