“Europe” by flickr user Charles Clegg

Title: Culture, Cities, and Identity in Europe

Author(s): from Culture Action Europe: Katherine Heid, Mehdi Arfaoiu, Luca Bergamo, Natalie Giorgadze; from Agenda 21 for Culture – UCLG: Carina Lopes, Jordi Balta Portoles, Jordi Pascual; Simon Mundy

Publisher: European Economic and Social Committee

Year: 2016

URL: http://www.eesc.europa.eu/resources/docs/qe-01-16-463-en-n.pdf

Topics: urban planning, creative placemaking, cities, Europe, economic development, community revitalization, social cohesion, community identity

Methods: narrative literature review, case studies

What it says: The report aims to assess what is known about the relationship between culture (defined as “cultural industries, visual and performing arts, heritage and the creative industries”) and cities along four dimensions, as follows:

• Culture as a vehicle for economic growth: exploring traditional economic impact and value-added studies on the cultural and creative industries, heritage, cultural events, communications technologies, and “cultural routes,” the study concludes that “the benefits of culture for the economy follow a multidimensional path, having first a direct impact by creating jobs to support cultural production, then attracting tourists and amateurs as culture is being exhibited and promoted, and lastly sustaining regional investments and growth as the cultural value and knowledge of the region is recognised and exploited.”
• Culture as an instrument for reconverting cities: exploring literature on culture and urban regeneration, spillover effects of cultural activities, and the European Capitals of Culture program, the study stresses the importance of citizen participation in planning initiatives and an integrated approach, and recommends the adoption of culture/heritage impact studies.
• Culture as a tool for integration and inclusiveness: exploring literature on intercultural dialogue and migration, gender, and special needs (i.e, disability), the report emphasizes the importance of diversifying organizational management, programming, and audience development strategies.
• Culture as a pillar of European identity within Europe and beyond: examining the literature on the contribution of cities and regions to European identity, the role of non-European cities in maintaining cultural relations with Europe, cross-border cooperation and mobility, city networks, and cultural rights, the study discusses at length the notion of “global cultural citizenship.”

Within each section, the authors offer several case studies of “good practices” representing on-the-ground approaches toward achieving the goals in question.

This main part of the report is preceded by a brief review of data on cultural participation in Europe, the role that culture plays in society as perceived by citizens, and economic data on the creative industries. The report concludes with a set of 17 recommendations to the European Economic and Social Committee for its future work in cultural policy. These recommendations encompass five themes:

1. Recognize cultural rights as fundamental to human development: Envision culture as an enabler of dialogue and exchange, promote cultural diversity in the framework of human rights, and deepen exploration of the relationship between culture and human rights.
2. Acknowledge culture as necessary for sustainable development: Make culture a separate category of concern in sustainable development conversations, recognize the impact of culture on public and private initiatives, and incorporate culture into social cohesion strategies.
3. Include new players in the democratic governance of culture: Bring civil society organizations into dialogue around policymaking, and recognize the importance of grassroots cultural initiatives.
4. Support exchange between cultures to foster social and economic development: Emphasize cross-border cooperation and mobility, encourage collaboration among cities in and beyond Europe, allow migration to be part of the solution, and support the role of cities in international sustainable development.
5. Empower cities’ decisions on culture to shape our future: Use cultural spaces to shape participation, engage communities on the periphery of cities, use culture to active public spaces for increased security, fund cultural processes, and reinvest cultural benefits in cultural ecosystems.

What I think about it: Despite the relevance and importance of its subject matter, “Culture, Cities, and Identity in Europe” is a prime example of the limitations of narrative-style literature review. Because it makes little effort to distinguish between the studies it cites or synthesize across them, the central portion of the report reads mainly as a series of disconnected (and lengthy) quotes from other authors. To its credit, the report does attempt to offer takeaways in the set of policy recommendations advanced at the end of the document. Some of the ideas offered are worth exploring – in particular, the idea of integrating dialogue and communities of practice around culture and human rights – and the holistic/integrationist stance of the authors very much matches Createquity’s. However, the language of the recommendations is often so vague and general as to significantly undermine their usefulness.

What it all means: Though it doesn’t offer much in the way of striking insights on its subject matter, “Culture, Cities, and Identity in Europe” will be useful to someone looking for a bibliography on the topics covered, particularly from a European perspective. It’s also worthwhile to compare this pan-European take on culture and urban policy to American approaches; of particular interest from a US perspective is the bid to redefine European identity as tied to an inclusive, globally conscious notion of cultural citizenship rather than any particular set of ethnicities or national origins.

From Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History’s Family Fallapalooza

Each year, Createquity offers a list of the top ten arts policy stories of the past 12 months. You can read the previous editions here: 2009, 2010, and 2011.  The list, like the blog, is focused on the United States, but is not oblivious to news from other parts of the world. This year, for the first time, I opened up the creation of this list to Createquity authors past and present, and I am particularly grateful to Jackie Hasa for contributing the entries for orchestra labor strife and SOPA/PIPA versus the internet. If you’re interested in being a part of a growing and increasingly active team here, a reminder that the deadline for the Createquity Writing Fellowship is coming up on January 8.

2012 was a year of cautious optimism for the arts. As the economy continued its slow recovery, for the first time in four years, government funding at the state level did not see a decline, and the slash-and-burn tax-cutting fervor of political conservatives seemed to be blunted by November’s election results, at least temporarily. There were stories of individual organizations making good, and ambitious initiatives seemed to be around every corner. And yet in certain contexts, the arts were still or newly facing dark days. Arts communities in much of Europe and the Western world struggled with austerity measures, as did orchestra musicians in the United States. And in many Muslim countries, art and artists found themselves in the middle of (or even the target of) oppression, strife, and violence. One comes away from this list with the sense that things are going to be interesting in 2013.

10. Nina Simon reboots the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History

I don’t normally include innovation stories from rank-and-file arts organizations on this list, but Nina Simon’s transformation of Santa Cruz MAH has been so far-reaching and impressive that its broader fieldwide significance is hard to deny. It’s not just about the numbers, though Simon has those too: attendance has more than doubled, the busiest day drew triple the participants over previous years,and there’s now a $350,000 cash reserve. More interesting, however, is the combination of Simon’s fame and her daring programming that has put the MAH “on the map” in a way that simply wasn’t the case before. Simon is the rarer-than-you-might-think example of a consultant who has successfully transitioned into an executive role, and in the process she has eagerly seized the opportunity to reshape a struggling institution into a playground for her (and the community’s) ideas. Through new programs like the You Can’t Do That in Museums Camp, an exhibition-as-exhibition, and more, Santa Cruz MAH is charting the frontiers of what it means to be a participatory museum, and we get to have a front-row seat by virtue of Simon’s long-running and admirably transparent blog, Museum 2.0. Simon’s approach may not be right for every arts organization, but it surely presents one very clear vision of the future, one to which attention must be paid.

9. The European funding model shows more cracks

Let’s be clear on this one: the core Western European philosophy of seeing culture as an essential arm of government is not on the verge of dissolving, and the wealthy countries that have historically been most faithful to this notion–including Germany, France, and the Scandinavian nations–have so far shown little willingness to abandon it in favor of American-style privatization fever. At the fringes of the European Union and beyond, however, government-centric cultural policies underwent substantial stress in 2012. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, for example, the national museum closed due to lack of funds provided by a non-functioning government; in Greece, spending on the arts has dropped 35% since 2009, and in Italy, Rome’s MAXXI Museum has been put into receivership. Arts Council England, having already suffered major cuts two years ago, is looking at a potential loss of 150 staff, while cities like Newcastle are looking at even more drastic cuts. This is a trend to watch in 2013.

8. SOPA/PIPA vs. the Internet

In early 2012, an enormous Internet protest caused both houses of Congress to indefinitely postpone voting on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA).  These bills sought to regulate Internet content in the name of fighting piracy, which split arts organizations into two opposing camps—those with a vested interest in strong copyright protections, which included many major entertainment industry unions and associations, and those concerned that the bills’ more draconian regulations would dampen creative exchange, which included a broader range of organizations, from McSweeney’s to Fractured Atlas to Dance/USA.  After tabling SOPA/PIPA, Google and other major tech companies helped Congress draft the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (the OPEN Act) as part of a more balanced approach. Public comments on the OPEN Act are encouraged, even as its sponsor, Darrell Issa (R-CA) pushes for a 2-year moratorium on Internet regulations.  Efforts to control the web also failed on the international stage, when a U.N. committee charged with rewriting Internet rules couldn’t get buy-in from the U.S., U.K., Canada, and dozens of other nations due to concerns over censorship.   Lawmakers may not resolve these debates in 2013, but in the years ahead, we will doubtless see continued efforts to regulate Internet behavior.

7. The arts face violence and turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa

Where to begin? In Syria, where the ancient city of Aleppo has been devastated by that country’s civil war? In Mali, where a fundamentalist group called Ansar Dine has destroyed world-famous heritage sites in Timbuktu and threatened musicians with bodily harm? In Somalia, where some 18 media figures, including a popular poet and playwright, have been assassinated by the Al Qaeda-aligned Al Shabab, for daring to mock the militants in public? In dozens of countries where mass protests broke out, some turning violent, in response to a video made by an American filmmaker and con artist with insulting depictions of the prophet Muhammad? In the midst of all the tragedy, we also had uplifting stories like the role that young artists had in galvanizing Egyptian dissent during the Arab Spring. From our comfortable perch in the US, it can sometimes feel like the arts are a frill, a plaything for the privileged, or simply inconsequential. It seems fair to say that in this part of the world, today, the arts matter.

6. State arts councils turn the corner

State arts councils reversed a four-year slide in 2012, finally coming out of the annual budget appropriations process in the black. The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies reports that total appropriations rose 8.8% in the aggregate to $282.9 million, although most of this change is attributable to substantial increases in Florida, Michigan, and the District of Columbia, each of whose appropriations more than doubled over the previous year. (Michigan’s budget grew an astounding 366.8%, albeit after having sustained equally astounding cuts in previous years.) In addition, two anti-arts governors found themselves with egg on their face this year, as the recently vanquished Kansas Arts Commission made a triumphant return as the Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission, and the South Carolina Arts Commission fought off yet another veto threat from Governor Nikki Haley. Other states with budget increases of $1 million or more included Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, and Ohio. (Update: See comments for info about Connecticut.) And while the Arizona Commission on the Arts continues to receive no legislative appropriation from its state government, it did win a ten-year re-authorization against the odds. The year was not completely free from bad news, however, as the arts councils in Louisiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Utah all suffered double-digit cuts, continuing a trend in the first three states.

5. Labor strife reaches new heights in orchestras and beyond

This year was rife with labor unrest in the arts, most notably among orchestras. Driven by fundraising shortfalls and sometimes debt from capital projects conceived in flush times, musicians walked out—or were locked out—all over the U.S. Unions in Chicago, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Spokane, Louisville, New York, Philadephia, San Antonio, and Indianapolis all successfully reached deals that ranged from modest raises (San Antonio) to 32% wage cuts (Indianapolis). The strife will continue in 2013: in the Twin Cities, both the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Minnesota Orchestra have been locked out for months, with no resolution in sight. We’re also seeing some signs of resilience and cooperation, as the previously disbanded Syracuse and Utica Symphony Orchestras vowed to return for the 2012-2013 season. In 2013, we may see more attention paid to the Colorado Symphony as a potential model. Following their own labor conflict in 2011, they revised their contract to allow for more organizational flexibility. For instance, the orchestra can now play in smaller groups, allowing them to perform in communities around Denver in minor venues.

4. Rocco steps down

It wasn’t a surprise, but it was news nonetheless: Rocco Landesman left the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) after three-plus eventful years as Chair. During his tenure, he set the agency on a technocratic course with more explicit attention paid to the instrumental benefits of the arts, particularly their economic value. His highest-profile accomplishment while in office was the creation of two new grant programs to encourage “creative placemaking,” Our Town and ArtPlace (more on that below). His most enduring legacy, however, may turn out to be his work, along with Senior Deputy Chair (and now Acting Chair) Joan Shigekawa, to develop partnerships between the NEA and other branches of federal government and to set the research office on a more strategic path. Lastly, it was during his tenure that the NEA began more explicit efforts to welcome the public into its decision-making process, offering a series of live webcasts of convenings and meetings including those of the National Council of the Arts, the body that oversees the NEA. No hints as of yet as to who may replace him, but we won’t likely know until well into 2013.

3. The Detroit Institute of Arts gets a millage

The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) was in a pickle. The venerable museum was facing a financial downward spiral, and it was one of the few institutions of its kind not to receive funding from either its city or state. The solution? Advocate for a millage (a form of property tax) to support the DIA in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties, in exchange for free museum admission for residents from those counties. The measure passed in an election on August 7, and will raise a whopping $23 million annually for the DIA over the tax’s 10-year duration.  There are charitable and less charitable ways to interpret this development, and arts world response seemed to be divided between them. On the one hand, here was an example of a cultural institution demonstrating relevance to its community in the most direct, unimpeachable manner possible: a majority of residents in three counties, urban and suburban, voted to tax themselves so that this institution could survive and thrive. On the other, the DIA raised and spent an enormous sum of money – $2.5 million – getting a piece of legislation passed that benefits only one arts organization – itself. No matter how wonderful the DIA may be, that precedent is a bit worrisome.

2. The creative placemaking backlash

It was just last year that the #1 arts policy story was “Creative placemaking ascendant,” so it’s not surprising to see that the movement has come back to earth in 2012, facing public relations challenges on multiple fronts. Much of the discussion has focused on the way that the NEA’s Our Town program and its private-sector cousin, ArtPlace, plan to track and measure the impact of the grants they make – a dialogue begun here on Createquity with May’s “Creative Placemaking Has an Outcomes Problem” and continuing in the fall with further back-and-forth between researcher Ann Markusen and the NEA’s Jason Schupbach and Sunil Iyengar. But creative placemaking’s PR hiccups this year went much further than that. They started small, with the revelation that much of ArtPlace’s grant funding is geographically restricted, meaning that applicants in many parts of the country face longer odds than others, and a brutal exposé by the Los Angeles Times of problems within the ArtPlace-funded Watts House Project. By the summer it seemed that criticism and skepticism was pouring in far and wide, from sources as diverse as Thomas Frank (author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?) and Roberto Bedoya, and leading to trite headlines like “Hipsters won’t save us” in mainstream publications. To make matters worse, Richard Florida decided in the midst of all this to re-release his most famous and now-controversial book, The Rise of the Creative Class, prompting a rash of articles attacking the intellectual origins of creative placemaking work. Some of the criticism has been fair and some of it considerably less so, but there’s no sign as yet that the creative placemaking juggernaut is slowing down as a result of it.

1. Election 2012

This last item is unusual, in that it’s more about what didn’t happen this year rather than what did happen. As things turned out, the balance of power in Washington hardly changed at all and we can look forward (I guess?) to divided government for at least the next two years. By contrast, most analysts agree that if Mitt Romney had won the election and Republicans had regained control of the Senate, both of which were distinct possibilities through most of the summer and fall, what little arts policy infrastructure remains at the federal level would very much have been in jeopardy. Romney had made no secret throughout the campaign of his disdain for the NEA, the NEH, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, even bizarrely choosing to make Big Bird an issue in an otherwise well-received first debate with the President. And it doesn’t take much imagination to conclude that conservatives, fresh off a massive gain in Congressional seats during the previous midterm elections, would have felt empowered to take a hacksaw to domestic spending following even a narrow win. With these outcomes averted, it’s likely that funding levels will stay steady or suffer relatively minor cuts in the near future, though with the seemingly endless negotiations over the “fiscal cliff” and debt ceiling, anything could still happen. Election Day also saw the unfolding of some arts policy stories at a local level, most significantly the passage of an important new income tax in Portland that will fund arts grants and arts education.

Honorable mention:

• Kickstarter vs. the NEA
• Pussy Riot causes an international sensation
• The Chicago Cultural Plan
• “Set in Stone” questions conventional wisdom around cultural facilities
• The Cultural Data Project leaves home

Happy New Year to Createquity readers far and wide, and we look forward to what 2013 brings!

FEDERAL

The House of Representatives passed a budget resolution based on Paul Ryan’s FY13 budget blueprint that hews closely to conservative thinking on a number of fronts. Included in the document is the following statement on arts funding:

Encourage Private Funding for Cultural Agencies.  Federal subsidies for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting can no longer be justified.  The activities and content funded by these agencies go beyond the core mission of the Federal Government and they are generally enjoyed by people of higher income levels, making them a wealth transfer from poorer to wealthier citizens.  These agencies can raise funds from private-sector patrons, which will also free them from any risk of political interference.

I find it completely amazing that conservatives actually have the chutzpah to make this argument. They are such valiant defenders of the poor that they actually deign to give a rat’s ass about the welfare of our nation’s downtrodden when there’s an opportunity to save them a couple of pennies by eliminating the National Endowment of the Arts. Oh wait, what’s that you say? The poor don’t pay income taxes? So they’re not subsidizing the NEA, or any other government agency for that matter? Which means your argument is full of shit? Got it.

STATE

Poor Kansas is still looking for ways to get back some of what it lost last year when Governor Sam Brownback vetoed the entire budget of the state’s arts commission. The House passed a bill that would add an option to Kansas tax forms that would allow taxpayers to voluntarily contribute to the Kansas Arts Commission. Given that a similar initiative in California raises only 0.4 cents per capita, I doubt that will prove an effective means of resurrecting the agency.

Utah has passed legislation that will put a question on the November ballot asking voters to consider a statewide sales tax to fund cultural agencies as well as zoos and botanical gardens. Dedicated tax streams have proven one of the most lucrative and stable sources of arts funding around, so good luck to arts advocates in moving this one forward.

The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies keeps a detailed and regularly updated list of relevant legislation and machinations by state at this link.

LOCAL

Chicago Commissioner of Cultural Affairs Michelle T. Boone sat down for her first interview on the job, talking through the merger with the city’s Office of Special Events, the ongoing citywide cultural plan, and other topics. The Commission’s budget declined by about 10%

Mayor Vincent Gray of Washington, DC is proposing a modest increase in local funding for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, which saw its budget decimated last year primarily by cuts from Congress.

INTERNATIONAL

Most of the news this past month relates to fallout from cuts European governments implemented last year. In the UK, The Stage reports that more than one in nine of the 206 arts groups who lost all of their Arts Council England funding intend to close up shop; another 22% are at risk of closing. Groups in Wales were hit hard by budget cuts last year too, with the burden falling disproportionately on companies serving youth and specific geographic areas. The Netherlands’ decision to slash its cultural budget by 25% last year had previously been reported on Createquity, but I was surprised to learn via the New York Times that Portugal has completely dropped its Ministry of Culture. The same article names Italy, Greece (not surprisingly), Hungary, Spain, and Ireland as other countries that have recently ripped their culture budgets a new one.

All of this is leading to some potentially nightmarish unintended consequences for U.S. arts organizations. Because European governments are so much more active in cultural life than that of the United States, arts institutions in those countries have never had the need or the desire to build up a strong base of private contributions. So now that new funds are needed, rather than start down the long path of cultivating that presently nonexistent generosity, organizations are looking for a quicker fix: American donors.

Europe isn’t the only one feeling the pinch; Ontario, in Canada, is too. But one government arts agency that’s doing well is Brazil’s SESC, which is financed by a unique model involving a 1.5% payroll tax that has helped the entity’s budget double approximately every six years. SESC’s budget is $600 million, rivaling some of the wealthiest European nations, but its broad mandate includes recreational activities and even health clinics in addition to arts organizations.

Grand Rapids LipDub – photo by Rob Vander Sloot

Each year, Createquity offers a list of the top ten arts policy stories of the past 12 months. You can read the 2009 and 2010 editions here and here, respectively. In addition to the main list, I also identify my favorite new arts blogs that started within the past year. The list, like the blog, is focused on the United States, but is not oblivious to news from other parts of the world.

For the most part, 2011 saw the continuation of trends that had already been set in motion in previous years. The economy continued to be an issue for arts organizations worldwide, affecting government revenues in particular. The NEA moved in directions foreshadowed by its actions in 2010. And the culture wars, while not translating into meaningful policy change for the most part, were waged in the background once again.

10. Federal cultural funding dodges a bullet

The newly-elected Republican House of Representatives made a lot of noise this year about cutting funding to arts and culture, particularly the Corporation for Public Broadcasting after a forced scandal involving NPR’s then-vice president of development. Democrats refused to take the bait, however, and even amid multiple standoffs over the federal budget this year, cultural funding survived largely intact. The NEA escaped with a 13% decrease from last year’s originally enacted funding level, and CPB and the Smithsonian actually saw increases. Notably, the Department of Education’s arts in education budget was also saved (albeit with cuts) despite an Obama administration recommendation for consolidation under other programs. That said, the saber-rattling this past year leaves little doubt about the prospects for arts funding under a Republican Congress and President in 2013 and beyond, and it will surprise no one if the same battles are fought all over again in 2012.

9. Grand Rapids LipDub shows how creative placemaking is done

By now you’ve heard the story: city gets named on a top ten list of “America’s dying cities”; college-aged filmmakers galvanize the community to organize a coordinated response. The result: “the greatest letter to the editor of all time,” also known as the Grand Rapids LipDub. Involving thousands of people and requiring a near-total shutdown of the city’s downtown area, the video went viral over Memorial Day weekend and has received nearly 4.5 million views as of December 31. But more than the feat itself, the video is notable as an incredibly effective example of cost-effective creative placemaking. The mayor of Grand Rapids was very smart to give this $40,000 production (mostly raised through sponsorships from local businesses) his complete support: it is just about the best advertising for his city one could possibly ask for, conveying a completely unforced and compelling charm while fostering community pride among local residents along the way.

8. Crowdfunding goes mainstream

Just two years ago, Kickstarter was a novelty and no one had heard of IndieGoGo. Now, these and other “crowdfunding” platforms that connect creatives with fans and financial backers have become an indelible part of the artistic landscape, particularly for grassroots, entrepreneurial projects. This July, Kickstarter alone reached the milestones of 10,000 successful projects and $75 million in pledges over slightly more than two years, numbers that compare favorably with major private foundations’ support for the arts. Meanwhile, crowdfunding is fast becoming a, well, crowded market, with new entrants lured by the profit-making potential of serving as banker for the creative economy. RocketHub, USA Projects, and the Power2Give initiative are just three of the more significant new entrants of the past two years, and similar platforms are popping up to serve technology startups and the broader charity market.

7. Orchestra unions take it on the chin

The recession has been not been kind to arts organizations of any stripe. But it’s been particularly hard on orchestras, those most tradition-bound of arts organizations, forcing musicians’ unions to cough up big concessions. The resolution of the Detroit Symphony’s six-month strike in April had minimum salaries dropping nearly 25% and a partial incentive pay system introduced. The same month, the Philadelphia Orchestra filed for bankruptcy, seeking to avoid its unfunded pension obligations, and won 15% salary reductions from its musicians in October. The Louisville Orchestra also filed for bankruptcy late last year, hasn’t played since May due to negotiation impasse, and has started advertising for replacement players. The NYC Opera, after abandoning its longtime home at Lincoln Center, is threatening to turn its orchestra into a freelance outfit and cut its choristers’ pay by 90%.  The New Mexico, Syracuse, and Utica Symphonies all bit the dust, costing musicians hundreds of jobs.  The craziest story was perhaps the resignation of two-thirds of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra’s board because musicians took too a few days too long to accept a 9% pay cut. Breaking with tradition, the League of Symphony Orchestras this year sounded the alarm bells with a plenary session titled “Red Alert” at its national conference.

6. Another tough year for state arts agencies

The big headline, of course, was Kansas (see below). But state arts agencies, having already suffered big losses in 2009 and 2010, slipped backwards once again this year. More than twice as many saw decreases as increases, and in total appropriations dropped 2.6% as of August. Horror stories included Arizona Commission on the Arts, which lost its entire general fund appropriation (the agency stayed alive thanks to business license revenues); the Texas Commission on the Arts, which lost 77.7% of its funding; the Wisconsin Arts Board, whose budget was gutted more than two-thirds by controversial governor Scott Walker; and the South Carolina Arts Commission, which made it through with a 6% shave only because the state legislature overrode Governor Nikki Haley’s veto of the entire agency’s budget. Nevertheless, as in previous years, a few states and territories had clear victories: the Ohio Arts Council avoided a cut proposed by the Governor and instead achieved a $1 million increase, and the Utah Arts Council and Institute of Puerto Rican Culture saw increases of 50% or more. Still, state arts agency appropriations remain 40% below their 2001 peak levels – and that’s not even taking inflation into account.

5. Western Europe blinks on government arts funding, while South America and Asia embrace it

Already reeling from the UK’s decision to institute major cuts from Arts Council England and broader pressures on financial markets, Europe continued to see a move toward a leaner, more American-style cultural policy. The wave of change caught up the Netherlands this year, as Holland cut a quarter of its cultural budget. Meanwhile, as with the economy more generally, the balance of power is starting to shift toward former Third World nations. Hong Kong announced that it had hired starchitect Norman Foster to design a $2.8 billion, 40-hectare cultural district in West Kowloon; Abu Dhabi is building a $27 billion mixed-use development on Saadiyat Island featuring two gigantic museums and a performing arts center; and Rio de Janeiro has doubled its cultural budget in anticipation of the 2016 Olympics. Singapore and Shanghai are also seeing gigantic government investments in the arts.

4. Cultural equity #Occupies the conversation

It started small: just a poster in the magazine Adbusters, a ballerina dancing on the Wall Street Bull. But by the time October rolled around, Occupy Wall Street was a household name, changing the national conversation from one obsessed with austerity and the national debt to one that took a serious look at who benefits and suffers from our nation’s economic policies. Around the same time, the National Committee on Responsive Philanthropy, a philanthropy watchdog organization that promotes social justice, published Fusing Arts, Culture, and Social Change by Holly Sidford, a broadside against the longstanding funding practices in the arts that make it hard for organizations representing communities of color to build a strong base of support. It didn’t take long for people to make the connection within both the arts community and the Occupy movement. And when news of the San Francisco Arts Commission possibly cutting its Cultural Equity Grants program hit during a national Cultural Equity Forum hosted by Grantmakers in the Arts – well, let’s just say it’s the most digital ink this topic has had spilled on it in a long time. I suspect, like so many times before, this particular conversation will dissipate without leaving behind any lasting change on a large scale. On the other hand, it’s a good bet that pressure will only continue to build on longstanding cultural institutions to justify the massive resources they have built up over the years.

3. Irvine Foundation gets engaged

About a year ago, I posted a comment on the myth of transformative arts experiences that struck a chord with readers. In it, I told my own “getting hooked on the arts” story and observed that “none of it involved being in the audience for anything….Getting out and seeing a show now and then is always nice. But getting to be in the show – that’s what’s truly transformative about the arts.” It turns out I’m not the only one who’s been thinking along these lines: in June, the James Irvine Foundation announced a wholesale change to its arts strategy that emphasizes audience engagement, including active participation. To support the new strategy, Irvine set up a new Exploring Engagement Fund that serves as “risk capital” for organizations to experiment with new programming strategies that are designed to increase engagement. Irvine is certainly not the first funder to focus its attention on audiences – the Wallace Foundation, for example, has made cultural participation a priority for years, and many have been happy to fund efforts to place cultural programming into context (“talkback sessions” and the like). But Irvine takes the concept much farther by explicitly encouraging programming that places the audience at the center of the experience, offering participants the opportunity to create, perform, or curate art themselves. It’s really quite revolutionary given the history of arts funding, and a lot of eyes will be on this initiative as it develops.

2. Kansas Arts Commission loses its funding

Proposals to eliminate state arts councils have become a dime a dozen in recent years. Just since 2009, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Texas, and several others have staved off threats of demise of varying seriousness. Experienced arts advocates, while taking each individual case seriously, tend to brush off the trend as a whole, seeing it as an inevitable part of the game. Except this year, the unthinkable happened: for the first time since the state arts council network was created in the 1960s, one of them actually had to close down shop completely. Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, fighting negative media coverage and his own legislature tooth and nail, followed through on his vow to destroy the Kansas Arts Commission and transfer its activities (but not its funding) to the nonprofit Kansas Arts Foundation. In doing so, he actually cost his state more money in federal matching funds than it saved in direct expenditures. National and local advocates are optimistic that this decision will eventually be reversed, but until then, Kansas has the dubious distinction of being the only state without a functioning arts council.

1. Creative placemaking ascendant

When Rocco Landesman was chosen to lead the National Endowment for the Arts in 2009, he almost immediately signaled his interest in the role of the arts in revitalizing downtown public spaces. Two-plus years into his term, “creative placemaking” has emerged as his signature issue, and the lengths to which he and Senior Deputy Chairman Joan Shigekawa have gone to promote it have been remarkable. Beyond the NEA’s Our Town grants, the inaugural round of which were announced this past summer, the big news this year was the formation of ArtPlace, a consortium of major foundation funders designed to extend Our Town’s work into the private sphere. Headed by former CEOs for Cities head Carol Coletta, ArtPlace has already distributed $11.5 million in grants and has an additional $12 million loan fund managed by Nonprofit Finance Fund. Its recent solicitation for letters of inquiry drew more than 2000 responses. Our Town’s future at the NEA is by no means assured, but by spurring the creation of ArtPlace, Rocco has guaranteed that creative placemaking will be part of the lexicon for quite a while.

Honorable mention:

• #SupplyDemand: the economics lesson heard ’round the world
• San Francisco Arts Commission implodes
• Doris Duke’s new artist fellowships
• LINC begins to wrap it up

And here are my choices for the top new (in 2011) arts blogs:

1. Lee Streby
2. New Beans (Clayton Lord)
3. ArtsFwd (Karina Mangu-Ward and others)
4. Creative Infrastructure (Linda Essig)
5. ArtPlace blog (various) – note the RSS feed on this one is impossible to find, it’s here.

• Picking up where last week’s pro-Europe screed left off: Britain now decides it’s not only going to fund rehearsal space for bands, it’s going to create up to 10,000 entry-level jobs in the culture industries. Iceland, on the other hand, is having some problems.
• And over in this hemisphere? The latest out of Massachusetts is that the Mass Cultural Council might be in for a 57% cut. (h/t Parabasis) I haven’t seen this reported on or corroborated anwhere else since then, so maybe it’s just a false alarm, but if it’s not, it would be a gut punch to arts in the Bay State. Yes, in times like these, it’s always nice to read headlines like NEXT YEAR COULD BE A WHOLE LOT WORSE. Thanks, Barry. At least SF Foundation arts program head John Killacky offers these helpful survival strategies for arts organizations at Blue Avocado.
• OK, so it’s not all bad: Creative Capital just got a $15 million challenge grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation in honor of its 10th anniversary, and the White House is keeping the door open for dialogue, meeting with a group of “grass-roots activists” organized by the Nathan Cummings Foundation last week.
• The real reason CEO pay has skyrocketed in recent times? A horribly unscientific conception of “the market” for CEOs, rife with selection bias toward already highly-compensated individuals.
• So apparently, structured search is the Next Big Thing. For a demonstration, check out this nifty video advertising Wolfram Alpha, which is being hyped as a “Google killer” (early returns: not so much). For its part, Google is not about to give up the throne without a fight.
• Here are some more art/community/development nonprofits learned about in the past week (jeez, they’re everywhere): Chattanooga’s CreateHere, DC’s Cultural Development Corporation, and New York’s Municipal Art Society. Plus, there’s this story on a community art center in Detroit (the “Power House”) on NPR from back in March. I’m starting to think this field is ripe for an interest group.