ART AND THE GOVERNMENT A consortium of City of Detroit creditors have made the first legal move towards pressuring the Detroit Institute of Arts to sell city-owned artworks to help pay for debts owed. Executive Vice President Annemarie Erickson defends the museum against Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr’s demand that the museum find one way orRead More
Around the Horn: Rob Ford edition
ART AND THE GOVERNMENT The even playing field that is the Internet might be about to tilt in the favor of the powerful, in this case AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and the like. Net neutrality is in the hands of the DC Circuit Court. The National Initiative on Arts & the Military has released a newRead More
Around the horn: Angela Merkel edition
ART AND THE GOVERNMENT With a rare, wide-open mayoral race underway, Boston’s arts community has come together to assert some political sway of its own. The new advocacy coalition MassCreative organized a nine-candidate forum that actually pushed back a televised debate. The primary is today. North Carolina’s Randolph County just banned Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man from school libraries followingRead More
The challenges we face
Michael Kaiser wants us to focus on the reason why we do it (the art, silly!), but I’m more struck by his succinct diagnosis of why arts institutions are in scary times: The development of new technology has given our audience members new forms of entertainment and new ways to spend their discretionary time andRead More
Around the horn: Carmageddon edition
Have you read this month’s Arts Policy Library explosion yet? Remember, there are quickie versions of all three articles if you’re in a hurry. MUSICAL CHAIRS Steve Gunderson is stepping down as CEO of the Council on Foundations. Social justice groups are freaked out that the previously-reported departure of Gara LaMarche from Atlantic Philanthropies willRead More
TEDx Talk
“Never Heard of ’Em”: Why Citizen Curators (not Daddy’s Money) Should Decide Who Gets to Be an Artist.
Do you want this guy on your filmmaking grant panel?
I think you do. Per the New York Times, a grocery store clerk in Austin has watched more movies than you ever will: But Mr. Bourland, 58, has spent nearly a decade on a monumental task that he hopes will make his a name to remember in the world of movies. He has ranked theRead More
Thoughts on Effective Philanthropy: Part VI – The Philanthropist as Speculator, Not Gatekeeper
For this sixth and final post in this series, I’m going to wax philosophical for a bit here and talk about values. Everybody knows that philanthropy in the nonprofit sector, and the arts in particular, is a big deal. Leaders of most nonprofit organizations spend the bulk of their professional lives worrying about where (figurativelyRead More