“On some level, you’ve got to ask your arts organization a really hard question: If there’s no positive impact you can measure, why hang your hat on the idea? After all, inspiring change is not about the “inspiring” — it’s about the “change,” no? When arts nonprofits focus on inspiration — that is, inspiration instead of change — they’re complicit in creating an escape hatch, a counterfeit way to gauge their existence.” – Clyde Fitch Report
Category: issues
Has “Cancel Culture” Become A Culture Cancer?
“Whatever you call it—public shaming, call-out culture, or cancellation—what’s happening now is in no way a new phenomenon. But what is new is the scale of it all. This isn’t just happening to public figures; it’s happening everywhere that social media exists, and you no longer have to be powerful, or even notable, to get canceled. And sometimes the offense was committed when the guilty party was just a kid.” – The New Republic
Meet This Year’s MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellows
Along with inclusion on an illustrious list of past fellows — more than 1,000 in all, since the program’s first class in 1981 — each of this year’s grantees gets a $625,000 stipend, meted out in quarterly installments over five years with no strings attached. – NPR
The Art Of Ticket Pricing
A survey of more than 600 arts professionals (half of whom are directly involved in pricing decisions) reveals some interesting points about how those decisions are made — not least that a large majority of respondents would rather increase attendance than maximize ticket revenue. – Arts Professional
Samsung Builds A Vertical Stage, Just So We Can Record The Performance On Our Smartphones
As part of the grand opening of its big new store in central London, Samsung put up a three-story, 30-foot stage and presented a rock concert on it. Why? “Research … found 94% of smartphone users are now engaging with their devices vertically, and 79% find vertical videos the most interesting.” – Fast Company
How A Once-Dirt-Poor Italian Town Of 60,000 Became An EU Capital Of Culture
“Every European Capital of Culture offers a unique selling point – it goes with the territory for those attempting to brave the European Commission’s exacting selection process. For sheer boldness of vision, Matera 2019 seriously breaks the mould.” – The Stage
Seattle Artists: Time To Move To Detroit
“Making art takes lots of time, and when time in a city becomes nothing but making that rent, you will not make art or the kind of art that requires (for its greatness) not just productivity but lots of time for leisure. This is the part of artistic production that’s almost always missed by those with practical minds, men and women with middle-class common sense, the judges of contests for art grants. A big part of making poems, paintings, novels, music, films, sculptures involves aristocratic waste or doing stuff unrelated to the direct or obvious act of creativity. Young artists of Seattle must stop smelling the coffee and do something about it. Move to Detroit.” – The Stranger
Report: Cultural Districts Could Make More Impact
The report, commissioned by the Global Cultural Districts Network, urges cultural districts to plan, deliver and evaluate their social impact more effectively. It says there is “more that cultural districts can do to clarify where their social impact priorities lie and how they relate to their programme and other activities”. – Arts Professional
Michelle Williams Wins An Emmy And Uses It To Stump For Equal Access And Pay For Women Of Color
Williams, who won for playing Gwen Verdon in Fosse/Verdon, said, “The next time a woman — and especially a woman of color, because she stands to make 52 cents on the dollar compared to her white, male counterpart — tells you what she needs in order to do her job, listen to her. Believe her. Because one day she might stand in front of you and say thank you for allowing her to succeed because of her workplace environment and not in spite of it.” – The New York Times
German Jury Revokes Book Award Prize Over Author Kamila Shamsie’s Boycott Of Israel
Shamsie says it’s an outrage that her support of the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement would lead to this end. “The eight-member jury had decided on 6 September to make the British-Pakistani author their latest winner, citing writing that ‘builds bridges between societies.’ But when they learned of Shamsie’s support for the BDS movement, they announced that they would cancel their original vote and withdraw the award.” – The Guardian (UK)