“Masterpiece,” by Roy Lichtenstein (1962). Photo by Lindsey Davis, via Creative Commons

Art collector and patron Agnes Gund has sold the 1962 artwork “Masterpiece” by Roy Lichtenstein for $150 million – the bulk of which she’ll use to fund the creation of the Art for Justice Fund. In addition to supporting organizations working toward criminal justice reform, the Art for Justice Fund will finance a select number of artistic initiatives aimed at addressing mass incarceration. Currently president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art, Gund will work with the Ford Foundation – whom she’s partnered with to administer the fund – in hopes of encouraging other art collectors to follow her lead and doubling her $100 million seed money over the next five years. The peer pressure appears to be working: at least four additional “founding donors” are selling some of their holdings to contribute to the fund. Among them is Laurie M. Tisch, a chairwoman of the board at the Whitney Museum, who donated $500,000 to the Fund with proceeds from a Max Weber painting.

Snapchat gets in the original content game. The media giant Time Warner recently signed a $100 million deal to produce content exclusively for the social media platform Snapchat. Running no more than seven minutes, the made-for-Snapchat mini-shows are designed to assure Snapchat’s advertisers that its users are spending plenty of time engaging with the platform, while the benefit to Time Warner is unfettered access to market its other holdings – including HBO, Turner and Warner Bros. – on the app. Time Warner’s $85 billion deal with AT&T last year is expected to go through by the end of 2017 (despite President Trump’s intentions of blocking the deal), meaning Snapchat is potentially getting in bed with the largest media company in the nation. The deal is yet another example of service providers following Netflix and Hulu’s leads by developing original content for streaming (see also: Apple, The Onion, Sony and Buzzfeed).

Shakespearean depiction of Trump prompts outrage and debate. A recent performance of Julius Caesar depicting the authoritarian Roman dictator in the image of Donald Trump has sparked a wide-ranging debate about free speech in the arts. The show was staged in Central Park by New York’s Public Theater, whose artistic director Oskar Eustis, among others, defended the provocative production as a commentary on current events. Despite theater critics’ appeals to free speech rights and reminders that the play does not condone assassination, right-wing activists have vehemently opposed the Caesar/Trump parallel, rushing the stage at a performance, threatening other theater companies performing Shakespeare (even ones that had nothing to do with Julius Caesar), and speaking out online in conservative-leaning media. In the wake of the controversy, corporate sponsors Bank of America and Delta Airlines withdrew their funding of the production (though a 2012 production of Julius Caesar funded by Delta in Minneapolis depicting a likeness of president Obama as Caesar got to keep the check), while the City of New York and the lead sponsor Jerome L. Greene Foundation have stood by Eustis and the Public Theater.

Malaysian film company in hot water over money laundering scandal. Associates of the film production company Red Granite are under investigation for embezzlement after allegedly diverting $4.5 billion from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) fund. Red Granite was co-founded by Jho Low and Riza Aziz, who is stepson of Malaysia’s prime minister Najib Razak. Razak established the 1MDB fund to promote economic development in the country, and several top officials in the government are accused of participating in the scheme by stashing its money in offshore accounts. As part of the investigation, the U.S. Justice Department is seeking the rights to two films funded by Red Granite: Dumb and Dumber To and Daddy’s Home. Additionally, Leonardo DiCaprio has agreed to hand over three pieces from his art collection (including a $3.2 million Picasso) that are tied up in the scandal, which had been gifted to DiCaprio after the production of another Red Granite film, The Wolf of Wall Street. DiCaprio had intended to auction the artwork for his charity, but instead they are now en route to the FBI, which is attempting to recover an additional $100 million worth of art thought to be acquired by Jho Low with 1MDB money. Works by Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, Yves Klein and Roy Lichtenstein are among those on the list.

Facebook hate speech rules are under scrutiny. Facebook’s stringent policies regarding images – specifically its hard line against nudity – have long been a topic of conversation in arts circles, with artists and journalists whose work depicts nakedness or content otherwise deemed offensive by Facebook unable to present their work on the world’s biggest social media platform. Now, a ProPublica investigation of internal documents at Facebook is shedding new light on the company’s hate speech policies. Giving equal weight to all races, ethnicities and religions in defining what constitutes “protected groups,” Facebook’s policy is an attempt to create a more unilateral approach that might be perceived as fair across the world, rather than guided by the norms around free speech and political expression prevalent in the United States. But these rules can counterintuitively favor white men (because race and gender are both “protected” categories) over marginalized groups who may be more likely to experience threatening or inflammatory speech online. To make matters worse, content is reviewed by actual people, and therefore subject to human biases; many exceptions to the rules – such as when then-candidate Donald Trump got a pass on exclusionary statements about Muslims, a violation of Facebook’s written policy, at the behest of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg – have been granted. Another concern: Facebook’s lack of transparency about what is and isn’t allowed on the platform presents potential barriers to artists, who rely on free access to the network’s two billion users as one of their most effective tools for promoting and selling their work.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS:

• Upheaval continues in the print publication world: after a late-May announcement that the staff and board of the arts-focused publication Brooklyn Rail would be dissolved, longtime publisher/editor Phong Bui says it will relaunch with a bigger staff and no planned break in the publication schedule. Meanwhile, publisher Louise Blouin – whose publications include Art + Auction and Modern Painters – has terminated all of her full-time employees, giving them the option to re-apply as contract freelancers.
• Christine Morse has announced her retirement as CEO of Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies. She will stay on as the organization’s board chair and will be CEO Emeritus through January 2018. The foundation’s current president, Paul Busch, assumed the CEO role on July 1.
• The president of New York’s F.B. Heron Foundation, Clara Miller, will step down in December.
• Cleveland-area arts leader Tom Schorgl recently announced he will retire from the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture ‏at the end of the year.
• DataArts president and CEO Beth Tuttle announced she will step down from her role October 6 to become president of the American Horticultural Society.
• The executive director of Alternate ROOTS, Carlton Turner, is likewise stepping down to lead the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production.
• The Montana Arts Council announced Tatiana Gant as its new executive director. Gant was previously executive director for the Illinois Arts Council.
• Kansas City’s Mid-America Arts Alliance has secured its interim director Todd Stein for the permanent position. Stein has filled the director role since Mary Kennedy’s retirement in August 2016.
• SueEllen Kroll has been named the Barr Foundation’s program officer for arts & creativity.
• Vanessa Camarena-Arredondo joins the Oakland-based Akonadi Foundation as its new program officer.
• Louise Bernard, former director of exhibitions at the New York Public Library, has been named museum director for Chicago’s future Obama Presidential Center.
• American University is seeking Arts Management faculty for the 2017-18 academic year.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE:

• The latest Arts & Economic Prosperity report is out from Americans for the Arts, estimating that arts-based nonprofits generated $166.3 billion in spending in 2015. (Read Createquity’s analysis of an earlier edition of Arts & Economic Prosperity here.)
• A new Creative Artists Agency study indicates diverse casts are good for box office revenues.
• According to a report by Themed Entertainment Association and an engineering firm called AECOM, which ranks public attractions worldwide, the National Museum of China in Beijing was the world’s most-visited museum in 2016.
• Neighborhood walkability is a factor contributing to the success of large arts organizations, according to a study published in Economic Development Quarterly. Renting gallery spaces in affordable neighborhoods widens the gap between smaller, independent organizations due to a lack of foot traffic, the study says.
• While New York and Los Angeles remain arts meccas in the U.S., arts and culture sectors in southern and western states are growing at a faster pace. A report by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and Grantmakers for Southern Progress looks at opportunities in which philanthropic investments may be used to preserve local culture and build wealth in marginalized communities.
• A Pew report says kids are going to the library, with millennials leading the way.
• Research conducted at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum analyzes differences in how adults and children view works of art.
• Studies in California and New York City have found focusing on academics in pre-K yields stronger students overall, with no significant social or emotional consequences. In response, New York Times writer Dana Goldstein argues that play-based learning enhances, rather than competes with, academic rigor.
• An analysis published by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences indicates a significant drop in humanities majors at four-year colleges, while the number of liberal arts degrees at community colleges has increased. Data from the United Kingdom’s Department of Education also indicates that graduates obtaining arts degrees go on to earn the least of any other major.
• High degrees of “donor governance,” in which donors have control over how their money is used, has been shown to shift organizational focus more toward programming, and may strengthen and stabilize nonprofit arts organizations.
• Charitable donations in the U.S. grew to $390 billion in 2016, according to a report by Giving USA. Data analysis showed the third straight year of record-breaking growth, though the 1.4% increase in giving last year reflects a slight slowdown of the recent upward trend.
• The 2016 Columbus Survey profiling more than 250 community foundations is now available as part of a new interactive platform.
• The Center for Effective Philanthropy surveyed 150 program officers at foundations to gain better understanding of their critical role in foundations and non-profits.
• A study conducted by the Council on Foundations found persistent gaps in age, gender, race, and ethnicity throughout the philanthropic sector. And a report from the Building Movement Project and the Annie E. Casey Foundation indicates that people of color aspiring to jobs in nonprofit leadership face unique stressors and challenges, including being held to higher standards than white candidates with similar education.
• A study conducted by CUNY students taking an “Arts in NYC” course claims that 80.5% of artists represented by NYC’s top 45 galleries are white. Meanwhile, the Actors’ Equity Association reports that women and minority actors and stage managers have fewer available jobs and receive lower pay than their white male counterparts.
• A new Association of Art Museum Directors survey breaks down average salaries among museum employees, ranging from museum directors to security and volunteer management.
• According to paper published in the journal Human Relations, dual leadership can alleviate tension between artistic and economic goals in arts organizations, but the complexities that come with multiple directors can trickle down the organizational hierarchy.
• A report commissioned by the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre blames a lack of professionalism among theater workers on poor work environments, low pay, and a “damaging culture of overwork.”
• Media strategist Tracey Friesen’s new book, Story Money Impact, compiles case studies and interview data to suggest best practices for using media to effect change and impact in the philanthropic sector.
• IFACCA wraps up the 2016 World Summit on Arts and Culture with a revised discussion paper on 21st century cultural leadership.
• A new report out of the UK, “Towards Cultural Democracy,” strategizes how to frame policies promoting increased public engagement with arts and culture.
• Researchers publishing in Cultural Trends caution against Arts Council England’s use of quality metrics in the granting processes.
• Netflix and Amazon are predicted to outperform U.K. cinema box offices by 2020, says the consulting firm PwC.
• A study analyzing the “long-tail effect” in smaller publishing companies indicates that e-commerce could be a beneficial way to extend the shelf-life of niche products.
• A report of a new study by Robert W. Crandall argues that net neutrality “isn’t as big a deal as you might think.” The claim is based on the finding that recent public-utility regulations on broadband services had effects that were short-lived and/or minimal.

Digital Painting Caricature of Paul Ryan by David Lacasse | via Creative Commons

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare, will live to see another day after the American Health Care Act (AHCA, a.k.a. Trumpcare or Ryancare) failed to make it to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote March 24. Despite the president’s campaign promise to “repeal and replace” Obamacare, Republicans who had spent eight years vehemently opposing the ACA could not come to an agreement on a bill that would appease enough conservative GOP Congressmen to secure passage. The kibosh placed on the AHCA means the survival of the status quo, at least for the time being. It remains to be seen whether the administration will take any measures to save the current system from “exploding,” as Trump termed it. The longer Obamacare (or some form of it) survives, the bigger of a win it is for self-employed artists and creative workers, many of whom have depended on Obamacare to gain access to health insurance. (See Createquity’s coverage of the original passage of the Affordable Care Act here.) For now, Trump seems disinclined to try again with a new healthcare bill, preferring to move on to new legislation including tax reform and infrastructure.

Trump follows through on threats to cultural agencies. In a widely anticipated move, the Trump administration’s initial budget proposal cuts large swaths of the arts and culture sector, fully defunding several key federal agencies including the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB, which funds NPR and PBS), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and others. We shared our thinking on this development earlier this month, but it’s hard not to notice that the NEA and CPB tend to suck up all the energy in this particular debate. In reality, the NEH and IMLS are significant in their own right, with IMLS’s budget greater than either Endowment. As with most policy questions, the issues here are not black and white: in an op-ed for the Washington Post, for example, CPB board member (and Obama appointee) Howard Husock questions whether federal subsidies on television and radio remain necessary in a totally different media landscape that now creates plenty of content for audiences that, 50 years ago when the CPB was formed, had few to no options. People can and do make similar arguments about whether public libraries, museums, and other cultural institutions are still needed in the digital age, but we tend to side with Cosmo on that one. Ironically, some of the greatest contributions of agencies like the NEH, IMLS, and NEA are in research, which is useful in determining whether such institutions are remaining relevant. In any case, Congress ultimately must sign off on the new budget, and while it may not vote strictly down party lines, state agencies, philanthropic organizations and arts organizations are bracing for a blow, with rural, red states standing to lose the most if Trump gets his way.

Borrowers “cannot rely on” student loan forgiveness. For the 550,000 people working in public service, the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program provides an “out” to student loan debt. Or at least that’s what they’ve been led to expect. The program promises to cover student loan debt for individuals who work at least ten years in the public sector for national, state, or local government agencies; service fields such as public school teachers, police and firefighters; or non-profit organizations, many of which serve the arts. While the program especially benefits professionals such as lawyers working as public defenders, it has also enrolled many artists who work in the public sector and have likewise amassed considerable debt. But enrollees got a jolt when, on March 23, the Department of Education issued a legal filing indicating that borrowers enrolled in the program may no longer qualify for loan forgiveness, and that the offer may be rescinded at any time. This filing comes on the cusp of the program’s tenth anniversary in October of this year, when the first wave of qualified workers can file claims after the required ten years of service. While legal battles over loan forgiveness will likely unfold case-by-case, the development has raised red flags among student-loan advocacy groups. For his part, President Trump campaigned on the idea of an income-based repayment program for everyone, whereas the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program requires consistent full-time employment with an organization for ten years (which is perhaps less beneficial for artists given the growing freelance economy).

Disney refuses to go back in the closet for Malaysia. The new live-action version of the beloved 1991 animated film Beauty and the Beast has received a whole lot of press, in part because it’s the first Disney film to include an openly gay character. The reaction has been mixed, with LGBTQ activists questioning the choice of Gaston’s bumbling sidekick LeFou as its only LGBT character ever, while anti-gay activists at home and abroad are either refusing to screen the film or asking for amendments to the “gay moment.” In Malaysia, Disney postponed the film’s release in response to film censors’ request that they cut out the “scenes promoting homosexuality,” which is punishable by law in the country. But befitting a Disney movie, this story has a happy ending … kind of. Shortly after Disney announced it would not alter the film, the Film Censorship Board of Malaysia relented and will let the four minutes of gay stuff slide, but you’ve got to be 13 years old to get in to see it.

Destruction of cultural heritage is now a war crime. While the rise of ISIS and the Syrian war have taken their toll on precious art, artifacts and global heritage sites in a culturally significant region of the world, donors and the United Nations are fighting for conservation – with dollars and legislation (if that’s any kind of reassurance in a war zone). The UN was already focused on addressing the looting and an international trafficking ring of artifacts from war-torn areas of the Middle East into Europe and the US, but upped the ante significantly on March 24 when the UN Security Council declared that intentional destruction of cultural artifacts and heritage sites could be punished as a war crime. While a welcome measure, it remains to be seen whether this move will successfully prevent the total demolition of culturally relevant sites such as Palmyra as the conflict continues.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS:

• The New York Times announced that Jesse Green (formerly of New York magazine) will fill the vacancy left by Charles Isherwood on May 1 as a co-chief theater critic with Ben Brantley. Isherwood, who was suddenly fired by the Times last month, is reportedly moving to Broadway News, a new online source spearheaded by the daily theater newsletter service Broadway Briefing.
• The New Yorker hired Kevin Young as its new poetry editor. He replaces Paul Muldoon, who stepped down March 15 after a decade in the job.
• After 15 years, executive director Pam David will step down from the Walter & Elise Haas Fund at the end of 2017.
• Baltimore’s Mid Atlantic Arts ‏Foundation named Theresa Colvin as its new executive director following the retirement of Alan W. Cooper. Colvin is leaving behind 30 years at the Maryland State Arts Council, 16 of which she served as executive director.
• The Vermont Arts Council’s Alex Aldrich has announced he will step down as executive director after 20+ years at the agency.
• In the past year, three of the six major Hollywood film studios have had a change in leadership involving replacements of top executives.
• London-based charity Julie’s Bicycle has multiple administrative positions available. The organization focuses on creativity as a resource for combatting climate change and promoting environmental sustainability.
• Metris Arts Consulting, a firm based in Easton, PA, and committed to measuring and evaluating arts impact and improve cultural vitality, is seeking a senior researcher.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE:

• A number of new studies look at artists’ attitudes about engaging with new technologies and the sharing economy. An arm of the UK-based Nesta analyzes the digital economy across Europe, ranking Bulgarians and Spaniards most optimistic about incorporating new technologies, and Germany the most skeptical. Regarding the arts, Nesta suggests that technology is changing audience expectations at a rapid pace, and adopting new digital technologies could bolster arts organizations toward sustainability and reduce barriers to arts participation. Across the pond in Canada, two extensive reports by Canada Council for the Arts explore how the arts in that country have adapted to, and impacted, the digital era.
• Another Nesta report offers ideas on how a revised, more inclusive definition of “R & D” might better serve creative industries pursuing cultural knowledge.
• The Economist reports that conducting statistical analysis on literature presents a unique set of challenges for researchers, as when one author imitates another, but new and improved computational analysis leading to correct attribution provides useful contextual clues.
• A nationwide study conducted by NYU found that middle-school students of all races are likely to have more positive perceptions of teachers of color than white, non-Hispanic instructors. And Boston-area Brandeis University researchers suggest that white, non-Hispanic Americans likely inherit the economic mobility enjoyed by previous generations under racially discriminatory policies, challenging the “bootstrap theory” that the racial wealth gap results from effort alone. Nevertheless, mid-life mortality rates are rising among white, non-Hispanic people in the U.S. with a high school education or less, mainly attributed to increased “deaths of despair” from drugs, alcohol, and suicide.
• Ghent University researchers found that boys who consider themselves “typical males” or feel pressure to conform to gender stereotypes show less interest in cultural activities.
• In her RAND Graduate School dissertation, Jennifer Novak-Leonard investigates un- and under-explored questions regarding arts participation, noting the significant impact immigrant groups make to the arts and culture sector.
• Music psychologists from Oxford and Exeter have conducted research on the effects of world music. The results indicate that as little as five minutes of listening to West African or Indian pop music can elicit more positive attitudes towards those cultures.
• A UN report by Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights Karima Bennoune analyzes the impact of fundamentalism and extremism on the pursuit of equality and the expression of cultural rights across genders, races, religions, and sexualities.
• A new report from PolicyLink provides examples of policies that utilize arts and culture to help reach goals in communities of color and low-income communities.
• Rising rents and gentrification in London may force 3,500 artists out by 2019, according to a new report by the London Assembly Regeneration Committee.
• A University of Pennsylvania study examines the impact of culture on social wellbeing in NYC, with a focus on micro-cultures existing within urban neighborhoods. The social, economic, and psychological impact of arts and culture were also measured in Minnesota, through a joint effect of Creative Minnesota and Minnesota Citizens for the Arts.
• An evaluation of Aesop’s Dance to Health program suggests that dance specialists can deliver effective health care programs at a lower cost to participants. The report suggests that such programs aimed at fall prevention and social interaction could be a viable source of income to arts organizations.
• Despite decrements in executive function, older adults maintain the ability to detect dissonance in music as they age. Meanwhile, new fMRI data contributes to scientists’ understanding of musical anhedonia, in which a person has no physiological response to music, and finds it boring or distracting.
• Dolby Labs is using EEG and other biofeedback technologies to conduct its own research on physiological responses to TV and films. The results may be used to create media that elicit a particular response.
• In the audience engagement arena, a report by the Audience Agency revealed trends in classical music attendance. Results indicate that most participation in the UK is through single ticket sales, with patrons booking once in a two-year period and gravitating toward lower prices. And WolfBrown recently published a two-year study assessing the audiences of 23 North American choirs; participation and personal relationships with the performers were cited as having a positive impact on audiences.
• Attendance at cultural institutions benefits from marketing to adults rather than families, according to research from the IMPACTS consultancy. Promoting family-friendly events and institutions as “just for kids” can be a barrier to adults, even if they have children. The same group’s surveys suggest the reputation of New York’s Museum of Modern Art got a boost after featuring Muslim artists as a response to the travel ban.
• Museums are presenting more exhibitions than ever as they try to draw in new audiences, focusing on a wider variety of offerings that cater to niche crowds.
• A report by the Motion Picture Association of America indicates that 2016 was a record year for movie theater attendance by African Americans.
• The 2017 edition of the TEFAF Global Arts Market Report indicates art sales are up worldwide, with the Asian art market particularly booming. While purchases continue to away from declining auction houses, private transactions are on the rise.
• Mindless television is thought to make people impressionable and vulnerable. A working paper in Italy questions whether it is a factor in the rise of populist leaders. Meanwhile, in their new book, psychologists Patrick Markey and Christopher Ferguson push back on the belief that video games are responsible violent behavior and an uptick in school shootings.
• According to the Center for Effective Philanthropy, limited life foundations share few similarities regarding spending down strategies apart from a desire to create impact.
• Timothy Ogden weighs the pros and cons of randomized controlled trials in a section of his new book, Experimental Conversations: Perspectives on Randomized Trials in Development Economics.

“Why ask why” sign from Defenestration: an art installation in San Francisco. Photo by Lynn Friedman via Creative Commons

Amidst the storm and thunder leading up to the Trump administration’s first days in office last month, The Hill reported that advisors to the president had suggested privatizing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (which supports PBS and NPR) and eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of a broader effort to reduce federal spending. Coming from former staffers from the far-right Heritage Foundation and drawing heavily on past Heritage Foundation positions, the proposal was not entirely unanticipated, but it certainly met with immediate resistance. As a number of commenters have pointed out, cutting the NEA and NEH wouldn’t do much to balance the federal budget, given that they account together for just $296 million out of a four trillion dollar total. Because of this, the NEA’s contribution to national arts infrastructure has often been described as “symbolic.” Yet that description ignores the fact that the agency’s state and local partnerships create significant impact at the state level, where its policy of offering matching funds for state arts councils helps a lot of those councils stay in existence. (It doesn’t help that about a third of US states have little to no local infrastructure for arts advocacy and rely heavily on federal resources.) The NEA’s research initiatives would likewise be hard to replace if they went away, particularly core activities like the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts conducted every five years in partnership with the US Census Bureau. Losing the NEA and NEH is far from a done deal: Trump would need the support of Congress to make it happen, and Americans for the Arts reports that there are “about a dozen procedural steps that Congress and its committees must take” before either agency can actually be eliminated. And it’s far from clear to what extent that plan represents the actual intentions of the administration, which seems to change its mind about major policy positions from one day to the next. In the meantime, life goes on for the NEA, with the administration already having appointed representatives to liaise between the West Wing and the Endowment.

Arts advocates who are laser-focused on the survival of the NEA may be missing the forest for the trees, though. In a move some see as an even bigger threat to the arts, the president nominated Ajit Pai to head the Federal Communications Commission. Pai is an avowed foe of net neutrality and his ascendancy at the agency is almost certain to bring the controversial measure back into government consideration. Meanwhile, executive orders affecting people’s ability to travel and obtain health care are leaving many artists bewildered, worried, and angry. As much as losing the Endowment would be a loss, the sad irony is that if we had a stronger agency to begin with, our arts infrastructure would presumably be under even more direct threat right now.

South Korean artists face consequences amidst controversy. Concerns are growing about artistic freedom in South Korea as the scandal surrounding President Park Geun-hye continues to unfold. Park’s questionable friendship with the daughter of a cult leader named Choi Tae-min resulted in corruption charges and Park’s impeachment. Now, the New York Times reports that government aides have blacklisted thousands of artists, quietly collecting information and threatening legal action against those whose work is critical of their recently ousted leader. The moves only deepen the scandal in South Korea, which when compared to its neighbors to the north and west — North Korea and China — is considered a mecca of artistic freedom and opportunity. South Korea is one of only a few countries to increase arts and culture spending in the last decade and its artists earn roughly 77% of the country’s average income. The state-funded Artist Welfare Act of 2012 insures nearly 60,000 artists with a form of workers’ compensation. Despite these promising stats, there’s a clear agenda for promoting nationalism and prioritizing positive depictions of South Korea in arts and culture, an ongoing effort since the end of the Korean War. The emergence of this situation in a country as democratically-oriented as South Korea indicates the tension between artists’ (and citizens’) rights to freedom of speech and expression and countries’ desire to control the narrative observes fewer national boundaries than we might have hoped.

A crack in art’s black market. An investigation involving 18 countries has resulted in the arrest of 75 people allegedly affiliated with an international crime ring smuggling historical artifacts and other pieces of art out of Middle Eastern countries under siege by ISIS. The investigation found that items from Syria, Iraq, and Libya, among other countries, were systematically transferred to Western countries and resold on the black market, very likely helping to finance the Islamic State’s reign of terror. Authorities say many of the 3,500 items recently recovered were found in Spain and Greece. In a landmark case last September, jihadist Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi was convicted and sentenced by the International Criminal Court to at least nine years in prison for war crimes after ordering the destruction of shrines in Timbuktu, Mali. It could be a precedent for what lies ahead in this latest investigation. Historians, archaeologists, and artists are attempting to retrieve and restore, and in some cases, recreate the important artifacts that have been recovered or destroyed in the conflicts. A team at St. Petersburg’s State Hemitage Museum is developing a 3-D model of Palmyra, Syria, and a 25-square-meter replica of an authentic Syrian home sits in the middle of Norway’s flagship IKEA store. Last year, the Roman Colosseum featured reproductions of Palmyra’s archive room of Ebla and the Temple of Bel. And last month it was reported the National Archives of Finland has taken custody of digital copies of key Syrian documents for safekeeping in case the originals don’t survive the country’s civil war.

The Lucas Museum finds a home in LALA Land. The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is expected to open in Exhibition Park in Los Angeles by 2021. More than a Star Wars museum, the $1 billion project will house items from George Lucas’s extensive personal art collection and Hollywood artifacts. The Marin County native’s museum was initially meant for San Francisco, but met strong opposition to the proposed site near the Presidio. The project then looked toward Chicago, where Lucas became embroiled in two years of negotiations over prime real estate on the city’s lakefront. A community group called Friends of the Parks filed suit — much to the dismay of Mayor Rahm Emanuel — contesting the notion that Chicago’s lakefront is public property, despite the fact that the site Lucas wanted (and on which he refused to budge) is currently occupied by a parking lot. The filmmaker eventually gave up on the idea, looking again to the West Coast at new locations in San Francisco and LA. LA won the sweepstakes, and area residents and local officials appear to be anxious for the project’s completion.

Apple wants what Netflix is having. Apple says it plans to begin creating movies and TV, hoping to capitalize on consumers’ hunger for streamed original series. The technology giant is experiencing a slump in sales for the first time in 15 years, back when Netflix was still primarily a mail-in-your-DVDs model. Netflix’s massive investment in original content ($5 billion last year) is paying off in spades, yielding the company’s biggest quarter in history last month amid hit after hit. Others are scrambling for a piece of the action and estimates indicate the number of original scripted television shows may soon surpass 500. Netflix remains the leader, but Hulu, Apple, AT&T (via Amazon), and Sony are all in hot pursuit. In an unusual twist, the satirical news giant The Onion signed a deal with Lionsgate to develop three feature films in partnership with Serious Business, an affiliate of Comedy Central. The move follows the lead of a recent Buzzfeed partnership with Warner Bros. to produce the film Brother Orange.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• The Rockefeller Foundation named board member Rajiv J. Shah as the foundation’s next president.
• Writer and historian Tristram Hunt has resigned his seat in the British parliament to lead the Victoria and Albert Museum.
• Andrea Noble-Pelant has been named executive director of the Alaska State Council on the Arts, consolidating the position with her role as the visual and literary arts program director.
• After 24 years with the agency, Nevada’s Department of Tourism and Cultural Affairs Administrator Susan Boskoff is retiring this March.
• Deana Haggag is leaving The Contemporary to lead United States Artists, a Chicago-based granting organization.
• The Barack Obama Presidential Center on Chicago’s south side is hiring a museum director.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• Major UK government agencies have partnered to launch a pilot study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of crowdfunding matches on arts and heritage organizations. And the Center for Effective Philanthropy offers recommendations for measuring fundraising effectiveness.
• The initiative Community Catalyst has produced an in-depth report on strategies for museums and libraries to strengthen and evaluate social impact.
• A number of studies measure characteristics of art to determine social and economic impact, but few consider perceptions of quality, according to the NEA’s Sunil Iyengar. Meanwhile, a systematic review of arts papers in accounting journals discusses the challenges of evaluating the artistic performance of publicly funded organizations; similarly challenging is predicting the price of art, which doesn’t appear to follow specific trends.
• Lawyers Lena Saltos and Angela Lelo take a look at the legal precedent for applying copyright law to street art.
• A 2015 census by Americans for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts shows promising growth for arts agencies on the local level.
• Norway gets the top spot in the World Economic Forum’s new Inclusive Development Index. Factors included in the index go beyond GDP to include employment status, life expectancy, poverty rates, and dependency ratios. The United States, on top by GDP alone, ranks 23rd on the IDI.
• Children emulate superheroes’ aggression, but not their valor, according to a 2017 study on the behavior of 240 preschoolers.
• Research summarized by the New York Times column The Upshot illustrates how regional choices in TV are related to consumers’ political views. On a related note, studies suggest that viewing diverse characters in television and movies can increase empathy and reduce prejudice. And new data indicates that cultural attractions aren’t just competing with other organizations, but also with potential patrons who’d rather remain in their PJs on the couch.
• Colombian researchers found that recording in a daily dream journal boosts creativity.
• Millennials are often given credit for the migration revitalizing many American cities and invigorating arts and culture in downtown districts, but an article in The Upshot questions whether that now-aging generation will stay downtown for the long haul. Offering a strong rebuttal to the piece in CityLab, Joe Cortright predicts that Millennials are likely to remain in cities as they age and have children.
• According to a study by Isaac William Martin and Kevin Beck, renters are more greatly affected by gentrification than homeowners, and rising property taxes aren’t dissuading owners from staying.
• A report by the Association of British Orchestras notes that strategies to restructure ticketing and audience engagement may eventually leave them in the red. Over a three-year period, a 7% increase in the number of events produced only a 3% increase in audiences.
• Research confirms what musicians already know: that music training results in faster reaction times than that of non-musicians.
• The Louvre announced a $10 million loss and a sharp decline in visitors in 2016. An analysis of museum visitor numbers in the UK indicated a similar decline. The chief reason, say researchers, is that overseas visitors are staying home because of the fear of terror attacks. On the bright side, a new report suggests that London grassroots music venues are in the black for the first time in a decade.
• The UK also saw a 5% increase in book sales compared to last year, thanks to J.K. Rowling’s latest installment of the Harry Potter series and publications by fitness guru Joe Wicks. Despite speculation that digital readers would lead to the book’s demise, a Gallup poll indicated that Americans still read books at a rate comparable to that of 15 years ago, while ebook sales are starting to slip.

“Artificial Intelligence” by Flickr user GLAS-8

Each year since 2009, Createquity has offered a list of the top ten arts policy stories of the past twelve months. And let’s be frank: some of those years are a little…what’s a polite way to put this? Boring. (Looking at you, 2013.)

2016 was not one of those. When the fifth-largest nation in Europe decides to give the equivalent of a year’s allowance to every 18-year-old in the country to spend on culture, and that only barely cracks #10 on the list, you know it’s been a consequential year. (To be fair, it also reflects the global perspective we take in our methodology for ranking stories, described more fully last year.) Amidst all the uncertainty, one thing is for sure: 2017 is going to tell us a lot about our collective future.

As has been the case for the past few years, creation of this list is distributed amongst our editorial team. Authorship of individual items is noted at the end of each story.

10. The Italians launch a cultural voucher program

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who resigned this month after a bruising referendum, may not have achieved everything he had set out to accomplish, but his government did leave one cultural legacy for the country’s young people. Beginning this year, Italian teens will receive a €500 “cultural bonus” from the Italian government along with their right to vote on their 18th birthday. The money will be available for a full year, and, yes, keeping to its millennial audience, is administered entirely through an app. In its first year, a total of €290 million in government money will be apportioned out to some 574,000 teens–both Italian natives and foreign-born residents. The program is intended to foster affinity between the country’s youth and its arts sector by providing Italy’s youngest adults with incentive to consume culture on their own terms, and is part of a larger package of programs aimed at “fighting terrorism through culture” that was initially announced in November 2015. Though vouchers are viewed as efficient ways to provide social benefits (Brazil implemented a cultural voucher program in 2014; Canada and Finland are experimenting with broader programs), critics of Italy’s program question the wisdom of its launch in a struggling economy and its ultimate ability to empower workers in arts and culture. It’s unclear what will happen to the program under the new administration, though Paolo Gentili, tapped to succeed Renzi, seems, for now, to be following in Renzi’s center-left footsteps. –Michael Feldman

9. The era of Peak TV is upon us

2015 was the year that the number of original scripted television series available in the US surpassed the 400 mark–coming in at 409 shows, up almost 9% from 2014 and nearly double that of 2009. FX Networks CEO John Landgraf dubbed it the year of “Peak TV,” and assured us the decline was nigh (a welcome thought for many). He was, by his own admission, wrong. By his new accounting, the peak will hit in 2017, and possibly carry through to 2019, with the tally soon to cross 500. Netflix is primarily to be blamed (or congratulated) for the push; the streaming video industry as a whole is projected to earn nearly $7 billion this year. The business of too much TV is a complex one, with numerous winners and losers: short-term boosts in salaries and profits don’t necessarily translate to long-term profits; more scripted shows means more room for voices in the writers room but also fierce competition for crew and equipment. And the irony is it’s more expensive than ever to produce a TV show: according to Landgraf, the price for making and marketing an hour of television has gone up about 20% in the past 5 years, to $4-$5 million an hour. Beyond the benjamins (and the fear the good times will come crashing down around us), there’s another side to consider: with the explosion of scripted shows from small producers aimed at niche audiences, it’s becoming increasingly easy to create our own television bubbles, creating a narrative space populated with characters who look and think exactly as we want them to. As we look towards a Trump presidency, fake news, and filter bubbles, it will be imperative to keep an eye on the role of television. We watch as much as five hours a day, after all. –Clara Inés Schuhmacher

8. Ghost Ship brings underground artist spaces into the light of day

Described as one of the worst U.S. structure fires in over a decade, the tragic Ghost Ship warehouse fire took at least 36 lives in Oakland, CA on December 3. The warehouse, whose owner had an industrial permit (but not a residential or event permit), served as the illegal residence of some 25 artists, and was the site of an electronic dance party the night of the fire. The tragedy has pulled back the curtain regarding the crushing cost of rent and inavailability of safe spaces in which artists can afford to live and work, in Oakland and beyond. It has also triggered a flurry of investigations into code and permit violations across the country that has resulted in heavy scrutiny of similar spaces, and the subsequent closings of DIY event venues and live/work spaces in Nashville, Denver, Los Angeles and Baltimore, with more likely to come. Sadly, the issue has become politicized: as of December 24, the East Bay Times reported that the so-called Right Wing Safety Squad, an extremist group on the anonymous message board 4chan, was claiming at least partial responsibility for 16 closures after a call to action December 7 to “Make America Safe Again” by alerting authorities to potential code and permit violations in DIY artist spaces. A counteractive push from foundations is aimed at recognizing that urban artist communities operating in spaces like Ghost Ship are in desperate need of affordable real estate, and artists from marginalized communities are especially affected. Three days after the fire, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf issued a statement regarding a coordinated response to the Bay Area’s real estate problem, involving three local foundations in a $1.7 million grant initiative aimed at “preventing displacement, growing the capacity of the city’s artists and cultural organizations, and enhancing municipal resources for the cultural sector over the long haul.” –Lauren Warnecke

7. Impact investing and equity crowdfunding gain ground

Interest in impact investing–taking a financial stake in ventures designed to create social, economic, cultural or environmental impact–is growing: the 2016 U.S. Trust Study of High Net Worth Philanthropy and the First National Benchmark Survey of Family Foundations found that fully one third of those surveyed are interested in impact investing. The arts have been latecomers to this game, largely because it’s tricky to create a competitive return on investment in many areas of the arts sector. Despite $2.4 billion annually in corporate impact investing, the arts’ best chance may be with individuals, and many are working on making the arts appealing to folks with deep pockets. Upstart Co-Lab, a startup nonprofit headed by former NEA Senior Deputy Chairman Laura Callanan, has forged an agreement with the Calvert Foundation to create a Community Investment Note for impact investment opportunities like low-income artist housing developments. Another way for corporations and foundations to “make an impact” with their investing, of course, is to choose who they don’t invest in. Such divestment movements have been floating around for some time now, but the Brooklyn Community Foundation has taken it further than most, committing to divest all its interests in corporations or initiatives that, in its judgment, harm communities of color. Upstart and Calvert’s Community Investment Note, however, is primarily aimed at individual investors, who now have even more options than before thanks to 2012’s Jumpstart our Startups (JOBS) Act. The JOBS Act lifted regulations on capital investments that kept average Americans from seeking a financial stake in new companies, and this November, the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo announced a new partnership with Microventures to provide vehicles for regular folks who want to invest in new companies. –MF

6. Turkey continues its crackdown on artists and intellectuals

We first wrote about Turkey’s alarming trend towards artistic censorship in 2014 (the story made our Top Ten), and–unfortunately–the news continues to worsen. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was first elected as prime minister in 2003, was once considered a relatively moderate leader. Over the past decade he has gradually manipulated the political system to remain in power, increasingly targeting journalists, artists and intellectuals in his continued drift toward authoritarianism. A “culture war” that began in 2012 when Erdoğan felt his daughter was disrespected during a theater performance has since spurred attempts to exercise control over the state arts funding apparatus, attacks on public art and television, and going after satirists and museums. Erdoğan used an unsuccessful coup attempt earlier this year as an excuse to crack down even more on free speech, shutting down and seizing the assets of 29 publishing houses accused of aiding the enemy, imprisoning more than 120 journalists, blocking social media networks, silencing writers, closing universities, shutting down TV and radio stations, charging the editors of a Turkish daily with espionage, jailing academics on charges of promoting terrorist propaganda, and forcibly overtaking Zaman, Turkey’s largest-circulation newspaper. Freemuse claims that Turkey, along with Russia, China, Iran, and Syria, belongs to “a special league of countries that systematically repress freedom of expression,” with more than half of the recorded violations against artists worldwide originating in those nations. As Ian noted in his recent article on the Trump presidency, artists and media are often among the first to be singled out when an authoritarian government seeks to impose itself on the people. We can only hope that Turkey’s creative class continues to resist. –CIS

5. Audiobooks and podcasts break records

Books and radio, whose death has alternately been heralded and bemoaned for years, are making a comeback–in scrappy start-up form. No longer just the stuff of road trips and bad jokes, audiobooks are the fastest-growing format in the book business today. Fueled by the ubiquitous smartphone, revenue from downloaded audiobooks grew 32.3% in the first half of 2016 compared to last year. By comparison, hardcovers and paperbacks grew by 0.9% and 8.8%, respectively, and e-books revenue declined 20% in that same period. Some 35,574 titles were published as audio in 2015, up from 7,000 in 2011. Edison Research found that 43% of Americans over the age of 12 have listened to an audiobook, and some audiobooks are even outselling their print counterparts. Everyone is looking to get in on the action: publishers are hiring high profile actors, and testing out original dramas; authors, such as Stephen King and Fred Armisen, are writing new work specifically for audio. Meanwhile, the conditions and format advantages that are propelling audiobooks forward are likewise helping podcasts, which are finally breaking into the mainstream after first debuting more than a decade ago. By a recent iTunes count (which does not host all the podcasts out there), there are some 200,000 podcasts in the iTunes library, 40% of which are active, and one-fifth of which are not in English. Edison Research estimates that 36% of the US population over the age of 12 has listened to at least one podcast–21% in a given month. Legacy media organizations including the New York Times, WNYC, the Wall Street Journal and the Des Moines Register have all announced podcasting investments, and media startups are getting in on the frenzy, including Slate, Buzzfeed and Gimlet Media. As with audiobooks, podcasts are still a small sliver of the pie, representing but 2% of the total time Americans spend listening to audio, and some say we’re approaching a glut. Still, the field shows no signs of slowing down yet. Even Createquity has jumped on board–we launched a podcast in collaboration with Fractured Atlas in March. –CIS

4. Virtual reality and augmented reality establish themselves as new art forms

By most accounts, we are living in the future. You can now teleport to a helicopter flying over the Swiss Alps, then back in your living room just by strapping a cardboard box holding your phone in front of your eyes. You can sit on stage, smack in the middle of a live performance by an orchestra, ballet or play, without ever entering a hall. You can experience the Tate Britain’s iconic collection alongside real-time news cycle without traveling to London. You can even walk down your own street and battle it out with your favorite Pokémon characters via Pokémon Go, downloaded to your smartphone. It’s the era of augmented and virtual reality, and, in reality, we’re just scratching the surface of possibility. Interest in virtual reality rose exponentially this year, while the popular augmented reality game Pokémon Go broke through to the mainstream with 100 million downloads worldwide, 30 million daily users, and extensive media coverage. The medium’s potential impact on the arts is far-reaching: arts organizations are putting audience members in the middle of the action, radically challenging notions of interactivity, narrative and site-specificity. Visual artists are pushing the boundaries of their work (see here, here, here), and VR experiences are making their way into film, making a splash this year at Sundance. VR is even changing how news stories are told, with the New York Times leading the charge. It’s changing the world of gaming, too: in South Africa, you can book a spot to play video games in virtual reality at the VRCade, and fend off zombies approaching you from your periphery. With Oculus Rift and Google Cardboard putting VR in the hands of the masses, it will be interesting to see how the medium continues to evolve. The Onion may just turn out to be right–on some counts, anyway. –Benzamin Yi

3. China expands holdings in (and censorship of) arts and entertainment

As Clara predicted, China dominated the news again this year, finding itself on this Top Ten two years running. The country’s economy continues to grow at a breakneck pace, and is predicted to overtake the United States as the world’s largest by 2018. China can thank the entertainment industry for much of this growth, including plans for a new $2 billion film studio in Chongqing, homegrown worldwide blockbusters, and buying up big players such as Dick Clark Productions, Legendary Entertainment, and Dalian Wanda (the Chinese conglomerate that now owns AMC Theatres.) This rapid entertainment biz expansion has raised some concerns in Congress about the potential of Chinese nationalism and socialist propaganda infusing American arts and entertainment. Those concerns are not without merit. China ranks 176 out of 180 on the World Press Freedom Index–a report by Reporters Without Borders which calls President Xi Jinping a “predator of press freedom”–and the government’s grip on content continues to tighten. Its airtight Great Firewall includes bans on most social media networks and news sites that report a negative image of the country (notably including the New York Times and Bloomberg); this censoring led Google to pull out of the market in 2010. This year, the government passed a law promoting Chinese nationalism in films, updated restrictions on television content, and scaled down relationships with Apple and Disney (despite these companies’ unbridled popularity in the country). It has also continued its intimidation of neighboring Hong Kong: the disappearance of five prominent booksellers in 2015 has virtually everyone in Hong Kong’s publishing industry scared they will be China’s next target. Still, it appears the lure of an enormous untapped global market is hard to turn down. American filmmakers have started producing films that obey the country’s strict regulations regarding content, thus dodging its quota on the release of foreign films, and gaming console manufacturers like Sony and Nintendo are getting back in on the game after a fourteen year ban was lifted last year. Corporations and media companies are adopting an “if we can’t beat them, join them” approach too–even Google is preparing for its return to China and is prepared to follow the government’s rules. Of course, it’s anyone’s guess how things will change once the Trump administration is in the White House, and we find ourselves once again with a case of wait and see on the China front. –LW

2. The United States elects Donald Trump

No top ten list for 2016 would be complete without mention of the election and the now certain inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. As the entire nonprofit sector holds its breath waiting for the effects of a Trump presidency on its business and constituents, predictions about what will come to pass in the coming years run the gamut from apocalyptic to status quo. There are few clues as to how Trump and his Republican majority in Congress might address the arts sector. His responses to Alyssa Rosenberg’s questionnaire about arts policy in March suggest a free market approach, similar to other policy areas like healthcare and education. The delegation of major decisions to Congress, and the recent proposed appointment of Sylvester Stallone to the top arts position in the administration, underscore Trump’s habit of relying on others (often supportive friends with little government experience) to figure out policy details, especially when they fall outside of the core issues that defined his campaign. While tensions between Congress and the National Endowment of the Arts have eased significantly since the culture wars of the 1990s, there is nevertheless a risk that the Republican Congress may revive attempts to defund the NEA in the context of a larger effort to rein in government spending. Meanwhile, the GOP and Trump administration’s promised policy adjustments to the Affordable Care Act (which provides insurance for many independent artists), and planned tax reforms (including the possibility of a rollback of the tax incentive for charitable giving) could both have immediate effects on the financial security of individual artists and small to mid-sized arts organizations. Most concerning of all is Trump’s threats to freedom of the press and his authoritarian impulses, which could expand constrictions on freedom of expression in a country that has prided itself on being one of the safest places for speech in the world. While the likelihood of overturning a mountain of legal precedent protecting the first amendment is relatively slim, Trump’s attempts at intimidation (like lashing out about flag burning or lecturing Mike Pence at a Hamilton curtain call), not to mention the ease with which his supporters can be goaded into threats of violence against vulnerable individuals and populations, are worrying to say the least. The bizarre and uncharted landscape we’ve found ourselves in has inspired much reflection, from calls to action and lessons learned from the campaign, to the role of the arts in promoting fantasy over fact. One thing is clear–artists will play a role in public discourse over the next four years, and we’ll be right there with them. –Rebecca Ratzkin

1. Artificial intelligence comes into its own

Wait, what?! Donald Trump in the Oval Office is not the top story of the year? Amazing as it may seem, events of 2016 make clear that the march of technology promises greater long-term disruption for our society than even our Tweeter-in-chief can muster. Chief among these developments was the March tournament victory of AlphaGo, a computer application developed by Google’s DeepMind team, over Korean Go grandmaster Lee Sedol. While it was expected that an artificial intelligence would eventually topple a human in the ancient Chinese game, the milestone was achieved nearly a decade earlier than anticipated when AlphaGo bested Lee in four out of five matches. To understand how consequential this is, consider that the number of potential positions in Go is exponentially greater than the number of atoms in the universe, putting the game beyond the power of the brute-force computational approach that has enabled computers to defeat humans at games like chess. Instead, the DeepMind team trained AlphaGo to learn from past games in order to develop new strategies for itself in real time–not unlike what a human would do. Google has used similar techniques, more recently, to have its Translate product churn out translations of literature that are almost indistinguishable from human efforts.

The implications for the arts are at least twofold, both enormous. First, the accomplishments of machine learning are directly tied to the accelerating trend of automation pervading all aspects of society, manifesting most recently in self-driving vehicles and fast-casual spots that replace cashiers with iPads. As more people’s jobs become redundant with what machines can do, unemployment rates could rise substantially, creating far more collective leisure time–and far more opportunity for creative expression. (How exactly that leisure time is spent will, clearly, depend a lot on what we decide to do about our social safety net, which is why many people in the tech community favor a universal basic income.) That could be amazing for the cause of art, though perhaps not so great for professional artists, who are already facing competition from the likes of Jukedeck and Google Brain itself. A grimmer view of artificial intelligence’s advances points to the specter of AI as, essentially, a new life form that could compete with humans for dominance of the earth. Given the rate at which machine learning applications are developing, a lot of smart people have begun to conclude that this isn’t just science fiction–to the point that increasing resources are flowing toward the cause of ensuring that the development of an artificial superintelligence, if and when it happens, won’t destroy the human race. Lest you get too freaked out, be reassured that this worst-case scenario is still considered a low-probability outcome by most observers…but perhaps now you can understand why we think this outranks The Donald. –Ian David Moss

Honorable Mention:

• The Pulse nightclub shooting targets social dancers
• Brexit shakes up the landscape for UK artists and organizations
• Google Books ruled to be fair use (and Stairway to Heaven is not plagiarized)
• Artistic quality metrics controversy at Arts Council England
• Canada Council holds grantees accountable for diversity (and other changes)
• Black Lives Matter and US Department of Arts and Culture release policy platforms

Best wishes for 2017 to all!

Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence by Flickr user C.

Many teens around the world look forward to their governments “gifting” them the right to vote and/or permission to drink alcohol, when they reach their 18^th birthdays. Others receive absolutely nothing from the state. In Italy, however, teens born in 1998 will hit the jackpot this September. In addition to voting rights, they will receive a €500 “cultural bonus” from the Italian government. The program is intended to foster affinity between the country’s youth and its arts sector by providing Italy’s youngest adults with incentive to consume culture on their own terms. True to our times, the program will be administered largely through an app. Though other nations have experimented with “free money” vouchers, Italy is the only to target culture. Critics of the program question the wisdom of its launch in a struggling economy and its ultimate ability to empower workers in arts and culture. As this is the first program of its kind, we’ll have to wait and see.

Political Artists Feeling the Heat in the Middle East. Ever since the unsuccessful coup attempt to topple the regime of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in July, experts have been raising the alarm about Erdoğan’s continued drift toward authoritarianism. Sure enough, soon after he regained power, Erdoğan shut down 29 publishing houses accused of affiliation with the political opposition, along with “a wide swath” of newspapers, magazines, and TV channels. Under Turkish law, the seizure means that all assets of these organizations are permanently transferred to the Turkish government with no possibility of appeal, leaving authors and other third parties in the lurch. It bears remembering that Erdoğan was once seen as a relatively moderate, democratically elected leader—especially in light of recent news coming out of Israel. A group of artists and arts organizations have filed a lawsuit against the country’s culture minister, Miri Regev, who has earned headlines for introducing a “loyalty test” for state-funded arts organizations and threatening cuts to those that refuse to perform in Jewish settlements in disputed territory. Want to help? Artists Rights Justice has a toolkit for you.

The Library is the Place to Be. Not so long ago, the future of public libraries appeared uncertain. What, wondered thousands of (usually digital) think pieces, would happen to those hallowed halls of books in the age of the e-reader, the audio book app, the personal hotspot? Well, it turns out that it wasn’t librarians lacking imagination.  It was all those writers. Public library systems are reinventing themselves as community spaces, where classes and meet-up groups, and special events and makers thrive. Seattle offers its public library cardholders access to free downloads of local music. In Erie, PA, the public library system is experimenting with mobile Wi-Fi hotpots, to help kids without access to broadband at home to keep up with their homework. Believe it or not, in Finland, a public library near Helsinki doubles as a karaoke bar.  The borrowers, it appears, are at the forefront of civic transformation.

Attack of the Short-Fingered Vulgarians. The more things change, the more the so-called alt-right tries to ensure they remain the same (as they were in the antebellum period). Once satisfied to post racist comments on 4chan, this online bastion of the Trump constituency is increasingly engaging in direct action up to and including the outright hijacking of actors’ social media accounts.   Another recent victim, science fiction’s Hugo Awards, opens up a new front in the culture war: vote-based artistic honors. For the second year in a row, nearly all of the shortlisted nominees were hand-picked by a collective known as the “Rabid Puppies,” thanks to a startlingly effective strategy of bloc voting that managed to put a short story called “Space Raptor Butt Invasion” up for an award. The Puppies’ ultimate aim? To ensure that the Hugo winners and nominees reflect themselves (white, male, conservative)—and no, they’re not subtle about this. Science fiction’s more, uh, culturally sensitive constituency has fought back using the same tactics, resulting in a victory for Puppy nemesis NK Jemisin in the Best Novel category and seven wins for “No Award” in the past two years.

Justice for Cultural Heritage. The Islamic State’s ongoing destruction of antiquities in the Middle East has received lots of coverage from Createquity over the past two years (see here, here, here, and here.) Unfortunately, such destruction didn’t start with ISIS; in 2012, fundamentalist group Ansar Dine’s destruction of world-famous heritage sites in Timbuktu made our round-up of the top stories of the year. This month, the International Criminal Court took Malian jihadi leader Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi to trial for the Ansar Dine actions. Mr. Mahdi pleaded guilty, and will now be sentenced. Although the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has handed down war crimes convictions for cultural destruction, this is the first time that war crimes against cultural heritage constituted the main charge of an ICC hearing. Though there is growing resentment among African states that the UN-backed ICC has concentrated its prosecutions on the continent, this case, which comes at a time of heightened international concern about the fate of similar antiquities, could prove useful. Currently, no international court has jurisdiction over crimes in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere; the Malian case could persuade other countries to pursue similar charges.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• Two industry veterans recently announced their retirement. Alan W. Cooper, executive director of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, announced his retirement after 23 years with the organization. The search for his successor is underway. Meanwhile, Mary Kennedy resigned her position as CEO of the Mid-America Arts Alliance. Kennedy spent 27 years with the organization, including 14 as CEO, and will remain in a consulting role until her replacement is hired.
• Tracie D. Hall was named the director of the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation’s Culture Program. In addition to her success as a community arts leader, Hall is a playwright, poet, and fiction writer.
• Claire Rice is Arts Alliance Illinois’s new Executive Director. She begins her tenure in September, after several years as the National Program Director of Harvard University’s Sustain Arts project.
• The Nathan Cummings Foundation is hiring for a newly created role: Director, Voice, Creativity & Culture.  No closing date.
• UC Davis’s Imagine America initiative is hiring a Faculty Director. Posted August 23; closes October 21.
• American Ballet Theatre is hiring a NYC-based Coordinator, Diversity and Inclusion. No closing date.
• Helicon is hiring a part-time Junior Research Associate. No closing date.
• Kickstarter is hiring an Arts Engagement Strategist. No closing date.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• An Americans for the Arts survey on how the American public feels about the arts demonstrated that a majority supports arts education and government arts funding, and believes that the arts improve community quality of life.
• Chorus America released a first-ever systematic look at the motivations behind choral concert attendees–many of them social.
• An Australian study found that people who attend musical events and/or participate in dance are generally happier with their lives.
• According to an updated study by the Wellesley Center for Women on gender equity in leadership opportunities in non-profit American theater, lack of female representation in top positions is more of a “glass ceiling” than a “pipeline” issue.
• A new National Union of Students study of UK arts graduates found two out of three “don’t think a degree is worth £9k per year.”
• A UK study found an increasing decline in the number of children taking part in theater and dance.  However, research from the UK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport also shows that the country’s culture sector’s economic contribution has grown by 33% since 2010.
• New research explores the link between gentrification and racial boundary movements in major US cities. US colleges are also highly stratified by wealth, according to a new study from the Education Trust.
• A report from nonprofit consultancy Third Space Studio demonstrated the continued reliance of nonprofit organizations on individual donors.
• SMU’s National Center for Arts Research (NCAR) recently launched its long-awaited KIPI Dashboard, a free online tool that allows arts organizations to compare their individual performance in nine finance and operations categories to that of similar organizations nationally.
• An analysis recently published in the journal Genome Biology found that a surprising number of scientific papers contain errors introduced by Microsoft Excel.
• As if expanded waistlines and slower cognitive response weren’t enough, a new study ties TV watching to blood clots.

China – photo by flickr user Diego Aviles

China has a long history of censoring free speech and media content in an effort to control the information its citizens consume. In 2016, Reporters Without Borders ranked it 176 out of 180 on the World Press Freedom Index, and that position is likely to keep sliding as China continues to fortify its virtual borders. (By comparison, Russia ranks at 148 on that same index.) This month, China went after Apple, which had long received somewhat preferential treatment in the country, shutting down its iBooks Store and iTunes Movies just six months after those services launched. That same day, it abruptly suspended a partnership between e-commerce giant Alibaba and Disney, struck in December 2015, which allowed Alibaba to license streaming Disney content. China also significantly tightened restrictions on foreign nonprofits under the guise of national defense, echoing Vladimir Putin’s policies in Russia. The month ended with a move against one of its own: China suspended Ren Zhiqiang, an outspoken property magnate, from the Communist party in retaliation for Ren’s publicly criticizing President Xi Jinping’s call for loyalty from the Chinese media. All signs seemingly point to the government of the world’s most populous country getting more and more repressive by the week.

Google Books scores a big win for fair use. A decade-long copyright battle has finally come to an end as the United States Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge from the Authors Guild and other writers claiming that Google’s scanning of books to make excerpts available on its search engine, without the authors’ permission, is a form of copyright infringement. Guild members believe Google is providing an illegal free substitute for their work, depriving authors and publishers of potential revenue. (An original 2005 settlement, later rejected by courts, would have required Google to pay authors.) The Supreme Court did not comment on its decision, but the crux of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals’s earlier ruling in Google’s favor was that despite scanning entire books, Google is only supplying “snippets” to the public. Since in most cases these snippets are vetted so as not to actually satisfy a reader’s need for the entire book, Google’s use of them can be considered “transformative” as permitted by the fair use doctrine in U.S. copyright law. The court also considers these excerpts primarily a source of information about the full texts, and individual authors have never been guaranteed “an exclusive right to supply information… about [their] works” under copyright law. ArsTechnica posits that “in the long run, the ruling could inspire other large-scale digitization projects.”

From robot-building to social innovation, Silicon Valley invests in artists: In mid-April, a group of artists, impact investors, philanthropic funders and social innovators launched Upstart Co-Lab. Led by Laura Callanan, who was briefly the NEA’s Senior Deputy Chairman under Jane Chu, the new collaborative aims to connect more artists with social entrepreneurship and impact investing opportunities, recognizing the importance of artists as catalysts for economic and social change in the private as well as public sector. With partners including the Ford Foundation, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Oberlin College on board, some of Co-lab’s more ambitious initial proposals include a new Creative Economy Index Fund (comprising U.S. public companies across the creative industries) that seeks to enable targeted impact investment in the arts for the first time. An “ArtPath” national initiative also promises to help artists develop career skills and plans to better make a living from their creative work. Meanwhile, according to a recent Washington Post report, one particular sub-sector of Silicon Valley is especially in need of creative professionals like writers who can “engineer the personalities” of virtual assistants, i.e. Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa. An ambitious new crop of virtual assistant startups (garnering at least $35 million in investment over the past year) is developing bots that can engage in not just mundane office tasks but more “human” interactions, requiring the same types of colorful personalities and detailed backstories as Hollywood characters. Up for debate is just how lifelike to make these virtual assistants without causing psychological confusion. Yet giving these rookie robots enough “people skills” to handle all possible workplace situations (including avoiding being provoked by their “bosses” into publicly offensive behavior) seemingly requires the skills of true artists.

Music, art and the Panama Papers. The Panama Papers–a leak of 11.5 million files from the database of the world’s fourth-biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca–rocked the world when they were released this month by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The Papers–the largest leak in whistleblower history–reveal the myriad ways the rich have exploited tax havens to conceal their wealth, and have fascinated and horrified the public in equal measure with their scope and complexity. They implicate some 143 politicians, including twelve national leaders among its pages, with a $2 billion trail that leads all the way to Russian president Vladimir Putin. So what does this have to do wit the arts? For one thing, Putin’s apparent use of the St. Petersburg-based cellist Sergei Roldugin as his “bag man” has sparked the public’s imagination. More substantively, the art market, which this year has reached astronomical proportions, has had its underbelly exposed by the scandal. The papers reveal several instances of potentially shady dealings, raising troubling questions about the value of provenance and the legality of ownership.

Cinema returns to Gaza. The embattled Gaza Strip once enjoyed a vibrant cinema culture, with more than a dozen cinemas across the small territory showing films almost daily. In 1987, these cinemas burned during the first Palestinian uprising. They were repaired, only to be destroyed, definitively, in 1996. In January, Gaza Cinema, led by members of the production company Ain Media, quietly began a movie-going revival. They rented a small events space, and screened “Oversized Coat,” a 2013 film from the Jordan-based Palestinian director Nawras Abu Salehl. As word has spread, so has demand; this month the organizers added a second weekly show. Tickets are priced at an accessible $2.50, allowing many to participate their first-ever movie-going experience. For the moment, the organizers are focused on Palestinian films, though they plan to expand their content (with permission, of course).

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• After twenty-five years with the McKnight Foundation, Neal Cuthbert has announced he will retire from his position of vice president of program at the end of this year.
• Robert L. Hughes has been named the new director of K-12 strategy at the Gates Foundation.
• Regina R. Smith has been appointed managing director of The Kresge Foundation’s Arts & Culture Program.
• The Ford Foundation seeks a Program Associate. Posted on April 8; no closing date.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• Several recent reports provide insights into United States philanthropy and the arts. According to the the 2016 edition of the BNP Paribas Individual Philanthropy Index, the U.S. ranks first among four regions worldwide in terms of the commitment of its philanthropists, followed by Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Yet the Foundation Center’s snapshot of 2013 arts and culture giving demonstrates that arts funding did not keep pace with a general rise in U.S. foundation giving that year; the arts also received a lower share of overall giving than in the previous three decades.
• Two reports this month parsed film data. One shows strong evidence that movies featuring black actors not only keep up with films at the box office and among the critics, but blow away films with no black actors at all. A second analysis, published in Polygraph, breaks down the dialogue of some 2,000 films by cast member age and gender, revealing some stark realities about equity.
• How Cities Can Grow the Maker Movement, published this month by the National League of Cities, explores the emergence of the maker movement within a selection of major U.S. cities.
• How much TV do millennials watch a day? A new report out from Nielsen suggests not all millennials (that’s people 18-34) are the same.
• Americans for the Arts’s latest National Arts Index measuring the vitality of arts and culture in the United States shows American exported arts goods rising in value and new technologies as increasingly important in engaging arts audiences, among other findings. Meanwhile, SMU’s National Center for Arts Research (NCAR)’s second Annual Arts Vibrancy Index ranked Portland, Austin and Kansas City as some of most vibrant art cities in the U.S.; they join a “top 20” list that also includes New York City, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
• This month, the Education Commission of the States and Arts Education Partnership published its 2016 “State of the States” comprehensive survey of state policies for arts education nationwide.
• ArtPlace America released two field scans this month focusing on housing and public safety, kicking off an ongoing effort to assess “how arts and cultural practitioners have and might be partners” in achieving a range of ArtPlace’s community development goals.
• A first-of-its-kind study commissioned by several major US museums shows that the effects of arts programs can last well into adulthood. In other news, US museums spent nearly $5 billion on expansions during the time of economic recession between 2007-2014, more than the other 37 countries examined put together, according to research by The Art Newspaper.
• The percentage of Americans who visited a library in the past year is down sharply, according to a Pew report on the Future of Libraries–and technology may not be the only reason.
• For the first time, UK higher education data experts QS have ranked universities by their performing arts capabilities, with two music and drama conservatories making it into the top ten this year.
• A recent Creative Capital survey of its artist grant recipients from 2000-2013 found that the awards have had significant impact on both artists’ visibility and income.
• The LA County Arts Commission released a literature review on how organizations have addressed issues of diversity and cultural equity, as a first step towards achieving the November 2015 resolution from the County Board of Supervisors to diversify local arts organizations. D5 also published an annual report on the state of diversity, equity, and inclusion in philanthropy. Related, in a paper recently published in The Sociological Quarterly, sociologist Keith Leicht argues that the conversation about inequality in America revolves too much around disparities between groups and not enough on the disparities within them.
• Barry’s Blog’s recent survey on how nonprofit arts organizations use communications internally and externally revealed that while many report “information overload,” few have formal communications plans (or staff) to address this issue.
• Research from the Chicago School of Business found that setting a donation option as the default in a charitable appeal can sometimes increase revenue, but not always.
• New research commissioned by The Guardian into the 70 million comments left on its site since 2006 provides the first quantitative evidence that articles written by women and minorities are more often the victims of internet abuse and trolling. Also across the pond, The Stage published two reports on arts professionals in the UK, one finding that local arts graduates earn less than graduates of any other subject, and the other showing that women leaders at the country’s top subsidized theaters are paid £29,000 less on average than men. But here’s something to inspire “confidence” about making a living as a visual artist: inflating your ego might also inflate your prices! A new study from the European Journal of Finance suggests that the work of narcissistic artists earns more at auctions.
• An exploratory paper out of the UK found mental health benefits to participating in drum circles. Are we all in fact born with a beat? Recent insights from neuroscience (aided by small zoo’s worth of dancing animals) shed light on the biological origins of rhythm.

Men playing go – photo by flickr user J.A.G.A.

Computers have a long history of beating humans at complex games. This month, Google clinched the crown jewel a decade earlier than anticipated, when its program AlphaGo defeated Korean grandmaster Lee Sedol in four out of five games of Go. Invented some 2,500 years ago in China, the game is deceptively simple: despite straightforward rules, there are more possible legal positions in the game than there are atoms in the observable universe (actually, than all the atoms in all universes if there were as many universes as there are atoms in our universe!). As such, it has long been an irresistible challenge to artificial intelligence researchers. Google’s DeepMind project team’s winning strategy was to abandon the traditional AI tactic of building search trees in favor of deep neural networks, training AlphaGo not only to learn from games past, but, importantly, to discover new strategies for itself. Why does this matter for the arts? Well, first of all, we just witnessed a computer mastering an art form: historically, Go was considered one of the four essential arts required of any true Chinese scholar, the others being a musical instrument, calligraphy, and painting. And second, the implications of AlphaGo’s win for the future of artificial intelligence go far beyond this single match; the principles DeepMind uses in AlphaGo may have broader applications for artificial “general” intelligence, which could include creating artistic work. More controversially, the early completion of this milestone may signal a hastening of the moment when machines take over the world.

China cracks down on TV. Cultural censorship in China reached new levels this month when the the government released updated regulations for what’s shown on television. The guidelines make it illegal to depict “abnormal sexual relationships and behaviours” on screen. This means, effectively, no incest, extramarital affairs, one night stands, underage relationships–and no gay people. Although homosexuality was decriminalized in China in 1997, it still remains taboo, and the first show to be cut under the new rules was Addicted, about the lives of queer high schoolers, outraging the show’s many fans and angering LGBT activists. The measures are a challenge for everyone, not least of which for Chinese video websites, which have benefited from a lack of government regulation of online television: in 2015, Chinese video platforms produced some 805 online shows, compared with 200 shows in 2013. All eyes are on if and how the new regulations are circumvented or resisted. The increased censorship comes at a time of rising individualism in China, and on the heels of a recent tiff between President Xi Jinping and Chinese tycoon Ren Zhiqiang which unexpectedly spurred journalists, scholars and party insiders to come forward in his defense. Will it be enough to force a wavering of the party line? Only time will tell.

Canada follows through with big arts funding increases. Just two months after committing to diversity at the grant level, Canada continues to lead the way in government arts funding with the announcement of Justin Trudeau’s budget plan. Fulfilling campaign promises, the cultural sector will receive a $1.87 billion boost over five years. $75 million was reinstated to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s budget this year, to be followed by $150 million a year until 2020-21. The Canada Council for the Arts also received welcome funding news, though a bit less than expected; it will see an additional $40 million this year, eventually rising to $180 million by 2020-21. Likewise, the National Film Board and Telefilm Canada will each receive $3.5 million this year, and $8 million annually thereafter. (The NFB made its own news this month when it announced that it is committed to ensuring that, in the future, half of its films are directed by women and half of its production budgets are spent on films directed by women.) After years of budget slashes by the previous Conservative government, all are in agreement that the funding is a “game changer.” The package also includes capital funding for Ottawa’s National Arts Centre, which announced this month that it will launch a new Indigenous Theater department that will equal the NAC’s English and French Theater companies in importance.

ISIS is out of Palmyra. The Islamic State’s ongoing destruction of antiquities in Iraq and Syria has received lots of coverage from Createquity over the past year (see here, here, and here.) This month, ISIS was finally driven by Syrian government forces from the ancient city of Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the center of Syria. With ISIS gone, the work of restoring the ancient site can begin. Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria’s head of antiquities and museums, has said that “eighty percent of the ruins are in good shape,” and that the city will be fully restored in five years. Beyond Palmyra, significant efforts are underway to preserve antiquities under threat. The Italians, in conjunction with UNESCO, have created a task force dubbed Peacekeepers of Culture which is aimed at keeping ancient artworks, monuments, artifacts and archaeological sites in conflict areas out of the hands of extremists. In addition, several organizations have undertaken to document cultural heritage digitally, most recently the French 3D digitization agency Iconem. Finally, the International Criminal Court this month is considering whether to take to trial Malian jihadi leader Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi for destroying mausoleums and damaging a mosque in Timbuktu, Mali, in 2012. If the trial goes ahead, it will be the first time that war crimes against cultural heritage constitute the main charge of an ICC hearing.

Cultural policy is so hot right now in the UK. The UK’s culture minister, Ed Vaizey, published a much anticipated White Paper this month, the first such statement since 1965. It comes at a critical juncture for the arts in Great Britain, as organizations across the country continue to recover from the recession-era austerity policies that forced a greater reliance on American-style private funding and government advocacy. The White Paper calls for a widening of access for the arts, announces a Cultural Protection Fund for heritage in global conflict zones to be launched this spring, and calls for a detailed reviews of museums, arts and heritage, due to be completed by summer 2017. (In advance of the paper’s release, Arts Council England announced earlier this month a major restructuring to its grant programs, which are in direct support of many of the tenets of Vaizey’s work.) Though some have criticized Vaizey for a lack of vision, many welcome the “vote of confidence” it places on the arts. Meanwhile, the Cultural Value Project, a two-year exploration of the value of culture beyond economic measures, concluded this month with the publication of a significant evidence review that perhaps controversially concludes that the value derived from arts and cultural activity arises primarily at the individual level.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• Maurine Knighton, currently senior vice president at the Nathan Cummings Foundation, has been named new program director of the Doris Duke Foundation’s Performing Arts Program, replacing Ben Cameron.
• Malcolm White returns to the helm of the Mississippi Arts Commission after three years as the state’s tourism chief.
• Pew Center for Arts & Heritage seeks a Center Specialist in the visual arts. No closing date.
• The League of American Orchestras is hiring a Director and a Manager for its Knowledge Center. No closing date.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• Americans for the Arts and Ipsos surveyed 3,020 adults in December 2015 on topics such as support for arts education and government arts funding, personal engagement in the arts, and the personal benefits and wellbeing that come from engaging in the arts. Here are the results.
• A report commissioned by the Hewlett Foundation looks closely at what arts leaders across generations “really need” while the Center for the Future of Museums’ TrendsWatch report looks at what museum audiences “really need.”
• Art of the Rural and the Rural Policy Research Institute launched Next Generation: The Future of Arts & Culture Placemaking in Rural America, a “digital learning commons” designed to address major challenges facing rural arts practitioners.
• A paper published in the Journal of Cultural Economics this month looks at the history of copyright in music and of music publishing.
• “Neighborhood Diversity, Economic Health, and the Role of the Arts” zeroes in on the relationship between arts organizations and economic and cultural diversity in New York City.
• Over the last three years, the Denver Public School system has invested $40 million into its arts education programs. This month, it released an analysis of the impact of this investment.
• Several reports this month look at the benefits of music making. A close look at choral singing published in Psychology of Music suggests that the “well-being benefits afforded by choral singing could be distinct in comparison with other leisure activities.” Another study, this one from WolfBrown and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, looks at the positive impact that making live music together has an families. A third builds on the Manchester Camerata Orchestra’s pioneering music projects with dementia patients.
• A paper published this month offers a systematic literature review of the applications of cultural impact assessment internationally.
• Besides the Cultural Value Project’s final report, several other studies have come out of the UK this month. One report looks into whether physical proximity to a museum or gallery affects whether or not you’ll visit. A survey by the Entertainment Retailers Association finds that the number of stores selling music and video has more than doubled since 2009, while another finds that London-based organizations receive almost twice as much arts funding as the rest of England combined. Finally, researchers from the London School of Economics and Goldsmiths College suggest that there is a “class ceiling” in British performing arts organizations.

Sony’s The Interview hits theaters – photo by Travis Wise

The massive cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, purportedly by North Korean hackers, captured the popular imagination in December. Recent hoopla has focused on Seth Rogen and James Franco’s movie The Interview, one of five Sony pictures leaked in the attack. The movie, which depicts the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, provoked threats of violence from the hackers, leading Sony to delay a theatrical release. After much debate — even President Obama weighed in on the mess — Sony moved forward with limited release in theaters on Christmas Day, coupled with a broader (and massively successful) online release. (The debacle made the No. 2 spot on our 2014 Top 10 Arts Policy Stories roundup.)

Lost in The Interview‘s shuffle, however, are revelations about Sony as a business and questions about the journalism and the First Amendment that bear a closer look. Hollywood (heck, lots of major US corporations) has long suffered a gender and race gap. Leaked documents revealed the situation at Sony is pretty stark: only one of the seventeen Sony employees making more than $1 million is a woman, and 88% of these top execs are white. (The pay gap trend extends to actors, too.) More troubling than the obvious, however, is Sony’s efforts to stop the flow of information. Sony successfully took down Reddit content citing copyright infringement, threatened twitter with legal action, and demanded that media outlets to refrain from publishing stories about the hack. In good news for journalism, however, Sony is not in the legal right, as media outlets are generally protected by the First Amendment (as long as they aren’t stealing the data themselves.)

Arts Council England Prioritizes Diversity: In December, Arts Council England (ACE) announced new funding regulations with several strategies aimed at making the arts more accessible. Chief among these is a diversity tenet, in which organizations must demonstrate diversity – of audiences, programming and in their workforce – in order to continue receiving public funding. This “fundamental shift,” presented by ACE Chair Peter Bazalgette, “[places] responsibility on every funded organization to make their programme of work more reflective of the communities they serve.” British theater companies have mostly welcomed this “diversity drive,” though some do question its feasibility. The 670 nonprofits currently receiving ACE funding have some time to get their act together. The Council will not systematically consider diversity data when making funding recommendations until 2018. The monitoring of progress, however, is to begin next year.

Level Funding for Arts Agencies Secured in Cromnibus: The end of 2014 found the “least productive Congress ever” hard at work on eleventh hour legislation, with many implications for the arts. On December 14, the Senate narrowly passed the annual budget bill, this year colorfully nicknamed the “Cromnibus,” thus funding the federal government through next September. The bill, signed into law by President Obama on December 16, includes stable funding for National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities; each will receive $146 million. In addition, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Arts in Education program within the U.S. Department of Education, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will all be funded at previous levels. While a bill to make permanent certain charity tax breaks – including the popular IRA Charitable Rollover – was rejected, the Senate did approve a bill retroactively extending these breaks for 2014, providing donor incentives through December.

Penn Foundation Wipes Out Two Philadelphia Arts Organizations: Philadelphia’s only remaining major arts funder, the William Penn Foundation, has been a driving force behind the push towards capitalization of institutions within the grantmaker community over the past few years. Unfortunately, when you invest in capitalizing some organizations, there’s less left over for others, as a few Philly organizations recently found out the hard way. In November, the Foundation declined to renew its general operating grant to Dance/USA Philadelphia (Dance/UP), which it has funded for the last eight years to the tune of $2.7 million. As a result, Dance/UP announced last month that it would have to close, prompting an angry outcry from the local dance community. The foundation later agreed to provide short-term transition funding to allow Dance/UP to close responsibly by migrating some of its programs to other area organizations. Meanwhile, Penn also declined to fund The Philadelphia Singers; in recent years, grants from the foundation had accounted for almost a full third of the chorus’s annual operating budget. The chorus, founded in 1972, announced that it too would cease operations following its May 2015 concert, citing loss of funding as the major contributing factor in the decision.

US Reaches Diplomatic Breakthrough with Cuba: In a historic breakthrough reversing fifty years of U.S. policy, President Obama announced on December 17 that the US would begin normalizing diplomatic relations with Cuba. The announcement, considered by many to have been a long time coming, offers potentially significant implications for artists. Although the embargo has not prevented cultural exchange between the US and Cuba in recent years, many are hopeful that improved relations will ease logistical headaches around visas and artist payments, encouraging more presenters to book Cuban artists and fostering new relationships with our neighbors to the south.

MUSICAL CHAIRS/COOL JOBS

• The New England Foundation for the Arts has named Cathy Edwards as its new executive director, replacing longtime leader Rebecca Blunk who passed away last year.
• Sharnita Johnson is the new arts program director at New Jersey’s Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.
• Arts Council England has appointed former Classic FM director Darren Henley as its new chief executive, replacing Alan Davey who is leaving ACE to become controller of Radio 3.
• In two retirements at the New York Times, celebrated music critic Allan Kozinn and veteran arts writer Carol Vogel left the newspaper of record after tenures of 37 and 31 years, respectively.
• William Ruprecht, chief executive of New York-based Sotheby’s, and Steven Murphy, chief executive of London-based Christie’s, departed their respective posts at the end of the year.
• Two staff departures this month came with some public controversy. Matthew Lennon, Houston Arts Alliance’s Director of Civic Art and Design, resigned his post over objections to the city’s handling of a major arts commission. And longtime Artistic Director Ari J. Roth was fired from his position at Washington DC’s Theater J, following a tumultuous tenure that frequently saw him pushing the boundaries of his home institution’s tolerance for free expression. Roth’s ouster prompted a strong protest from his colleagues in the theater world.
• New Yorkers for Parks is hiring a Director of Research and Planning. Posted December 10, no closing date.
• The Barr Foundation is looking for a Program Officer for Arts and Culture. Posted December 15, no closing date.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• New research published in the journal Urban Studies looks at the economic impact of cultural hubs on urban development nationwide, suggesting that localized, place-specific approach to arts initiatives are the most beneficial to economic development.
• On the other hand, the What Works Network, a government-backed organization in the UK, released a report suggesting that large sports and arts facilities have “zero” economic impact.
• The National Endowment for the Arts has released a summary of its June 2014 symposium, which was titled “Measuring Cultural Engagement: A Quest for New Terms, Tools, and Techniques.”
• Southern Methodist University’s National Center for Arts Research published its second major report on the health of the arts industry, with in-depth data on 26 of 184 previously identified performance indices.
• The American Alliance of Museums published the first-ever field wide survey of compensation in the museum industry, with information on salary, benefits and demographics for 51 positions, broken out by geographic area, museum discipline, governance and operating budget.
• The Hewlett Foundation released an assessment of its regranting intermediaries strategies in San Francisco, which includes key takeaways for the larger field.
• The Irvine Foundation released its third and final study of arts engagement strategies, this time partnering with AEA Consulting to analyze the relationship between arts programming, new audiences and unusual spaces.
• A study released by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations shows grantmakers are shifting support towards general operating & multiyear funding.
• Finally, in less than promising news for this section of the Newsroom, research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that our beliefs are driven more by psychological associations than by hard facts.

The Diego Rivera Mural at the Detroit Institute of Arts – photo by Quick fix

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: 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2009. The list, like Createquity itself, is focused on the United States, but is not oblivious to news from other parts of the world. This year, we distributed creation of this list amongst our editorial team more widely than we ever have before, and this is truly a group effort. Authorship of individual items is noted at the end of each paragraph.

In our annual top 10 list of arts policy stories, we often like to point out the implications that non-arts world events have for the arts. In an unusual twist this year, we had a couple of stories in which the art itself was at the center of significant world events. We always knew that art has the power to inspire wonder, hope, greed, fear and anger; 2014 taught us that we can add bankruptcy negotiations and terrorist threats to the list. –Ian David Moss

10. Trey McIntyre Project disbands

In a move that shocked fans and fellow arts administrators alike, Trey McIntyre announced this January that his celebrated eponymous dance company, known as the Trey McIntyre Project, would disband this season, letting him shift focus to new artistic pursuits involving film production, photography, and less frequently, freelance choreography. Begun as a summer touring company in 2005, TMP launched a full-time dance troupe in 2008-09. TMP had been recognized for its innovative choreography and as a model for audience engagement, but most of all for its unusual relationship to the city of Boise, Idaho, which was selected as the new company’s unlikely home after a nationwide search. This arrangement provided TMP with an affordable and livable community, while Boise in turn embraced the company wholeheartedly, treating the dancers like local celebrities and naming the company as its official ambassador. Drawing national attention and funding from creative placemaking initiatives including the NEA’s Our Town and ArtPlace America, TMP had been hailed by many as a model of engagement for the future. Yet McIntyre has said that ending the company was always part of the plan, which is why he decided to call it a “project.” Speaking to Dance|USA, McIntyre said that “the dance company actually went on longer than I had intended. But things were going on really well and I felt it was important to see it through to its fruition and explore every possibility.” From the outside it might look like plenty of possibility was left on the table, but perhaps even in its demise TMP is still a model for the future – that is to say, a model of an organization that knows how to quit while it’s ahead. –Carlyn Madden

9. Transition and renewal for cultural agencies in New York, LA and Boston

In 2014, three major US cities saw a shift in local government leadership, in each case bringing promise and questions for the arts. New York City’s election of Bill de Blasio as its first Democratic mayor in twenty years coincides with a push by the City Council to undertake the Big Apple’s first ever cultural plan. The proposed law charges the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, led by newly appointed Commissioner Tom Finkelpearl, with developing recommendations for increasing participation in cultural activities throughout the city. NYC is the only one of the country’s top ten municipalities to not have some sort of cultural plan; this bill will hopefully change that when it comes up for a vote in 2015. In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti – the city’s first Jewish mayor, and its youngest in a century – opened the year by reshaping the arts conversation, putting emphasis on the fact that the arts are “a value for the entire city government.” In June, he appointed Danielle Brazell, who had previously headed up the city’s arts advocacy organization Arts for LA, to lead the city’s Cultural Affairs Department. But the greatest excitement belongs to Boston, which elected its first mayor last year following the 21-year reign of Tom Menino. The statewide arts advocacy coalition MassCreative took the transition as an opportunity to put culture at the center of the electoral conversation, and its efforts paid off this year in dramatic fashion. In September, newly elected mayor Marty Walsh appointed Julie Burros as Boston’s first Chief of Arts and Culture in more than 20 years, and tasked her with stewarding the creation of the city’s cultural plan. Adding to the sense of momentum, Boston’s Barr Foundation has taken on a newly assertive role in guiding the future of the arts in Beantown, bringing in former Irvine Foundation president James E. Canales and joining the ArtPlace America coalition. –Clara Inés Schuhmacher

8. State arts councils come back with a vengeance

State arts councils had their best year since the turn of the millennium with a nearly 20% increase in funding for FY2015. Total appropriations for arts agencies reached $367.4 million, the highest total (in nominal terms, don’t get too excited) since 2002. The biggest winner was the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, which had suffered a crippling 94% budgetary cut over a three-year period ending in 2009. The Sunshine State’s arts council roared back this year with a 433% increase, unseating the New York State Council on the Arts as the most formidable state arts council in the country – and with a conservative governor at the helm, no less. California and Michigan also received significant increases in funding, and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley apparently got tired of trying unsuccessfully to veto funding for the state’s Arts Commission as she had done in each of her previous years in office.  With the improving economy, unplanned midyear cuts to state arts agency budgets saw a marked decrease, down to eight states in 2014 from 41 in FY2009. –Louise Geraghty

7. The landscape for film tax credits gets reshaped

After years of what resembled a high-stakes poker game in the competitive environment for film and TV tax incentives, 2014 saw several significant shifts that involved some states upping the ante and others folding their hand. California led the way, more than tripling its tax credit program to $330 million annually in a bid to reassert dominance and keep Hollywood productions in Hollywood. New Jersey’s state Senate decided to play along too, passing a bill that would raise the annual cap for film tax credits from $10 million to $50 million. States weren’t the only ones in the mix: Austin’s City Council approved reimbursement of up to 0.75% of production companies’ wages. Not everyone is drinking the Kool-Aid, however; as John Carnwath writes in “The Bottom Line on Film Tax Credits,” the benefits of film & TV tax incentives to the state and its citizens are not always clear. This year saw North Carolina, Michigan and New Mexico scaling down their programs, citing “concerns [that] the cost to taxpayers outweighed the economic benefits.” Meanwhile, skeptical lawmakers tried to derail Maryland’s tax credit program, prompting a high-stakes standoff with Media Rights Capital and its Netflix show House of Cards that brought out a lobbying appearance from Kevin Spacey himself. An eventual agreement kept House of Cards filming in the Old Line State, but only at the expense of $2.5 million that was transferred away from the state arts fund (and thus many deserving nonprofits!) in a troubling precedent. And even after all that, a nonpartisan analysis from the state’s legislative staff concluded that every dollar invested in the tax credits brought back only 10 cents in revenue. –CIS

6. Bring on the era of Jane Chu!

With the NEA chairmanship open since Rocco Landesman’s retirement in November 2012, the confirmation of Jane Chu to the post was welcome news this June. Chu established her arts career in Kansas City, where she led a $414 million campaign for the establishment of the Kauffman Center and was a key player in the city’s transformation into an arts leader. With a midwestern background, a track record with the business community as a board member for the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, and previous fundraising success, Chu seems well-chosen for the task of establishing bipartisan support for the arts and countering the impression that the NEA serves a coastal cultural elite. Nevertheless, some wonder if her limited tenure as result of the administration’s long delay in appointing a new leader will give her much opportunity to drive policy at the agency. Chu has not yet announced any new initiatives in her first six months on the job. Meanwhile, the National Endowment for the Humanities also saw a new chairman confirmed this year. William “Bro” Adams comes from a career in academia, most recently as the president of Colby College in Maine, but he may find himself taking on a similar agenda of garnering broad based support and bolstering funding for the humanities. Adams has already announced a new initiative entitled “The Common Good, Humanities in the Public Square.”  –Katherine Ingersoll

5. The IRS haltingly embraces the 21st century

In July the IRS announced major changes to the process of applying for 501(c)(3) charitable status, including a streamlined three-page 1023EZ form for most organizations with gross receipts under $50,000. This bodes well for the backlog of nearly 60,000 organizations waiting for their applications to be processed who will see a dramatic decrease in wait time. The move is in line with a larger trend towards more streamlined processes for the exempt organizations division at the IRS – and, quite possibly, more relaxed enforcement of the rules. The changes come at a time when budget cuts, staff reductions, and political scandals, have stoked concerns about the agency’s regulatory oversight. Government transparency advocates have noted that the dilemma of providing effective regulation with fewer resources could be solved by offering 990 data in an open, searchable format online, distributing some of the IRS’s watchdog responsibilities to donor advocates and the public. (Currently the forms are only available on CDs; GuideStar offers the documents on its website with a 1-2 year delay.) Will the IRS be able to modernize its operations while protecting the public interest? Will your tax forms become shorter, and will there be any staff left to process them? Only time will tell. –KI

4. Russia and Turkey crack down on free expression

Although Russia’s aggression toward the Ukraine has occupied many a news cycle this year, the oppressive measures that Vladimir Putin’s government has taken to reaffirm authority at home, many of which affect artists, have not been as widely reported. Among the more troubling developments is what appears to be a return to the witch-hunt tactics of the Soviet era, publicly naming (and ostensibly shaming) “subversive” artists in print and on television. In July, Putin signed a law prohibiting swearing in public performances (these are the four main offenders), leaving presenters struggling with how best to present planned repertoire. International tensions have affected programming in the US as well – most notably, in April, Washington DC’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre canceled a months-in-the-making festival of Russian theatre, citing loss of previously committed tour funding from the Moscow Cultural Ministry for the 90 artists slated to appear. Putin is not the only national leader to attempt to bend public expression to his will, of course, and he seemingly is inspiring some copycat behavior by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Coinciding with a sweeping consolidation of power this year, Erdogan’s government proposed a bill in April that would establish an arts council to centralize the disbursement of state funds for artistic activities, effectively giving the government absolute artistic control. The proposed bill has drawn outrage from both the arts community and Turkish citizens, and though still in draft form, the effects of its line of thinking are already being felt, with world-renowned pianists blocked from national performances, and mysteriously cancelled productions at the State Theater. –CIS

3. Net neutrality hangs in the balance

It’s been yet another rough year for net neutrality. In January, Verizon challenged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s 2011 “Open Internet Order” and its authority to promulgate such rules. Verizon won, effectively overturning regulations that require internet service providers to treat all content equally, and setting off a maelstrom of concern around innovation, democracy, and the idea of America itself. Under fire, the FCC proposed new net neutrality rules in March, then again in April (these critics claimed were unworthy of the name), with yet a third draft presented on May 15th. The May proposal, which garnered a whopping 3.7 million public comments over a five month period (680k of which the FCC recently “lost,”) would allow broadband companies to provide a “fast lane” for content providers willing to pay a “commercially reasonable” fee, similar to those that already exist with tech companies like Netflix, Google, Amazon, and Facebook. In December, President Obama and The White House released a plan recommending that the FCC reclassify Internet broadband as a public utility under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, which proponents argue would give the FCC the increased regulatory power necessary to protect net neutrality. Looming large over the debate is the proposed merger of Time Warner Cable and Comcast – the country’s two largest cable companies – and the access implications if approved (the merger would give the new company a stake in 60% of US broadband households.) For now, it’s wait-and-see. The FCC has said it will implement net neutrality rules as early as February 2015, though that likely won’t bring an end to the debate. Whatever happens, someone is likely to sue. –CIS

2. “The Interview” provokes an international incident

Few arts stories in recent memory have involved as much bizarre spectacle as the recent Sony Pictures hack and subsequent fallout. Hollywood is no stranger to poking fun at North Korea (whose leaders are known film buffs); when Team America: World Police lampooned Kim Jong-il in 2004, life went on without much incident. Ten years later, it’s a different story with Seth Rogen and James Franco’s The Interview, which depicts the assassination of Kim’s son Jong-un. After hackers who may or may not have been aligned with North Korea exposed embarrassing emails and data from Sony Pictures, the producer of the movie, the studio and major movie theaters distanced themselves from the film. When the group claiming responsibility for the cyberattack threatened violence, Sony went further, deciding to delay The Interview’s theatrical release and provoking stern words from President Obama himself in response. Subsequently, Sony reversed its decision and released the film online and in select theaters on schedule. Buoyed by the controversy, it is now the most downloaded Sony Pictures film of all time and earned $15 million in its first three days of digital release (along with $3 million through its limited theatrical run) – and no one has yet been injured in a terrorist attack. Now, some people are even speculating that Sony and other major studios might forego a traditional theatrical release in the future in favor of going directly to online outlets. One thing we’re pretty sure about: never before has a story engaged computer geeks, homeland security experts, celebrity gossip hounds, and arts marketers with such equal intensity. –LG

1. Detroit’s art leads the Motor City out of bankruptcy

News about the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) made our “Top Ten” list in 2012 and in 2013. Let’s hope 2014 – as it reaches the dubious honor of No. 1 – marks its last appearance for a while. After two years, Detroit’s long and painful bankruptcy battle finally came to a close in November with a federal ruling in favor of the city’s bankruptcy plan. For this Detroit has, in many ways, the DIA to thank. Under the so-called “Grand Bargain,” an $816 million deal developed by the Ford, Kresge and Knight Foundations, among others, the foundations will provide funding for Detroit’s public pensions – a key component of the negotiations. The only catch? Control of the DIA must be transferred from the City of Detroit (which has owned the museum since 1919) to an independent charitable trust, thus protecting the art from being auctioned off to the highest bidder. Previously, Detroit’s state-appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr had included the museum’s art collection among city assets available for liquidation, and contracted Christie’s to appraise portions of the 60k+ piece collection. Detroit city creditor Financial Guaranty Insurance Co. even went as far as to solicit bids for the DIA’s entire collection, receiving four separate offers to buy the art outright for as much as $2 billion. That a museum and its art could become the linchpin of a federal bankruptcy negotiation, soliciting intense interest from creditors and rallying outside philanthropic interests to its rescue, is truly remarkable. Would a “Grand Bargain” — and a Detroit with its dignity left intact — have even been possible without the DIA? Luckily, we won’t have to find out. –CIS

Honorable mentions:

• Drama at the Metropolitan Opera, Atlanta Symphony, and San Diego Opera
• The Cultural Data Project’s strategic reboot
• August Wilson Center sold to Pittsburgh foundations
• US Department of Arts and Culture gets up and running

Happy 2015 to all!

Jane Chu is inching towards nomination as the next NEA Chair, as the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee voted to approve her candidacy with “no controversy.” Over the past few years, Republicans appear to be content to let the NEA languish in level-funding purgatory rather than continue to whip up the kind of culture-war controversy that proved so successful in handcuffing the agency in the ’90s. Let’s be grateful for small victories.

STATE AND LOCAL

This is the season for state arts council budget drama, and there are certainly a few stories worth reporting. First and foremost is the prospect of an incredible resurgence for the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, which had its budget cut an astonishing 94% over a three-year period and nearly zeroed out in the heady summer of 2009. Since then, arts advocates have slowly moved the needle towards more funding, but nothing compared to the 384% increase the agency would be in line to receive if Governor Rick Scott signs the budget recently passed by the Legislature, restoring funding to pre-recession levels. It’s not a done deal yet, though – Scott has line-item veto power and may be itching to use it.

In somewhat more bittersweet news, after all the brouhaha from last time, Maryland has agreed to increase tax incentives to Media Rights Capital, the producer of Netflix’s House of Cards, settling on $11.5 million to keep the show in the state. The figure does represent a decrease from the average amount the show had received in previous years, but as previously reported the state had to raid a fund intended for local arts organizations to make the deal happen.

On the local front, the Art Newspaper takes stock of NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio’s arts agenda: whereas Bloomberg invested in large-scale projects designed to drive tourism and economic impact, de Blasio appears to be focused on the outer boroughs, access, and community engagement. Meanwhile, de Blasio’s first budget for New York City is out, and with a 6% overall increase in spending gives educators a lot to be happy about: steps toward universal pre-K, expanded after-school programs and a $20 million allocation for arts education.

Los Angeles may be on the verge of overhauling its public art ordinance, thanks to an audit that recommends the city relax the requirement that developers’ public art fees be spent within one block of the constructions that generated them. Paralyzed by the geographical restriction, the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs had been sitting  on $7.5 million in funds earmarked for public artwork.

Any cities or counties pondering local tax increases for arts and culture, take note: the ultraconservative Americans for Prosperity is wading into local politics with a campaign against a local tax increase in Franklin County, Ohio meant to benefit the Columbus Zoo.

INTERNATIONAL

The authors of last year’s report showing that the UK Arts Council gave London-based organizations five times as much money per capita as those in other parts of the country have released a new study showing that UK lottery arts funding is similarly concentrated in the capital. The Mayor of London and organizations in his city  support raises for others but not cuts for themselves. And Parliament may decriminalize non-payment of Britain’s $250 annual TV-licensing fee, the primary source of income for the BBC. Scofflaws, such as the 107 TV owners jailed in 2 years for failing to pony up, would still be subject to civil penalties. Meanwhile, the BBC is calling for payment even by those who don’t own televisions in an age when physical TVs are an afterthought.

Australia’s conservative government has taken aim at the arts, enacting more than $100 million in cuts to various national funding bodies. Since most of that amount is spread over a four-year period, the impact is not as drastic as it sounds, and the head of the Australia Council doesn’t seem too worried. Still, $100 million is $100 million…well, about $94 million in American dollars. On the other side of the ledger (and the world), the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is investing $1.7 billion to build 230 new museums across the country, intended to show off the nation’s rich cultural history. Private-sector firms, including the oil giant Saudi Aramco, are getting in on the museum-building act as well.

Despite all the money that Russia pumps into the arts, there is mounting criticism—especially in the theater world—against its contents, with a new, envelope-pushing generation of artists facing political pressure from the government. Woolly Mammoth Theater’s Festival of New Radical Theater, which was set to include works from Russia, has become the most recent collateral damage in Moscow’s politicization of art. Meanwhile, on July 1, it will become illegal to curse in public performances in Russia – though the ban may cover only four very, very dirty words. Russia, of course, isn’t the only major world power wanting to shape artistic expression: China appears to be stepping up its campaign against Western media, banning four US television shows from streaming websites for violating a regulation aimed at shows that “harm the nation’s reputation, mislead young people to commit crimes, prostitution, gambling or terrorism.”