It is now spring break here at the Yale School of Management, and I’m in New Haven for a few days before heading out to California for a wedding and to visit old friends. Among other things, I am reminded by recent days what a difference an honest night’s sleep makes in one’s productivity. In any case, here is your weekly smorgasbord of linky content:
- What is the deal with Shepard Fairey and the Boston Police? Anyone from the visual arts want to weigh in on whether the Obama “Hope” poster artist is getting his due or just getting harrassed? In related news, the AP goes after Fairey for copyright infringement for that poster and writes a “totally” “bias-free” AP article about its own action.
- In tough times, it’s nice to have public officials who see the arts as part of the solution, not part of the problem.
- Arts bloggers are starting to discover the Low-Profit Limited Liability Company, or L3C, after the Nonprofit Law Blog posted a very helpful roundup of internet coverage of the nascent legal form. We had Robert Lang, the L3C’s originator, here at the Yale SOM Philanthropy Conference in December. You can read about that panel here.
- Secretary of the Arts? Not so much, but there is a new arts staffer in the (White) house. Kareem Dale is a lawyer and former board chair of Black Ensemble Theater in Chicago. Notably, his position is within the Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs, which was an explicit recommendation made by Jonathan Sheffer when he spoke at the National Arts Policy Roundtable I attended in November. Apparently someone listened.
- And you thought the $50 million for the NEA was the only way to get arts funding from the feds through the stimulus package? The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies says hi.
- Whoa – the Annenberg Foundation might move to LA? This is not good news for Philly arts organizations.
- Andy Horwitz spills some of the beans on his prescription for new models of cultural production. I am struck by how many of what I thought were my own crazy ideas about the arts (in this case, a shift away from gargantuan institutions toward a more decentralized neighborhood/community model, the idea of the arts as R&D for society, the integration of “wisdom of crowds” thinking into the system) are reflected here, and in the writing of other people around the web. It tells me that a lot of the stuff I’ve been pushing for is perhaps not as radical as I thought, but rather just common sense.
- Nice writeup on the Chronicle of Philanthropy about the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Cultural Data Project.
- Musical talent is not all innate, according to this new study of kids taking keyboard lessons. Their brains grew larger in the areas relating to hearing and dexterity than a control group of students who did not participate in the lessons. The areas relating to arithmetic, on the other hand, did not appear to be affected by the training.
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