“Untitled” by flickr user Jakob Montrasio

Each year, Createquity offers a list of the top ten arts policy stories of the past twelve months. You can read the previous editions here: 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2009. Creation of this list is distributed amongst our editorial team. Authorship of individual items is noted at the end of each story.

Compiling our annual list of arts policy stories has always been a loose exercise, involving quite a bit in the way of editorial judgment calls. What constitutes a “top” story? Is it one that captured the most attention? That’s most relevant to our readership? That makes for the best reading? In the past, we’ve navigated these questions intuitively and implicitly for the most part, but this year, in keeping with our work towards identifying the most important issues in the arts (which faces similar dilemmas), we’ve added a twist. The stories below were selected and ranked based on our estimate of how many people they affected (or will affect), and how deeply, worldwide. As a result, the stories you’ll see below have a distinctly global flavor compared to our previous lists. We’re planning to use a similar method to rank our Newsroom stories in the new year. Speaking of which, from all of us at Createquity, best wishes for a happy and healthy 2016!  –Ian David Moss

10. At the casino with national arts councils: Australia shuffles the deck, Canada doubles down, England tries a new game

Australia’s system for government funding for the arts was turned upside down this year, and the implications are still shaking out, even as Communications Minister Mitch Fifield took over the Arts Ministry portfolio from former Arts Minister George Brandis in November. Brandis surprised (and angered) the Australian arts community in May by pushing over AUS $110 million in cuts to the Australia Council arts funding body over the coming four years. The money didn’t disappear, but instead was earmarked for the National Programme for Excellence in the Arts, a new arts funding program under direct control of the Ministry for the Arts, and thus managed, rather alarmingly, by Brandis. Money wasn’t the only thing Brandis moved from the Council to the Arts Ministry–he also took control of the public-private partnership program known as the Creative Partnerships Australia. The ongoing tug of war between the Council and the Arts Ministry highlighted key issues in arts funding structures, including a hard look at the Council’s principle of arm’s length funding. Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the English-speaking world, new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his new Minister of Canadian Heritage Melanie Joly pledged to double funding for the Canada Arts Council last month. And in the arts sector in England, movement towards a more fully American-style funding system continues apace, with so-called “national portfolio organizations” now raising more than double each year the amount that has been lost in government funding as a result of cuts several years ago to Arts Council England. That said, the Council averted further cuts this year and instead is to receive a small annual increase of £10m yearly until 2020. –Michael Feldman

9. Hollywood begins to wake up to its diversity problems

This time last year, Hollywood was rocked by the Sony Hack scandal, which–beyond spectacle and threat–revealed in no uncertain terms the stark gap in gender pay at Sony. Turns out, Sony is not the only offender, and women are not the only ones affected. In January, when the coveted Oscar nominations were announced, there was not a single person of color among the nominees for lead and supporting actor and actress, not a single women nominated in either of the screenwriting categories, and the director category was dominated by white men. Although television fought back with a more diverse slate of Emmy Awards nominations in July, and the recently announced nominees for the 2016 Golden Globes are somewhat more balanced, the situation on the small screen is not much better: a study from the Directors Guild of America looked at the 2009 to 2014 television seasons, and revealed that in this five year span, 87% of first-time TV directors were white, and 82% of them were male. More studies follow suit: a report from the Ralph E. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA which looked at film and television makeup in 2012 and 2013 shows minorities and women lagging behind in all categories (with particularly low numbers of LGBT and Latino players) and the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism’s study of the 700 top-grossing films between 2007 and 2014 shows that women had less than a third of speaking parts in the most popular films and worse, that only three of those same films were directed by African Americans.

Hollywood is finally taking note. Top-billed Hollywood actresses (and George Clooney), heeding Jennifer Lawrence’s rallying cry, have started speaking out about gender pay inequity. In May, citing bias against women, the ACLU asked state and federal agencies to investigate Hollywood’s hiring practices. In October, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission followed suit and began contacting female directors to investigate gender discrimination in Hollywood. Also in October, the Women in Film and the Sundance Institute organized a two-day, closed-door meeting with 44 top industry officials to discuss solutions to the gender issue. (The four strategies identified during this meeting were made public in December.) As for racial diversity, in November Cheryl Boone Isaacs (who, it should be noted, is the first African American and only the third woman to hold the post of president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) finally announced a five-year plan aimed at diversifying the Academy’s leadership, and stars of color such as Aziz Ansari continue to draw attention to the issue. –Clara Inés Schuhmacher

8. Culture fails to make a dent in UN Sustainable Development Goals

This September, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a new agenda for sustainable development, replacing the 2000 Millennium Development Goals. The so-called Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a significant milestone for global policy and help define the framework that will be used to distribute hundreds of billions of dollars in global aid over the next 15 years. In the two years prior to the adoption of SDGs, a consortium of organizations including the IFACCA, Agenda 21 for Culture, IFCCD, Culture Action Europe, Arterial Network, IMC, and the ICOMO launched an international campaign to advocate for the inclusion of cultural indicators among the SDGs. UNESCO–the cultural arm of the UN–also advocated for the inclusion of culture in the SDGs, developing a manual for the collection of data on culture and development. Yet even with 17 goals and 169 targets addressing economic, social and environmental development, culture would up notably absent from the agenda. Despite the setback, some notable progress was made in the final weeks of 2015. On December 14, the Second Committee of the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted the resolution on Culture and Sustainable Development, which recognizes culture as a driver of sustainable development and points out that policies responsive to cultural contexts yield better development outcomes. Importantly for the future of the SDGs, the resolution also suggests that the role that culture plays in development should be included in the follow-up and review framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. – John Carnwath

7. Controversies and troubles in social science research

It’s been a year of upheaval and, yes, even scandal, for the social sciences. In February, the journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology announced it would ban the “null hypothesis statistical testing procedure,” claiming that p-values, the time-honored method of establishing statistical significance of research, are easily manipulated and were never meant to be the be-all and end-all of scientific rigor. The announcement was met with celebration, caution, and mood dampening within the statistics world, and brought a bit of mainstream media attention to an existential struggle that’s been gripping the scientific community for years. The high-profile retraction of an influential study about political canvassing came three months later. The study, which suggested that canvassers from the Los Angeles LGBT Center were effective at changing attitudes towards gay marriage, had received national media attention in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, This American Life – even a tweet on Createquity – and launched primary researcher Michael LaCour’s career all the way to a plum tenure-track job at Princeton. It received a different kind of attention in May, when two graduate students trying to recreate the study arrived at the conclusion that the data was likely falsified. When LaCour was unable to produce the original data set collected, the study’s high profile co-author Donald Green promptly requested a retraction from the original publisher, Science. And it’s not just wrongdoing at play. In August, The Reproducibility Project released the results of its attempts to replicate the findings of 100 foundational social science studies. In 62 of the replicated studies, the effect observed was weaker than in the original, suggesting that the original findings were not confirmed. Both the LaCour scandal and the Reproducibility Project findings raise important questions about “irregularities,” the dependence of study results upon circumstances, and the need for replication. Whether it’s greater transparency and a culture of whistleblowing, increased focus on data sharing and replication, or more innovation and rigor in the use of statistics, psychology and the social sciences will surely continue to debate potential reforms in the year to come, with implications for arts research as well. –Katie Ingersoll

6. ISIS loots cultural heritage to fund terrorism

2015 has been a tragic year for culture in the Middle East, with egregious heritage crimes committed by ISIS in Sabratha, Nimrud, Hatra, and Palmyra (twice!) as reported in these pixels in March and September. The real problem goes much deeper, however. In May, Iraq’s top antiquities officials suggested that the destruction of cultural sites was in fact a cover-up for the systematic looting and resale of antiquities, prompting an international investigation into the Islamic State’s oil & antiquities department (known as “Diwan al-Rikaz,” or, the “Department of Precious Things That Come Out of the Ground,”) and how it helps fund terrorist activities through the sale of relics on the black market. A link was made to the Western art trade as blood antiquities from Syria, Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq were discovered to be being sold in London, New York and elsewhere. In August, the FBI issued a warning directly to art dealers to watch out for “terrorist loot,” and in September the U.S. Department of State offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the disruption of ISIS trafficking of antiquities and oil. In November, a report released by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) found that “IS completely dominates the antiquities trade in the areas under its control,” taking 20% or more of the revenue from items sold to smugglers. While the total value of the looted pieces is difficult to assess (some say it’s in the hundreds of millions, others say the total value is, in fact, nominal,) the extensive destruction has galvanized many into action: archaeologists are racing to capture Middle East’s historical sites with digital renderings before they’re destroyed, and Syria’s “Monuments Men” are cataloging theft and destruction on the ground. UNESCO took its own serious step against ISIS in May when it adopted a resolution affirming that “attacks intentionally directed against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art … or historic monuments, may amount to war crimes”. Meanwhile, these revelations have raised the age-old question of who actually owns ancient art and has prompted a closer look at the astounding scale of looting and selling of ancient artifacts globally. –Shawn Lent

5. The Every Student Succeeds Act is passed by Congress

Fifty years after the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Congress finally passed a reauthorization of the landmark federal education legislation called the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) this December. After the stringent accountability measures and top-down approach of the embattled prior authorization No Child Left Behind (NCLB), ESSA attempts to delegate more authority to states and local education agencies over accountability regarding student growth measures, professional development, and federal funding allocation for high-poverty schools. Notably for arts education, the ESSA replaces the language of “core subjects” from NCLB with “well-rounded education,” and the definition of a well-rounded education includes the arts. While NCLB did include the arts in its list of core subjects, popular wisdom held that its emphasis on strict testing of academic subjects created incentives for schools to shift focus away from the arts. More flexibility in creating and monitoring student growth measures may allow schools and local education agencies to increase their investment in the arts. Further, the new legislation allows for arts and music education programming to qualify for new, state-administered grants. While we will have to wait and see how the legislation is implemented to learn how this new reauthorization will impact arts education, it seems likely that ESSA will at least maintain and perhaps improve arts education for all US students. –Louise Geraghty

4. Big Tech gets in on entertainment action, Big Media gets in on nonprofit action

Income from streaming services eclipsed CD sales for the first time in 2014, and the fatcats took notice. In January, Sony announced that Spotify would replace Music Unlimited as the music streaming outlet for its PlayStation Network. That platform, available in 41 countries (which triples Sony’s live streaming reach), went live on March 30. In March, Jay Z announced the launch of his own streaming service, Tidal, and despite a rocky year–a major lawsuit, three CEOs in eight months–the service is holding on with a million subscribers, a 31-country reach, and a surprise release from Prince. Apple jumped on the increasingly crowded music streaming bandwagon in June when it unveiled Apple Music, its own music streaming platform spearheaded by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame. As with Tidal, Apple’s service offers a paid option only, though it certainly has a marketplace advantage: the app is packaged into every iOS download, and it integrates neatly with iTunes, which at last count had some 800 millions user accounts. Pandora, not to be undone, turned on the offensive this year, acquiring Ticketfly, Rdio Inc and Next Big Sound, and signing unprecedented licensing agreements with Sony/ATV, and with Warner. While it remains to be seen what effect recent US Copyright Royalty Board rulings will have on internet streaming, everyone won with the arrival of the Beatles catalogue to the streaming universe. Streaming services aren’t the only mechanism by which tech giants tried to elbow into the entertainment business this year. In March, Google launched YouTube for Artists, a set of online tools aimed at helping musicians generate more revenue from their music, and ostensibly plan better tours through in-depth access to viewer information on a city level.

If 2015 signaled a convergence between tech and media, within media itself we saw another convergence: between nonprofit and for-profit. In August, premium cable channel HBO struck a deal with the nonprofit Sesame Workshop to bring first-run episodes of “Sesame Street” exclusively to its network and streaming outlets starting in the fall. Although new episodes will eventually be available on (free) PBS–the show’s home for the last 45 years–the news raised some troubling questions about mission and access. As if that weren’t enough, after 127 years, the National Geographic Society, “one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational institutions in the world,” sold a 73% stake in its iconic magazine and other media assets to a Murdoch-headed partnership in exchange for $725 million in September. –CIS

3. A landmark victory for net neutrality

The first half of this year delivered big-time for proponents of net neutrality. In February, the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 in favor of classifying broadband Internet as a public utility, outmaneuvering a previous court order that had handicapped proposed regulations. Far from done, in May the FCC shot down the proposed merger between cable giants Time Warner and Comcast in another move celebrated by net neutrality advocates, and the following month the agency approved a proposal to expand the Lifeline program and allow participants to apply its subsidies to broadband internet as well as to landline and mobile telephone service. (The $1.7 billion subsidy program, created in 1985 under the Reagan administration, serves some 17 million low-income people nationally.) Over the summer, nine internet service providers filed lawsuits to overturn the Open Internet Order, including telecom giant AT&T, who is waging legal war against the commission on its own; all arguments were heard in court on December 4. A decision is expected in spring 2016, and at least one commentator suggests that the Open Internet’s prospects are looking good. On the federal side, Republicans in Congress have attempted to overturn the initial FCC ruling all year (see here and here) and at the last minute, slipped an anti-net neutrality rider into the end-of-year, must-pass spending bill. Luckily, the bill passed without those provisions, thanks in part to pressure from companies such as Etsy, Kickstarter, Tumblr and Vimeo. Meanwhile, across the pond, the European Parliament rejected several proposed amendments limiting Internet companies from playing favorites with legal online content, reminding us all that this issue is a global one. –CIS

2. China becomes dominant player in global arts markets

In 2014, China overtook the United States as the world’s largest economy, and in 2015, it solidified its ascendance in the arts with many important firsts. With the value of art traded in 2014 reaching an all-time high at an estimated €51 billion, China edged out the United States as the world’s largest market for modern art with a 30.6% share of global sales. China rose to second place worldwide in the global art market more generally, tying the UK with a 22% share. Both percentages are likely to increase, especially given the jaw-dropping $170.4 million Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian paid Christie’s for Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu Couche in November. Unfortunately, however, Chinese collectors aren’t paying those kinds of prices for works made at home: sales of contemporary Chinese artists have dropped significantly as buyers focus on Western pieces and Western art fairs, like Art Basel Miami. At the box office, China did as spectacularly, beating out the United States in February film proceeds with $650 million in revenue. (Star Wars, which may or may not tilt the scales, will not be released in China until January 9.) What’s more, Chinese box office sales jumped a whopping 48% this year, putting it firmly in second place globally; a report from Ernst & Young predicts that China will be the world’s biggest film industry by 2020. The year ahead looks bright for gaming, as well. This past May, China’s Ministry of Culture lifted a fourteen year-old ban on the production and sale of video consoles gaming, opening the door to Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft to manufacture and sell their Xboxes, PlayStations and Wii in-country. Although it’s not immediately clear what impact the lifting of the ban will have on Chinese gamers, or on the bottom line of these big three, China is expected to overtake the US as the world’s largest mobile gaming market by 2016. We may very well see China back on this list this time next year. –CIS

1. Terrorism hits the arts

Deaths from terrorism have reached their highest level ever recorded, and the arts are increasingly in the crosshairs. The year dawned with attacks on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris in which two Islamic fundamentalists killed twelve, including Charlie Hebdo’s editor and several cartoonists, in apparent retaliation for the magazine’s repeated depictions of the prophet Muhammad. Though this attack was aimed a small group of individuals, its effects were felt deeply and on the global scale: a solidarity march held on the Sunday after the attack drew almost four million citizens and some forty world leaders. In March, gunmen attacked the National Bardo Museum in downtown Tunis, killing two Tunisians and 20 foreign visitors, and wounding at least 50 others. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack – Tunisia’s deadliest since 2002 – shaking a country that prides itself on having emerged as the most successful post-Arab Spring democracy. In October, two Bangledeshi publishers were stabbed to death purportedly for having printed the work of Avijit Roy, a Bangladeshi-American known for his critical writings on religious extremism. (Roy was himself assassinated in February of this year.) The close of the year saw coordinated terrorist attacks once again reverberating throughout Paris on November 13, this time even more devastating. Gunmen opened fire at a Eagles of Death Metal concert at Paris’s historic Le Bataclan music hall, killing 89, and at bars and restaurants throughout the city, killing another forty individuals. U2 frontman Bono called the Bataclan massacre “the first direct hit on music in this so-called war on terror,” pointing to an unsettling new direction in terrorism this year in which cultural institutions (and not just local or politically symbolic international sites) have become targets.

This year’s attacks, collectively and individually, have prompted an avalanche of news coverage and reactions from all corners of the globe, and precipitated a growing backlash across Europe and in the United States against Muslim immigrants, Islamist terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, and importantly for this forum, freedom of expression. In November, President François Hollande revealed a proposal for France’s museums to temporarily house Syrian cultural objects “at risk” of ISIS looting, and Minister of Culture Fleur Pellerin announced a relief fund for French organizations affected by the attacks. Meanwhile, Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has pledged 1 billion euros to spend equally on culture and security, and the Bardo Museum in Tunis, site of the March attacks, announced a cultural partnership with the Museo di Arte Orientale in Turin, Italy, in an effort to contribute to peace and stability in the region. –CIS

Honorable Mention:

• The Ford Foundation shifts its focus to inequality, reboots creativity & free expression program
• “Happy Birthday” is finally in the public domain
• Charitable giving to the arts is on the rise
• Building frenzy in NYC

For some prognostication on what we might be seeing in 2016, check out Thomas Cott’s annual roundup of predictions from his readers. Happy new year!

Seward Johnson, “A Reason to Smile,” installed at Grounds For Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ. (Photo by Flickr user Wally Gobetz)

On November 13, gunmen opened fire on approximately 1,500 unsuspecting audience members at an Eagles of Death Metal concert at Paris’s historic Le Bataclan music hall, killing 89. The Bataclan was the deadliest site in a cluster of coordinated terrorist attacks throughout the city that evening for which ISIS claimed responsibility. While U2 frontman Bono described the Bataclan massacre as “the first direct hit on music in this so-called war on terror,” the scale and locations of these attacks only solidified an unsettling new direction in terrorism: concert halls, stadiums, cafes, museums, and other cultural institutions (not just local or politically symbolic international sites) have all been targets this year. Indeed, ISIS’s statement of responsibility indicated that the attack sites were carefully chosen as symbols of “abominations and perversion.”

Leaders have responded by bolstering both physical and financial security for cultural venues. In addition to new safety measures, French cultural minister Fleur Pellerin established a “solidarity fund” of approximately $6 million to protect music groups from “expected declines in business and other financial hardships.” President François Hollande revealed a proposal for France’s museums to temporarily house Syrian cultural objects “at risk” of ISIS looting. Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has pledged 1 billion euros to spend equally on culture and security, which has raised concerns among Italy’s business leaders that a corporate tax cut could be postponed as a result. How to protect concert halls and stadiums, and who will ultimately pay, have likewise come up in New York City: Ray Waddell, a senior editor at Billboard, suggested that more metal detectors and bag checks may mean higher ticket prices.

While questions remain about how best to allocate resources, protecting culture now seems especially urgent in “fighting back against a group that is notorious for destroying cultural symbols and objects it deems idolatrous.”

STEM education just got a little STEAMier: In what arts education advocates considered a “huge win,” the joint House-Senate Conference Committee unanimously accepted a bipartisan amendment to the rewrite of the nation’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) (aka “No Child Left Behind”) that will integrate the arts into STEM education. Introduced by Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), the amendment sets the stage for new K-12 education policy by acknowledging that arts integration can “improve attainment of STEM-related skills” (science, technology, engineering and math). Last week, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) that reauthorizes ESEA and includes additional language about the importance of the arts to a “well-rounded education.” ESSA’s more flexible math/reading test requirements and emphasis on state-level decision-making may also be friendly to arts education strategies, according to a detailed analysis by the National Art Education Association. This victory for arts ed advocates comes just after the Arts Education Partnership launched a five-year Action Agenda for Advancing the Arts in Education. It similarly emphasizes the importance of arts integration especially in underperforming and impoverished schools, and recommends incorporating the arts into training for teachers and academic leaders.

A new day in Canada: In a November letter to Minister of Culture Melanie Joly, new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau demonstrated his intentions to make good on campaign promises to double the Canada Arts Council budget, provide $150M to CBC/Radio Canada, reinvest in Telefilm Canada and the National Film Board, and provide increased support for indigenous culture and youth initiatives. This is welcome news to arts groups after nine years of arts funding cuts under former conservative PM Stephen Harper. According to the Globe and Mail, Joly’s youth and relative inexperience in government will hopefully be an asset rather than liability in achieving this ambitious agenda while also redefining the ministry with “symbols of progressiveness.” Trudeau also gained popularity with social scientists when he announced in early November the reinstatement of a mandatory national census, which serves as the bedrock of all government data collection.

Ford Foundation’s new inequality-focused agenda will include the arts: In June we reported on Ford’s announcement that the foundation will shift its entire focus to fighting inequality. Three months later, president Darren Walker has revealed more detail on the specifics of the new strategy, which will involve consolidating 35 program areas into 15. While detailed arts funding guidelines have yet to be announced, Ford’s website lists a reframed creativity and free expression program encompassing “social justice storytelling” and “21st century arts infrastructure.” Walker’s “New Gospel of Wealth” essay suggests that the foundation’s ultimate goal is a reformed capitalist system, and creative expression is considered a piece of the puzzle. Ford will privilege initiatives for broader structural change over those providing direct assistance to the poor; discontinued programs include direct cash transfers in Latin America and microfinance, as well as causes like LGBT rights that have gained philanthropic support from other sources in recent years.While Ford’s program to construct new art spaces will also be cut, the foundation will increase its general operating support–with a new BUILD initiative to specifically strengthen the operations of social justice-oriented institutions and partnerships.

Cleveland arts organizations light up on election day as cigarette tax for the arts is renewed: An overwhelming majority of voters passed Issue 8, which will renew Cuyahoga County’s 10-year, 30-cent-a-pack tax on cigarettes to support arts and culture. The original approval of this tax in 2006 turned a region with scant arts funding into “one of the most highly ranked metro areas in the country in local public support for the arts.” More than 300 large and small arts organizations have depended on the $125 million in cigarette tax proceeds distributed since 2008 for both general operating support and special projects. The campaign to renew the levy was propelled by an Arts and Culture Action Committee that raised over $1 million for advertising, but the renewal faced very little visible opposition.

MUSICAL CHAIRS/COOL JOBS

• Prince Charitable Trusts welcomes Carolynn Brunette, who will head its Washington, D.C. office as Managing Director and also co-direct the Rhode Island program, beginning on January 1. Carolyn succeeds retiring Managing Director Kristin Pauly, who has been with Prince Charitable Trusts since 1998.
• New Orleans Arts Council CEO Kim Cook announced her departure at the end of 2015; Acting Director Nick Stillman will oversee the organization in the interim. Cook is moving to the Bay Area to serve as Burning Man’s Director of Art & Civic Engagement, a newly created position.
• Longtime theater critic Steven Leigh Morris will assume the role of LA Stage Alliance’s new executive director.
• UC Davis Law professor and international human rights scholar Karima Bennoune has been appointed special rapporteur on cultural rights to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
• The nonprofit sector mourned the sudden November 17 death of Rick Cohen, nonprofit advocate and national correspondent for Nonprofit Quarterly. Cohen previously led the led the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a foundation watchdog, and was known for focusing on the needs of low-income and underrepresented populations.
• CERF+, a national nonprofit that “provides a safety net to artists through readiness, education and relief programs,” seeks a Director of Programs. Deadline 12/18.
• The Newark Arts Council seeks a new Executive Director. Deadline January 1.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• The new book Making Culture Count: The Politics of Cultural Measurement, part of Australia-based publisher Palgrave Macmillan’s New Directions in Cultural Policy series, explores diverse approaches to cultural measurement and their political implications.
• Nesta, a UK-based foundation, presents a potentially fresh approach for measuring the intrinsic benefits of the arts–including asking people how much they would need to be paid to compensate for the removal of cultural institutions.
• An initial report on spillover effects of public investment in arts and culture in Europe reviews existing evidence and recommends a future “holistic research agenda” for the European Union.
• In the United States, the Nonprofit Finance Fund published an arts-specific analysis of its annual State of the Sector Survey, encompassing data from over 900 arts, culture and humanities organizations. Trends include decreased debt (but ongoing challenges with sustainability), and an emphasis on expanded programming and audience-building, as well as more focus on outcomes measurement.
• The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance’s new assessment of the nonprofit arts sector spanning 11 U.S. metropolitan areas (using Cultural Data Project data) found that increased earned income is driving many organizations’ recession recovery, but they also face decreased contributed income among other fiscal challenges.
• A Theater Communications Group study indicates that U.S. nonprofit theaters still face shrinking attendance despite increased revenue; offering more family-friendly programming may help. Early exposure to theater could benefit young people in various ways; the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders published findings from a randomized control trial that suggest theater training may boost skills in kids with autism.
• A new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia offers a closer look at the pros and cons of gentrification in the City of Brotherly Love, with implications for national urban policy.
• The arts management workforce still does not match the diversity of the general population. Meanwhile, a survey of UK arts professionals suggests a “stark gender pay gap.”
• A Los Angeles County Arts Commission report analyzes the importance of volunteers to arts organizations – and of volunteer management.
• With Adele’s new album enjoying record-breaking sales last month despite not being available for streaming, researchers continue to debate the impact of digital music distribution. The NEA responded to a methodological debate that broke out earlier this year between the New York Times Magazine and The Future of Music Coalition by looking at what two alternative datasets might tell us about the viability of making a living as an artist in the digital age. Meanwhile, an analysis of two years of Spotify data from the Bureau of Economic Research suggests that music streaming “brings virtually no financial gain to the industry, but it also prevents losses.”
• Several reports explored the “dark side of creativity,” with growing evidence that creative people may be more dishonest and prone to depression and an exaggerated sense of entitlement.
• Finally, will there be more to be thankful for than usual this year? A Charities Aid Foundation study found that charitable giving is up around the world, including an increase from young people and men.

Lincoln Center (photo by flickr user Peter Miller)

Raising money is tough, and raising money for the arts can be particularly so. And yet, at this moment in New York, sixteen arts institutions in Manhattan alone are in the process of raising a whopping $3.47 billion for ambitious capital projects–from a revamped building for the New York Philharmonic (price tag: $500 million) to the long-awaited new home for the Irish Arts Center (price tag: $60 million). While there’s no one way to raise this kind of dollar, the New York Times has a compelling explanation of the various strategies cultural institutions are using to bring home the bacon. Lurking underneath all the glitz and ambition, however, is an unasked question: is this all a good idea? After all, cultural equity and disparities of wealth among cultural institutions is an issue with increasing resonance both in New York City and nationally, and in many ways the current administration’s proposed cultural plan has been seen as a step towards addressing those issues. Will this giant slate of capital projects claim resources that might otherwise have been available to a broader constituency? And given the dim results of past research on the long-term effects of building projects, are these decisions that even the institutions themselves will come to regret?

Violence Threatens Free Expression in the Internet Age. On October 26, SXSW Interactive, the annual media festival held in Austin, Texas every March, canceled two sessions for its 2016 event, citing threats of violence. The panels–”SavePoint: A Discussion on the Gaming Community” and “Level Up: Overcoming Harassment in Games“– were seen as #Gamergate panels, though the movement was not specifically invoked by either. The decision drew outrage from various corners of the internet world; media heavy-hitters BuzzFeed and Vox threatened to withdraw altogether from the conference if the panels were not reinstated. In response to the backlash, SXSW was forced to develop a full day’s worth of programming, an online harassment summit, which will include a significantly expanded list of panelists such as Congresswoman Katherine Clark (D-Massachusetts) and former Texas senator Wendy Davis. Threats of violence are terrible enough, but on the Indian subcontinent this month intellectuals are increasingly victims of the real thing. Two Bangledeshi publishers were stabbed to death purportedly for having printed the work of Avijit Roy, a Bangladeshi-American known for his critical writings on religious extremism. (Roy was himself assassinated in February of this year.) This comes amidst a protest among many of India’s most prominent writers in response to prime minister Narendra Modi’s failure to condemn recent violence by Hindu nationalists in that country.

Colorado’s Small Arts Organizations Lose the Resource Equity Battle. The Denver area’s Scientific and Cultural Facilities District, which oversees the distribution of some $50 million in sales tax subsidies to some 300 arts organizations, is up for a third reauthorization in 2016. In May, the SCFD proposed a plan for the next decade that would keep shares of arts funds close to what they are now. Small arts groups–especially the 270 organizations in “Tier III” who under the proposed plan would split a mere 15.7% of the pie–revolted, arguing the distribution is unfair and biased toward Denver’s big cultural institutions. In response, a group called the Friends of Arts and Cultural Equity presented a plan with a more equitable distribution of resources. This month, the SCFD rejected calls for a redistribution, reaffirming its own funding recommendations to the legislature. The question now becomes: will the legislature send the reauthorization to ballot, or take control of funding measures themselves?

Nonprofits Crowd In On the Crowdfunding Pie. Since it first launched in 2008, Indiegogo–and hundreds of similar crowdfunding platforms–have revolutionized how and for what individuals raise money (Greek bailout, anyone?). This month, Indiegogo launched Generosity, an Indiegogo spinoff where nonprofit organizations can host campaigns–for free. Unlike its competitors, such as Razoo and FirstGiving, the only fees collected on Generosity by Indiegogo will go to the credit card processor. The demand is there: in the last five years, Indiegogo has hosted some 15,000 nonprofit fundraisers. Indiegogo’s main competitor, Kickstarter, doesn’t allow fundraising for charity, but that hasn’t stopped the company from making its own recent moves towards the altruism bandwagon, having announced its reformation as a public benefit corporation and raised money for Syrian refugees at the request of the Obama administration. Crowdfunding won’t replace grants and major individual giving any time soon, but as anyone who’s put in time on the development side of the nonprofit world knows, every little bit counts.

Not All Is Lost: An Alt-Weekly Newspaper Revival. We’ve heard it before: “print is dead” and especially so when it comes to newspaper print. Alt-weeklies, the scrappy punk siblings of the Times and Chronicles of the world, have been hit especially hard, and October witnessed the demise of yet another one: Philadelphia’s much loved City Paper. Yet in an interesting twist, this same month New York City’s storied Village Voice was essentially rescued by Pennsylvania newspaper man, Peter Barbey. Barbey, president of the Reading Eagle Company, a family-owned media company that has published newspapers in Pennsylvania for more than 200 years, bought the paper from Voice Media Group, and has already announced big plans for the sixty-year old circular, including an increase in cultural coverage.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• Poet, essayist, playwright, and scholar Elizabeth Alexander was named director of the Ford Foundation’s Creativity and Free Expression program.
• Terry Carbone has been appointed director of the Henry Luce Foundation’s American Art program. She succeeds Ellen Holtzman, who served in the role for 23 years.
• Veteran art museum curator and director Maxwell Anderson was named Director of Grant Programs for the New Cities Foundation.
• Lynne McCormack, longtime Director of Providence’s Department of Art, Culture + Tourism, is leaving to become the national program director for creative placemaking at LISC.
• Reynold Levy, who was president of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts from 2002–2014, has been appointed president of the Robin Hood Foundation in New York.
• After 14 years, Susan Patterson has announced she will retire from her position as director of the Charlotte program at The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation at the end of 2015.
• MK Wegmann has announced she will retire from her position of President and CEO of the New Orleans-based National Performance Network/Visual Artists Network in January 2016. A search for her replacement is underway; deadline December 1, salary $125-130k.
• The Arts Consulting Group, Inc. seeks Vice Presidents for its expanded Canada office. Posted October 5; no closing date.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• A study conducted at the University Hospital Erlangen in Germany and published in journal PLoS One suggests that actively participating in art-making keeps the brain healthy.
• Michigan State University analyzed several data sources, and found that Nobel prize winning scientists are 2.85x more likely than average scientists to have a significant artistic hobby.
• A new report by the University of Maryland’s DeVos Institute of Arts Management, “Diversity in the Arts,” reviews the economic picture of African American and Latino nonprofit museums and performing arts companies and suggests some controversial solutions.
• The Creative Diversity report, published this month by Creative Industries Federation in partnership with Music of Black Origin, suggests that theater is significantly less ethnically diverse than other creative industries.
• Two studies published this month looked into the question of music consumption. The first, by two Irish psychologists, looks at the many reasons why people choose to listen to music. The second, published in the journal Poetics, examines what your musical tastes say about you.
• Columbia Law School program and the Urban Institute released preliminary findings that, despite rapid increase in the number of 501(c)3 organizations–in 2014 the rate of newly formed entities nearly tripled– states are doing little to hire new regulators to police charities.
• A survey conducted in the UK this month reveals that “one in four performing arts careers are halted by parenthood.”

North Adams, Massachusetts – photo by flickr user John Herr

In 1986, Thomas Krens, with an MBA in hand from Yale University and new to his consultancy for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, suggested turning a shuttered electrical plant in North Adams, Massachusetts into the world’s largest contemporary art museum. He had spent six years in North Adams as the director of the Williams College Museum of Art, and the plant had been in his backyard. It was a big, wild idea, and it came to fruition thirteen years later, when the site became the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in 1999. Now, nearly thirty years later, Krens is back with a newer, bigger idea for North Adams: a 160,000-square-foot art gallery on the city’s Harriman-West Airport grounds. This new museum is designed to complement, rather than compete, with the “old” one: it would only show its contemporary-art collection, and there would be no exhibition programming. The idea is unusual in structure, as well; unlike most museums, Krens’ idea is for this one to be privately owned by a for-profit group of investors, and they’re only seeking a twenty-year lease. Not much has been heard of from Krens following the end of his twenty-year tenure as director of the Guggenheim Museum, but this new idea–five years in the making and originally planned for China–is sure to push him back into the limelight. The North Adams Airport Commission is on board. Next up: the Federal Aviation Administration.

Chula Vista Schools Invest Heavily in Arts Education. Chula Vista Elementary School District, which lies just south of San Diego, California, serves some 30,000 students. The last time the district had an arts coordinator was the 1970s, and last school year, the district had just four full-time art teachers. All this is about to change: this summer, the district has undertaken a massive expansion of its arts education program, hiring 60 new art teachers, with 16 spots still left to fill. This unprecedented investment in arts education, spearheaded by Lauren Shelton, has been made possible by $15 million in funding approved by the Chula Vista school board in June. The money comes from from Governor Jerry Brown’s state local control funding formula, which shifted education spending decisions to the local level and targets disadvantaged students. Chula Vista is not the only district to benefit from Governor Brown’s formula, but it’s the first to focus the entire pool of funds–$5 million a year for the next three years–on aggressively expanding arts education. The District’s goal is simple, if ambitious: to raise student engagement, boost attendance and improve academic performance among low-performing students, and of course, implement a long-term plan to restore arts instruction in the district.

Social Sciences Scrutinized, Found Lacking. The social sciences have found themselves in the Createquity limelight recently, and not necessarily for good reason. In March, we reported that the journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology had banned testing for statistical significance and related procedures in papers published in its pages. In May we covered Michael LaCour’s study on the impact of gay canvassers on voters’ behavior, which was retracted when its data was found to be falsified. And this past month, the journal Science released the findings of a yearslong effort to faithfully reproduce 100 studies, in most cases using original data. These studies, published in the leading journals Psychological Science, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, are considered some of the most important work published on personality, relationships, learning and memory. In the case of more than half of the studies, the replication project found that “the evidence for most published findings was not nearly as strong as originally claimed.” While the study of the studies itself could stand some further investigation, the shocking numbers are just the latest warning not to take research results at face value. Is increased competition for academic jobs and research funding to blame, or is the Internet merely making it easier than before to spot crimes against science? Either way, social science is not doomed–but it sure is harder than we give it credit for.

China Lifts 14-Year Old Ban on Video Gaming. In 2000, the Chinese government banned the production and sale of video game consoles, citing concerns that games could have “adverse effects” on Chinese youth. Last year, China eased those restrictions, letting game console-makers operate in the Shanghai free trade zone (though even then they had to enter into contracts to build new manufacturing facilities, secure approval for console sales from regulators, and allow every console to be individually inspected.) This month, the Ministry of Culture lifted the ban altogether, opening the door to Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft to manufacture and sell their Xboxes, Playstations and Wii. Although China is expected to overtake the US as the world’s largest mobile gaming market by 2016, it’s not immediately clear what impact the lifting of the ban will have on Chinese gamers, or on the bottom line of the big three. In the absence of consoles, PC and web based games have eaten up the lion’s share of the market, leaving little room for new products, especially new consoles, which have, despite it all, long been available on the grey market.

Art School Profits off of Student Dreams. Remember when the entire first year MFA class at USC Roski School of Art and Design in Los Angeles dropped out in May on account of their funding and teaching opportunities being curtailed? If that story made you mad, have we got a tale of student exploitation for you. The for-profit Academy of Art University, based in San Francisco, was by founded by Richard S. and Clara Stephens in the 1920s. Under the watch of granddaughter Elisa Stephens, who became president in 1992, the school has become the largest private art university in the United States, with 16,000 students (35% of which are online-only) generating an estimated $300 million in annual revenues. The Stephenses are purportedly worth some $800 million, which they spend–lavishly and visibly–on prime San Francisco real estate, summer homes, yachts, jets, and cars. According to a Forbes exposé this month, it seems that fortune has been built on the selling of false hope. The Academy accepts any applicant with a high school diploma and the willingness to spend $22,000 a year on tuition–no art portfolio required. Only 32% of full-time students and 3% of part-time students graduate, and it takes most full-time students six years to do so. (The school keeps a full semester’s tuition if the student is enrolled for at least four weeks.) Add to this a caginess around job placement statistics and numerous building violations, and regulators are finally taking notice. It’s worth reconsidering the white-hot controversy surrounding Roski dean Erica Muhl in this light: shady as the university’s dealings might have been, they affected a grand total of seven students.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• At long last, the National Endowment for the Arts has a new theater director: Greg Reiner.
• Charlotte Cohen has been appointed executive director of the Brooklyn Arts Council, succeeding Ella J. Weiss who is retiring after serving 16 years as president of the organization.
• The Tucson Pima Arts Council announced a leadership shift this month: Debi Chess Mabie was appointed CEO, with current executive director Roberto Bedoya transitioning to the new role of Director of Civic Engagement.
• Angie Kim was named president and CEO of California’s Center for Cultural Innovation.
• Jennifer Coleman has been appointed Senior Program Officer for the Arts at the George Gund Foundation in Cleveland.
• After fifteen years with the Walton Family Foundation, Buddy Philpot will step down as its executive director.
• Sarah Martínez-Helfman has been named president of Philadelphia’s Samuel S. Fels Fund.
• Former Microsoft executive Michael Thatcher was named president and CEO of Charity Navigator.
• Scott Cantrell, long time staff music critic at the Dallas Morning, is the latest writer to accept a buyout at the paper.
• The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation seeks an arts program officer. Posted July 27; no closing date.
• The David and Lura Lovell Foundation seeks an executive director. Posted July 31; no closing date.
• The Krupp Family Foundation is hiring a part-time Foundation Grants and Program Director. Posted August 4; no closing date.
• The Prince Charitable Trusts is hiring a managing director. Posted August 5; no closing date.
• The California Arts Council is hiring a deputy director. Posted August 19; closing date September 18.
• The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is hiring a Program Fellow for the three-year Hewlett Fellowship. Posted August 28; no closing date.
• The South Jersey Cultural Alliance seeks an executive director. Closing date September 11.
• Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts is hiring an Assistant Director for the Arts Research Institute. Closing date September 30.
• The New Jersey Council for the Humanities seeks a Director of Programs. Applications will be reviewed beginning October 15.
• ArtsEnging/a2ru_News has openings for a Research Director and Research Fellow. No closing date.
• AEA Consulting is recruiting a research analysts and consultants. No closing date.
• The Oklahoma Arts Council is hiring a Director of Art in Public Places. No closing date.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• A recent analysis of the Mellon Foundation’s Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program by the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute has found that the program has “no significant effect” on Ph.D. completion rates among minority students.
• The University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism examined the 700 top-grossing films between 2007 and 2014 and released a report revealing, in no uncertain terms, Hollywood’s bias against women, people of color and LGBT characters.
• A new study suggests that educational television programs such as Sesame Street have not been successful in reducing kids’ prejudices.
• The U.S. Department of Education released two reports assessing the qualifications of middle & high school instructors across arts disciplines. Spoiler alert: they’re not all qualified.
• How do you get to Carnegie Hall? A new study published this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that individuals underestimate the value of persistence for creative performance. Another report from the same journal indicates that money does matter, and what’s more, that low-income individuals are less happy in places with greater income inequality.
• A public study of Chicago residents commissioned by Arts Alliance Illinois last year reveals that while Chicagoans are united in wanting access to arts, not all have access: 28 of 77 of the city’s neighborhoods are home to zero arts organizations.
• A report published by Gulf Labor, a coalition of artists and activists, reveals that underpayment and harsh working conditions have persisted for migrant workers building new Guggenheim, Louvre and Zayed National museum branches in Abu Dhabi.
• A survey of professional dancers in UK revealed that more than half of them earn less than £5,000 a year from their performing engagements (and other bleak statistics).
• And in more lighthearted news: baristas rejoice! A new study reveals that people are willing to pay more–13% more!–for latte art.