In what certainly will become one of the largest examples of trying to “re-purpose” restricted gifts, Brandeis University announced a few weeks ago that it was going to close the Rose Museum to the public and sell off it’s art collection to help make up for endowment losses and budget problems. Yesterday the Rose family publicly denounced the plans (see Boston Globe pay special attention to the comments).

One would think this would be national news considering the precedent it seems to set. And in different times it might be. However considering the economic news coverage and the recent, growing debates about money going to the arts or sports sponsorships from corporations, I think we are lucky this story isn’t gaining too much national momentum.

Let me state first, foremost and unequivocally, restricted gifts are restricted gifts. It is up to a donor and institution to negotiate the restrictions or adapting the restrictions, but it is a partnership in which the donor’s wishes will always over-rule the recipients. As the saying goes you can’t have your cake and eat it too, that is just the way it is and it should stay that way. If this were to change, every time there was a shift in leadership – staff or board – the use would be open to adjustment based on an individuals whims and desires, long term strategies would be difficult to implement and the organization would likely be subject to significant mission creep based on said individuals whims and desires – even with the restrictions some individuals try to circumvent the restrictions with personal agendas.

Without question, one of the most difficult decisions an organization is faced with is when a donor want to make a restricted gift that does not fit the mission of the organization. For years, programs specific grants created many instances of ineffective results or “next new thing” programs. However, lets imagine all grants were general operating grants. Does anyone really believe we would have many of the amazing education programs that arts organizations have? Does anyone really believe that as much new work would be created? Imagine how destructive the tension between artistic staff, management staff, and the board would become.

Let’s face it, we need restricted gifts.

At organizations I have worked at, I have had “passionate discussions” with an Artistic Director or Board members about restrictions on certain funds, and almost every time I have been grateful to the donor for said restrictions. If a project was clearly mission based and close to the core – it was usually easy to make the restrictions work or to renegotiate them, if not, well the restrictions certainly made the decision easier.

Are the arts a luxury or necessity?

As for the second and more important issue at the forefront of the Brandeis situation – at what point in the economic crisis do the arts become a luxury that must be eliminated or sold off? Literature and life are filled with the tales of families caught in horrible economics that must sell off their personal belonging to rebuild their lives or survive. Of course, organizations can reach a point where they are required to do the same.

In a similar situation, the Metropolitan Opera just mortgaged it’s most famous art work to raise cash. I consider the Met’s decision to be creative – the mission is about Opera and leveraging the artwork in these difficult times seems like a reasonable risk.

In the case of Brandeis, I have to ask if this is a “quick/easy/obvious” decision – if it were just about closing off the museum to the public perhaps a mission argument could be made, but the proposal as a whole seems pretty drastic. Is Brandeis really at that famous Scarlett O’Hara moment – do they need to make a dress from the curtains already? I hope not, we are still pretty early in this financial crisis, and you would hope the university was better managed than to have already reached that point.

But back to the bigger more global question that looms – is there a point where the arts are just a luxury that should be eliminated? We are back to that relevancy issue and making an argument for the arts. A lot of my recent posts have circled around a major point that I want to reiterate – the key is to get past the idea that all of the arts arts elitist and making the arts more accessible if in cost alone. We have to embrace that the definition of art has evolved and needs to evolve. We have to broaden the donor and audience base. We must be relevant to our communities, or we will become a luxury not a necessity.

Andy Horwitz proposal for the Arts from Culturebot.

A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR THE ARTS IN AMERICA

1. Consolidate, Innovate and Reposition

The first thing we need to do is reposition the role of arts + culture in society. For many reasons the arts have moved to the fringes of cultural conversation. We need to reintroduce the idea of the arts as a place of civic discourse. Artists and curators need to work much more closely with non-arts partners – economists, sociologists, scientists, computer programmers, city planners, demographers, etc. – to identify the pressing conceptual issues of the day. Art – no matter the form- is about creating an object or event that focuses attention on a specific idea; it is a tool for enabling human beings to collectively and simultaneously focus their thought processes – thus the arts need to collaborate directly with non-arts disciplines and start leading the conversations America will be having as we move into a global future.

Part of repositioning is innovating the modes of public engagement. Taking its cue from Harold Skramstad’s seminal 1999 article “An Agenda for American Museums In the Twenty-First Century,” the contemporary museum world has already made great strides in redefining the way the public interacts with art. In a multimedia, multidisciplinary, hybrid, networked, on-demand world we can no longer privilege one form over another. We should be looking at the members of the Contemporary Art Centers networks (The Walker, the Wexner, Yerba Buena, etc.) for scalable, multidisciplinary presenting models that will allow us to consolidate resources, streamline curatorial processes and cultural production as well as promote multidisciplinary ideas-based investigations. Certainly as the economy falters and the visual arts lose their economic engine the value of other art forms will rise – we need to leverage this for the benefit of all.

Part of this innovation is to consolidate bricks and mortar. Contemporary arts and culture spaces must be multidisciplinary with adequate, adaptable theatrical space for all different kinds of performances integrated with visual art space, screening rooms and multimedia/virtual spaces. They should be smaller. As we become more and more accustomed to mediated space and networked environments, where mass entertainment happens in sports arenas and stadiums, the unique experience of intimate live performance and/or interaction with art objects and other human beings becomes ever more valuable. Keep it small and keep it flexible. If you are presenting an artist who can draw 10,000 people, then do ten shows for 1,000 people each. It’ll be a better experience for everyone involved.

In this day and age, where one person’s iPod may well contain a dozen different kinds of music next to each other, discipline-specific delineations are less relevant than ever. While some may prefer dance and some theater, some classical and some world music, all of these disciplines can – and should – cohabitate. If we view art and culture as an essential part of civic dialogue then the public should be exposed to all forms, frequently in juxtaposition. The public must be educated to experience culture regardless of discipline and become as savvy in the parsing of cultural product as they are savvy with entertainment, movies, popular music and video games.

The hardest part of Consolidating, Innovating and Repositioning is making room for the new by LETTING THINGS DIE. It is absurd to have a regional theater, a symphony, a ballet company, an opera, and other cultural enterprises all with their own buildings, all with their own administrative infrastructures, all in competition for the same funds. Let the regional theater system die. It is antiquated, expensive and largely irrelevant. Consolidate, share resources and place art in juxtaposition. Let’s focus on the notion of a cultural “civic center” run by trained, qualified administrators and housing a variety of different arts organizations – of varying sizes, disciplines, aesthetics and ambitions.

2. Develop Sustainable Cultural Infrastructures

There are many different components to creating a sustainable cultural infrastructure. In America today it is more likely that an arts institution will embark on a capital campaign to build a new building then it will engage in an endowment campaign targeted at increasing its general operating budget to provide living wages and better quality of life to its employees. This is a HUGE MISTAKE. The arts – more than any other industry – requires sustained institutional knowledge management, innovative and nimble administrators and the ability to retain the most qualified and effective workers. However, wages in the arts + culture sector are phenomenally low, there are almost no incentives or rewards for success, opportunities for professional development are few and far between and human capital is widely seen as expendable. I could go on a foul-mouthed furious tirade about this -and have – but for decency’s sake, I’ll leave it there and move on to the key issue that is: if you want to have sustainable arts ecologies then you need to invest in people. Here are a few ways in which arts + culture could improve the lives of its workers and make it a more attractive profession:

• Pay a living wage with health benefits, retirement, etc. Arts administrators should at least be on a level with teachers, the two professions are deeply related and require similar skill sets.
• No more M.F.A.s! There is nothing more useless than a Master’s degree in arts administration or an arts administrator who possesses one. Not only does the “book learning” rarely have anything to do with the real world, it creates a peculiar breed of person who feels entitled to respect (and a senior position) without possessing any prior actual experience. Cultural institutions don’t need more MBA-style administrators who are constantly looking for the next best opportunity. Cultural institutions need administrators who are hands-on and capable. More importantly, because of the extraordinarily ephemeral nature of arts + culture, the institutions need the knowledge management which comes from long-term employee retention.
• Bring back apprenticeship! A young arts administrator should come into an organization and be able to stay for 5-10 years, learning the trade and gradually moving up. Cultural institutions are not corporations, they are organic and complicated, they are about knowledge, creativity, education and imagination. As such, without a tangible product or revenue stream, the “collective memory” of the institution must be sustained and moved forward through the cultivation of its human assets.
• Reward success. Provide opportunities for professional development, provide clear pathways to promotion and advancement, implement institutional mentoring programs, subsidies for continuing education and skills acquisition. Treat Arts Workers like Valuable Human Beings!!

In addition to revamping the culture sector’s approach to managing its human resource capital, there are other key factors to developing a sustainable arts ecology/infrastructure. I return to my previous point of consolidation.

Despite what Wall Street would have you believe, running a cultural institution is incredibly hard work. The kind of crap the banking, automotive and real estate industries get away with would never fly in the non-profit sector. For every arts organization, theater, dance company, etc. to have to function as its own 501(c)(3) is just insane.

We need to not only consolidate bricks and mortar but consolidate arts administration. The Public Theatre in NYC has actually made great strides towards housing multiple companies of various size in its building. Here is where urban planners and cultural institutions need to start innovating – how do we devise public cultural spaces that provide both physical resources and administrative infrastructure for multiple arts organizations. If a ballet company, theater company or a musical ensemble didn’t have to have a fundraiser and an executive director and a bookkeeper and all this administrative overhead, they could focus on making art. They could probably make it faster, cheaper and easier. How do we build an infrastructure that alleviates the administrative burdens on arts creators and incentivizes top-notch administrators to stay in the culture sector?

Public cultural spaces should be transparent public/private non-profit partnerships. Administratively they should be managed as public trusts, dedicated to serving the community-at-large through arts, education, humanities and enrichment. The administration of the physical plant, the fiscal dealings of the organization, all of the operational logistics should be completely separate from the creative and curatorial administration. In addition there should be alternative, innovative housing solutions that integrate artists and educators into the daily life of the community they serve.

We must renew the civic commitment to public cultural institutions. Just as those of us in New York are constantly being asked to underwrite the construction of stadiums, ballparks and basketball arenas for the benefit of massive corporations, so too should the public be responsible for funding arts and culture. The arts, at least, provide intellectual development, aesthetic refinement, the cultivation of emotional complexity and moral uplift; considerably more positive benefits than the steroids, arrogance, sexual violence, licentiousness and ignorant conspicuous consumption promoted by so-called professional sports.

This leads back, inevitably, to the notion of repositioning – if we are going to ask the public to participate in sustaining and arts + culture infrastructure we need to reassert arts + culture relevance in civic life. Which leads back to requiring artists and curators to work much more closely with non-arts partners – economists, sociologists, scientists, computer programmers, city planners, demographers, etc. – to identify the pressing conceptual issues of the day and what conversations we need to be having for the future and start having them.

Funding-wise if arts organizations had sustained and reliable general operating expenses this would alleviate the fear and stress engendered by a constant state of financial peril. This would encourage evaluators to assess administrator performance using other criteria – such as relationship building with non-arts institutions, program impact, possibly even revenue generated through the creation of intellectual property.

If arts + culture institutions invested in human capital to make administrator jobs really valuable and hard to get, they would attract better people by introducing a wider field of competition – just like Wall Street! This would also open the field in a way that no longer privileges the privileged. Currently the major qualification for executive arts leadership is often donor cultivation – which is best done by peers. This does not necessarily correspond with managerial prowess, vision, leadership or accountability.

Providing an adequate baseline of funding for a multi-disciplinary shared civic cultural space and increasing arts administrator wages so that it could be a lifelong career would create competition; rewarding experience and talent over privilege.

This would also require the implementation of a more visible and definite line between the administrative and curatorial arms. But an adequate baseline of funding would alleviate the fundraising pressures, strengthening the administrator’s ability to manage in a responsible way. It would also remove the pressure for art to be commercially viable or conventionally successful – concerns best left to the entertainment industry.

3. Decentralize Cultural Production

Think globally, act locally, get connected. Use the internet, new media and all tools available to facilitate conversation and information-sharing and artist exchange. “Regional” rtist shouldn’t have to mean “provincial” artist.

As the cost of cultural production skyrockets in major urban centers, we need to decentralize the process – finding cheaper places to build arts and culture while assuring quality and sophistication that will be competitive in a global arts market. In this day and age there is no reason why cultural civic centers can’t facilitate ongoing global dialogue, artist exchanges, residencies and public programs on the relevant issues of the day.

In addition, we need to cultivate and improve networked performance and real-time trans-geographic interaction. We must identify new ways for artists to collaborate over distances, find ways for audiences to engage regardless of place.

Ultimately this will not only benefit the field of arts and culture but it will bring the arts to life in a new way in each city and/or region. Local art museums should show local artists. Local theaters, symphonies, operas and cultural centers should all actively support the creation of new work in their communities. Projects like the New Museum’s 3M or Museum As Hub initiatives suggest possibilities for collaborative development.

Alternately cultural production could be distributed regionally according to resource availability.

4. Increase Arts Education, Widen the Frame and Democratize Cultural Access

Let’s start by “widening the frame” of what we identify art so that young people find arts and culture are RELEVANT and USEFUL. We must now remedy the 30 years of intentional destruction of the arts education in America and make the arts accessible to all and relevant to the younger generation.

That doesn’t mean forcing them to listen to opera or go see mediocre, didactic plays – it means identifying the new, encouraging innovation and inviting young people into the process of creativity; it means identifying what young people are already doing with technology and encouraging them to contextualize their natural curiosity and creativity as art.

Video games, digital music production, digital video production, web-based interaction – all of these new technologies are not merely utilities they are landscapes for imaginative play. We must encourage young people to move beyond utility and look at technology as fun – a way to make art and play and imagine and dream.

We can’t start arts education with the old, demanding that today’s kids learn about theater, classical music, poetry, etc. on our terms. We must re-frame expression and experience in a way that affirms the aesthetics of our on-demand, “personalized” society and creates new access points to art. Once we re-introduce the idea of imaginative play we can grow young people’s awareness of the history of the arts and culture, point to precedents and empower them to investigate the world around them.

We must be willing to relinquish the dominant narrative and educate young people, give them the tools to express their personal agency in the construction of narrative with intellect, insight and responsibility.

Widening the frame cannot succeed without a commitment to arts education and art appreciation in the schools. It cannot be an afterthought – it must be restored to the core curriculum along with basic science, mathematics, English and social studies.

As culturally-specific museums renegotiate their representations of identity, they are creating literally thousands of new access points to culture for people of all identities, ethnicities, backgrounds and social status.

We need to reintroduce the arts as an educational tool and a tool for empowering young people with the skills of critical thinking, creativity and innovation.

We also need to understand that arts education is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor and consciously tailor artistic educational programs to demographics. Affluent students who come from historically philanthropic backgrounds may well require different educational access points and priorities from those who come from less comfortable backgrounds. The end goal is not unified arts education but providing as many access points as possible and giving young people whatever tools they need. Democratizing access to cultural resources also means scaling those access points strategically. It is not enough just to make things cheap – we need to make things relevant.

Arts Education is not one-sided – arts + education need to be integrated more fully and thoughtfully. We must revise and innovate the integration of educational components into the cultural production process. Every cultural institution should have in-house dramaturges and educational curriculum development professionals. They should keep records of research and process during the creation of new work, developing bibliographies, guides, online documentation and all the paratext surrounding the work. By having educational and dramaturgical professionals on-hand, working on parallel and simultaneous tracks, we can increase the transparency of the artistic process and reinforce the connection between art, ideas, public policy, politics, cultural attitudes, philosophy, economics and entertainment.

To have an informed populace in the information age, they must have the tools to parse the media – and art can create a critical context for developing skills in media analysis. Even though this sounds abstract, the right approach can make it accessible to anyone. Whether it is talking about why video games look the way they do, or why a specific camera angle is chosen, today’s youth need to be educated as much in visual and media literacy as in textual literacy. Arts + Culture is a great tool for that.

In this new world, everything is art if you see it that way. Culture is vast and all-inclusive. We must provide the citizens of tomorrow with the tools to frame cultural experience in an intelligent, empowered way. If America is to remain a dominant global cultural force then we have to be artistically and culturally advanced, conscious of the images we create and messages we disseminate and we must have a population that is literate enough to engage in these conversations.

5. Innovate Funding and Revenue Models For Cultural Production and Distribution

This is the big one – and I’m not giving it away for free. Not yet. But if you’ve read everything I’ve written thus far and think I’m talking big government and socialism, um, you’re wrong.

*I HAVE WRITTEN LITERALLY HUNDREDS OF PAGES ON THIS and would be able to write a much more cogent and complete assessment if offered a book deal [and editor!) that would enable me to quit my job and devote my energy to writing. I would love to write a lengthy treatise on the economics of cultural production in the U.S. and the systemic function it breeds, but for expediency’s sake I am reducing it to some bullet points and short paragraphs on how to fix the arts + culture infrastructure and reposition the arts in relationship to both the public and private sectors

The recession and US museums

How to compensate for the loss of philanthropic, endowment and visitor incomes

By Adrian Ellis | From Editorial & Commentary | Posted: 11.3.09

“That was then; this is now.” A blunt expression often used in negotiations when one party wants to make clear to the other that previously reasonable expectations are unlikely to be met because of some adverse and unalterable change in circumstances. It is an expression that the cultural sector’s leadership is likely to hear frequently over the next few years as it seeks to navigate a radically changed economic and political map. The global recession that we have entered will not just knock the froth off things; it will permanently reconfigure the cultural landscape. This may happen more slowly and the events may be less flamboyantly newsworthy than the bankruptcy of Iceland, the collapse of the international banking system or the failure of the American mortgage industry, but the underlying forces at work are just as strong—indeed, they are the same forces.

This observation is hardly revelatory. The past five years of the decade-long upswing of the art market—predominantly the contemporary art market—has been largely speculative in nature, and the market correction that we are experiencing has been predicted by most parties who do not have a vested interest in the prolongation of the bubble: a period of declining volumes and prices and a shrinking of the market’s entire infrastructure—galleries, auction houses, art fairs and ancillary publications, and public relations. (In February, Standard & Poor’s gave Sotheby’s a credit rating of BBB, for example.) The scale and duration of the contraction will be directly related to the scale and duration of the wider recession. The art market trails the economy—as a whole reluctantly, but obediently. To give some indication of what’s ahead, the last time the art market experienced a major slump followed the 1987 stock-market crash. The art market fell later but further than the stock market, finally hitting bottom in 1993, with prices falling 56% on average. The market was thinner then, and therefore more volatile, but the current recession is broader and deeper, and likely to last longer; and the fall is from a higher speculative peak.

The impact of world recession on museums will be more subtle, but no less profound. The conspicuous consumption that has fuelled the art market is umbilically linked to the conspicuous philanthropy that has fuelled much of the growth in contemporary art museums throughout the US, the Middle East, South East Asia and Europe. These institutions have been significant beneficiaries of the growing and, to many, morally indefensible disparities of wealth throughout the world. It has left them heavily reliant on, and overly attuned and attentive to, a narrow constituency whose long-term appetite or capacity for support is highly questionable. The sector has come to rely disproportionately on the very wealthy, and on the role that museums can play as mechanisms for the translation of wealth into status, and status into power.

Most fundraisers in the arts freely acknowledge how much the pyramid of giving has narrowed in the past decade, with a greater reliance on an increasingly diminishing number of very wealthy donors. In Russia, India and the Middle East, the pyramid is practically a sheer-faced column—the museum sector is to a large extent the domain of the newly super-wealthy. The almost inevitably speculative nature of rapidly acquired wealth can lead to dramatic reversals of fortune, and thus of largesse. Interestingly, the success of President Obama’s electoral campaign in using web-based social networking to secure smaller donations is the talk of the charitable sector internationally. But art museums are not just short of the technological know-how to widen access to a donor base. They are also short of the arguments to galvanise them, as can be seen in the reaction of the US Congress to the provisions for the cultural sector in the Federal Bailout Bill. Museums have given a great deal of time and attention to stratification and hierarchy for the upper tiers of donors. With conspicuous consumption less in favour, speculative fortunes trimmed and priorities adjusted, the social class that art museums have smooched with most intimately is also the group most likely to sit out the next few dances.

The contraction of anything short of all-weather philanthropic support is, of course, compounded by dramatic drops of 30-50% in endowment income (whether museums’ own or of the trusts and foundations on which they rely). The precipitous drop in Brandeis Uni­versity’s endowment led to its president’s ill thought-out plan to close the Rose Museum and sell its collection. A more wily plan may well have attracted less attention. It is also compounded by cuts in public expenditure as local and national governments enter a prolonged period of austerity, reflecting their reduced tax base and the increased demands for fiscal intervention. UK Culture Secretary Andy Burnham said in January: “All parts of government have to hear that message and live in the real world. Some people may not like it, but the arts has [sic] to live in the real world too. Nobody is immune from what is happening.” In the US, the State of California is sending out IOUs instead of the tax rebates it owes, and most state and city arts departments—far more significant in the US than federal arts funding—have either implemented cuts or warned that they are on their way. Layoffs, furloughs (unpaid leave), pay cuts and shortened public openings are common in smaller museums and galleries in the US.

Museums of art have tended to rely more heavily on spectacle than programme to attract visitors—loud headlines rather than a fine print of involvement in the community. This is despite exhortations by trade associations such as the American Association of Museums in the US and the Museums Association in the UK that their members adopt agendas that increase and parade their social relevance, and myriad programmes of outreach and social engagement.

In the painful process of the prioritisation of public expenditure, the prospect of political underwriting—that is, a sense of obligation to sustain cultural institutions by civic leadership—is greatly diminished both by the realities of public expenditure constraint and by the growing sentiment of politicians that the art world, at least at its current scale of activity, is simply not central to a civic agenda congested with crises in health, housing, employment, education and the environment.

The brunt of the squeeze will be borne disproportionately by operating budgets (exhibition programmes, education programmes, conservation, research and curatorial functions). This is because, short of closure, the fixed costs associated with expanded infrastructure (new buildings, wings etc.) are just that—fixed. It is the need to balance the books from a higher baseline of fixed cost that is causing the pain. The drift is clear: we are entering a period when all but the most privileged and well-connected of art museums are going to come under very real financial constraints and many will be doing so with a weakened safety-net of well-disposed stakeholders. Outside of the restitution of art to Holocaust victims and the occasional censure of miscreants, museums have for the most part shown limited capacity for effective collective action. Industry-wide responses to problems (analogous to those for banks or the automotive industry) would require an appetite for solidarity that does not come naturally, even if the industry found a more willing ear in government.

Much of the reaction to these trying circumstances will therefore be confined to what individual museums, or small coalitions of museums, can do. Museums’ boards and directors are—quite reasonably, given their central mission of stewardship—highly conservative and, perhaps less reasonably, highly motivated by peer approval. Therefore, radical alternatives to genteel but irrevocable decline—such as merger, relocation, restructuring, resource sharing—are only likely to be contemplated as a last resort when an institution is faced with imminent closure. By that time, solutions are significantly more difficult to implement, as the time, money and organisational will required have been exhausted. As Hegel said, “the owl of Minerva flies at dusk”. It is interesting, if not entirely comfortable, to speculate on some of the fault lines that are likely to grow as the pressure caused by the triangulation of the dark forces of speculative expansion, recession and a diminished civic mandate increases.

Here are three possible ideas. First, dramatic and competitive physical expansion and large-scale temporary exhibitions have, in a sense, substituted for an effective agenda of community engagement. These strategies have served as a way of generating buzz and money while interest in the traditional mission of the art museum was waning to the point where it was insufficient to generate the funds required. These strategies are now stalling because of their expense; the contraction of the philanthropic and public sector funds and the cultural tourist market on which they are premised; and the diminishing returns the strategies secure in a crowded, winner-takes-all marketplace. Art museum agendas will have to shift to seek viable alternatives to these warhorses and with them, the skill sets required of museum leadership will also shift.

Second, in the search for resources, the desire to explore ways of capitalising collections will continue to grow. The straightforward fiat that is the current international norm—no deaccessioning unless you spend proceeds on more art—will either be finessed or ignored under the pressure of financial realities.

Third, what museums accept they cannot do alone, they will explore doing together more thoroughly and earnestly than in the past: collection sharing, joint acquisitions, pooling conservation resources, and pooling curatorial appointments. The museum economy is increasingly globalised and these trends will be global in their impact. The alternative to the open-minded exploration of radical alternatives is a sombre one, in which the energies and ingenuities of the sector are devoted increasingly to the support of a dysfunctional pseudo-mission: that of maintaining appearances at any cost, even if the museum becomes a sort of “living dead” organisation, in which any capacity for aesthetic or intellectual endeavour is sacrificed to the goal of keeping the institutional ego protected.

The writer is a regular columnist for The Art Newspaper and a director of AEA Consulting

Below is a great summary of some of the funding opprouniutes for the arts from the Stimulous package – notice it isn’t just the NEA funding, there is a little money out there – for better or worse. Get creative people.

http://www.nasaa-arts.org/nasaanews/stimulus-opportunities.shtml

And, the NEA and NEH got $10M budget increases from the FY 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act.

http://www.americansforthearts.org/news/afta_news/default.asp

The day after the Presidential election I started here from several friends and organizations about a push for an arts-related staff position in the Obama White House. At the TCG fall forum, the Performing Arts Alliance and American for the Arts platform clearly called for a Arts advocate on staff in the administration. Then we heard cries for a cultural czar or a cabinet level position be established and internet petitions begin. It seems the work paid off.

According to the New York Times President Obama “has established a staff position in the White House to oversee arts and culture in the Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs.” No other real information is in the article (copied below) other than the person who is to fill the position is Kareem Dale (brief bio from Google search and a link his campaign blog below).

I have to say I am sort of glad that the call for a Czar or Cabinet level position didn’t pan out. I always felt that it was asking for trouble and I didn’t quite like the idea a federal arts directive under any administration. But a staff position is a completely different angle and could be something that really works well for the arts. Of course without a job description and frankly with no idea what the Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs really does, I guess we will have to wait a bit to see what it really means.

I am going to remain optimistic. I hope that Mr. Dale is able at the highest level to help clearly define the value of arts in this country – for educational, cultural, and economical reasons (it’s not like we artists have been doing that great job of it). We have a unique opportunity at this time to reinstate the value of the arts to society – our President and first family seem to be active arts participants by choice not force and in times of great change/challenges the arts usually become a touchstone for society. Let’s put all of our creativity into creating great art and getting the word out and maybe we (with the help of the Obama administration) will be able to put the arts in a better position than they have ever been in.

Kareem Dale’s Campaign Blog

Originally from Chicago, Illinois, Dale previously served as the National Disability Director for the Obama for America campaign. He also served on the Arts Policy Committee and the Disability Policy Committee for then-Senator Obama.

Dale graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelor’s degree in Advertising in May 1995. He received his JD/MBA in May 1999 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, graduating Cum Laude. While attending law school, Dale was also active in community service, including serving as president of two organizations, the Black Law Students’ Association and Open Forum.

New York Times
March 14, 2009

Arts, Briefly

Cultural Post at White House

By ROBIN POGREBIN; Compiled by Patrick Healy

President Barack Obama has established a staff position in the White House to oversee arts and culture in the Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs under Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser, a White House official confirmed. Kareem Dale, right, a lawyer who last month was named special assistant to the president for disability policy, will hold the new position. Mr. Dale, who is partly blind, previously served as national disability director for the Obama campaign. He also served on the arts policy committee and the disability policy committee for Mr. Obama when he was a senator from Illinois. Bill Ivey, who served as the administration’s transition-team leader for the arts and humanities, said he was encouraged by the appointment and would meet with Mr. Dale next week. “It’s a big step forward in terms of connecting cultural and government with mainstream administration policy,” Mr. Ivey said in an interview on Friday. The White House declined to describe the position in detail, since Mr. Dale’s appointment has yet to be formally announced. Mr. Ivey, a former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, said he expected that the job would mainly involve coordinating the activities of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services “in relation to White House objectives.” Although there have been staff members assigned to culture under past presidents, they usually served in the first lady’s office, Mr. Ivey said.

Now here is some fun forward thinking. Lynn Baber from Northlight thought of a great way to use Facebook to get folks to attend their production of Mauritius. Below is a note she posted on Facebook. The best part is that someone I was following in England on Twitter sent it out as a tweet, which is how I heard about it. It will be great to hear about Lynn’s response.

Lynn Baber’s Notes:

Dear Fan of Northlight,

Want cheap tickets to Northlight shows? You got it. Here’s how.

Change your Facebook status to “____ is seeing Mauritius at Northlight Theatre for only $1, and you can too. Ask me how!”

Then print out a screen shot of your status and bring it to the Box Office. Your ticket is just $1 (a handling fee)!*

(Of course, we’d love it if you let interested friends know how to participate when they ask you, and we’d like it even more if you sent this message to all your friends or write your thoughts about the show in your Notes…but that’s up to you!)

Thanks for being a fan of Northlight. See you at the Theatre!

*-Subject to availability. Some restrictions apply. We suggest calling ahead to check ticket availability – 847/673-6300. Reservations will not be taken.

Interesting point here at The Playgoer blog. Perhaps we should all give up on trying to catch up and instead focus on how to get ahead of the game when it comes to the future of information dissemination.

The Playgoer: Will Theatre Outlive The Newspaper?