Category: issues

A study by the National Assembly of Arts Agencies reports that for the second year in a row, state arts funding across America declined in 2002. This follows ten years of funding increases. “According to the study, 62% of the decline can be blamed on two states: California and Massachusetts. The study reports that, nationwide, legislative appropriations for fiscal 2003, including state appropriations, fell from $408.6 million to $353.9 million. California and Massachusetts had a combined loss of $33.9 million, making them the two states hardest hit by the faltering economy.”

After recent cuts in state funding, Colorado has fallen to last in the US among the states. “Arts funding in the state dropped from $1.86 million in fiscal 2001-02 to $1.04 million for 2002-03, according to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. That represents about 25 cents per resident. The national average is $1.22, down from $1.42 in 2001-02.”

What 50 arts/cultural events should you simply not miss in 2003? London’s Observer does the rundown…

Last month a group of Vietnamese artists came to New York to get ideas and insights from the city’s artists. “We’re living in the twilight. It’s not socialism, and it’s not capitalism. Experimental artists like us have to do things for ourselves, but we have to do it quietly so no one will bother us.”

Toronto has a number of major arts projects currently looking for funding. In the current funding climate “is there enough money to go around and sustain all these projects? Or are at least some of them doomed to fail while others succeed? The answers to those questions will largely depend on two kinds of players — the arts philanthropists of Toronto and the professional fundraisers hired by various cultural organizations to lead their capital campaigns.” Here’s what they say…

St. Petersburg, Russia is a remarkable and historic city. It’s listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it turns 300 years old this year. So the city is exporting the best of its culture to the rest of the world to celebrate. But “if musicians, dancers, historians, designers, poets, actors and more are reintroducing St. Petersburg to center stage, the attention comes in the nick of time. Buildings are crumbling. Population is declining. Tourism is stagnating. The cultural community is dispersing. And modernity – in the form of bold new architecture – is knocking aggressively at the door.”

As arts funding declines, ticket revenue becomes more important for arts organizations. But waht does that mean for the kinds of art they make? “We have to ask how are we going to be true to our artistic vision – the original reason nonprofit theaters were founded – and yet not be irresponsible to our community by going out of business. As funding sources become tighter and tighter, this is the conflict facing all artistic nonprofits.”

Getting the word out about your arts orgainzation is not just a matter of printing brochures, making banners and producing marketing spots. The modern arts organization is a brand, and that takes careful management. Too crassly commercial, you’re thinking? Boston clients of one communications firm think not. “There are no contradiction between that kind of ‘corporate’ thinking and artistic risk-taking. Quite the contrary. If people get to recognize the organization, we will get to take more risks.”

There is a global ‘rash’ of new theatres and especially concert halls, but the fastest growth is in America, a conference of the International Society for the Performing Arts reported last month. Will the boom continue? Historically, “theatre-building is the sort of thing people do at the end of a golden era (as at the turn of the 20th century) when confidence is high and wealth is ample. Now, tax revenues are weak and wealthy donors less wealthy. The curtain may be about to fall, at least for an intermission.”

As 2002 began, art was supposed to be forevermore infused with the post-9/11 sensibility. Materialism and schlocky marketing were out, serious contemplation of the human condition was in. Riiiiight. So why does Frida Kahlo now have her own posthumous perfume, and why is the star of the year a shoplifting actress who hasn’t made a good film since (arguably) Girl, Interrupted? “In a year where the world was too much with us, art could at least be bewildering.”