Art and Democracy: The NEA, Kickstarter, and Creativity in America

(This article was first published on NewMusicBox on April 4, 2012. I’m grateful to Molly Sheridan, Kevin Clark, and Frank J. Oteri for their helpful comments on previous drafts.) Every once in a blue moon, an arts policy story breaks into the mainstream media—and as with most poorly understood subjects, it’s usually for some profoundlyRead More

Around the horn: Obamacare edition

ART AND THE GOVERNMENT Mike Boehm has more on the important role California’s soon-to-be-defunct community redevelopment agencies have had in shaping Los Angeles’s cultural development. Gene Takagi provides this extremely helpful dispatch from a session on new “hybrid” legal forms such as the Benefit Corporation and L3C. Culture360 has published a helpful two–part history and analysis of cultural policy in SouthRead More

Cool jobs of the month

(Yup, we’re hiring again, this time for the summer!) Research Fellows, Fractured Atlas Fractured Atlas is seeking Summer 2012 research fellows to play key roles in mission‐critical research initiatives. We’re seeking individuals with a background or interest in the arts who are prepared to bring hard‐nosed quantitative analysis skills to creative and strategic challenges in our field.Read More

Around the horn: St. Patty’s edition

ART AND THE GOVERNMENT Over at NewMusicBox, Mark N. Grant has a wonderful history of American Presidents’ and Founding Fathers’ fascination with music and the arts. Did you know that John Quincy Adams studied the flute and Ben Franklin invented a musical instrument? A bill to legalize crowdsourced investment in startup companies is inching closer to passage in Congress.Read More

Around the horn: Whitney Houston edition

MUSICAL CHAIRS Americans for the Arts CEO Bob Lynch has been appointed to the US Travel and Tourism Advisory Board. The advisory board “consists of up to 32 members that advise the Secretary of Commerce on government policies and programs that affect the U.S. travel and tourism industry, offers counsel on current and emerging issues, andRead More

Let us now praise Katherine Gressel

Many of you have probably noticed that this website’s most thoughtful and detailed writing over the past month has come not from me, but rather from Katherine Gressel, who wrapped up her official tenure as a Createquity Writing Fellow last week. I don’t even want to think about how many hours Katherine put into this effort,Read More

Around the horn: Anyone but Mitt edition

ART AND THE GOVERNMENT – DOMESTIC A professor’s quest to overturn a portion of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that placed certain foreign works back under copyright after they had already entered the public domain appears to have reached an end. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is thinking about trying out social impact bonds. LooksRead More

Around the horn: Santorum edition

ART AND THE GOVERNMENT – DOMESTIC Fractured Atlas officially comes out against the PROTECT-IP Act, also known as SOPA. The same week, the Senate and House remove the most controversial provision. Coincidence? I think not. The state of Connecticut is rebooting its arts agency giving strategy under new leader Kip Bergstrom. The mayor of Boston is “asking” local museums and otherRead More

Corporate vs. Government Influence on the Arts

Britain’s Independent has a short feature on the growing influence of corporate arts sponsorships in the wake of recent cutbacks from the government. While the article doesn’t offer much in the way of data or even examples demonstrating the purported trend, writer Emily Jupp does manage to get some beautifully candid on-the-record quotes from corporateRead More

Around the horn: 2012 edition

Happy New Year, everybody! ART AND THE GOVERNMENT Congress has agreed to put aside consideration of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) through the end of the year, but the bill isn’t necessarily dead. Arts and technology commentators have begun to be more vocal in their criticism of the bill, which would, among other things, sanction pre-emptive takedown requestsRead More