“Dance” illustration by Flickr user Luciana Ruivo

Quickly advancing technologies are altering reality in ways that, not long ago, were the stuff of science-fiction movies. Computer scientists have developed a Photoshop-like tool for video, allowing users to paste audio files into a video and manipulate the subject’s lip movements to depict speeches that never happened, or took place in a different context. The algorithm was developed by researchers at the University of Washington, who claim that the lip-synch technology could improve communication and be a boon for the film industry – for example, by enabling editors to save on reshooting already filmed scenes. But there are obvious concerns that the tool might (umm, will) be used to create deceptive videos or propagate hoaxes. Still, investors like Samsung, Google, Facebook, and Intel see the the new technology’s potential in the realms of artificial intelligence and augmented reality – which have themselves seen lots of new developments this month. Apple is developing augmented reality salsa dance lessons with its new ARKit, which allows aspiring dancers to practice their technique at home, with or without a partner. Bots for poetry and art are producing work that’s competitive with human creations. And neurologists have created an instrument that can be played – wait for it – with your mind. The breakneck pace of bot and AI technologies has sparked discussion of the best practices for using these tools, as well as potential ethical and regulatory guidelines that will need to be implemented as humans and machines increasingly live side-by-side.

Things are looking up for the NEA and NEH. Nearly level funding for the major federal arts and culture agencies has been approved by the House of Representatives appropriations committee. The committee’s proposed insignificant cuts stand in stark contrast to those in President Trump’s budget proposal, which would completely have defunded both agencies. Trump first touted widespread cuts to federal arts and humanities funding in January, which some saw as more of a symbolic gesture than a genuine effort to balance the budget. Nevertheless, a call to action among arts advocacy groups and constituents has put pressure on Congress, which has demonstrated support for the arts from both sides of the aisle. The ultimate fate of the NEA and NEH won’t be known for some time: while the House could vote on the bill as soon as the summer recess ends, it likely won’t reach the Senate until the end of the year. Nevertheless, with the most conservative arm of Congress having already taken its turn, it seems likely at this point that the Endowments are safe for another year.

Arts funding for the 2%. Five years ago, Holly Sidford’s research report “Fusing Arts, Culture, and Social Change” shook the arts funding world to its core, revealing that top 2% of arts organizations (in terms of budget size) received 55% of charitable contributions to the sector. Now, “Not Just Money,” a follow-up study from Sidford’s Helicon Collaborative, reveals that the gap has actually widened among 41,000 arts organizations nationwide, with big-budget institutions increasing their take to 58%. “Not Just Money” further traces the majority of funding to 925 culturally non-specific groups whose work centers around Eurocentric art forms and reaches predominantly white audiences. Helicon reports that communities of color are represented by a quarter of nonprofit arts organizations, but they only get 4% of the funding; meanwhile organizations representing LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, and rural or low-income communities are similarly underserved by funders. The trend raises questions about whether ethnocultural organizations must concentrate efforts on collaboration with bigger institutions in order to remain sustainable, and whether continued efforts to close the gap are actually making a difference. Speaking of such efforts, as part of New York City’s newly released cultural plan – which made diversity, equity, and inclusion a top priority – mayor Bill de Blasio has proposed linking future city funding to cultural institutions’ staff and board demographic makeup. Although de Blasio declined to specify target goals, the move has raised concerns of “class warfare” over arts funding between established institutions and smaller ones in disadvantaged neighborhoods, along with predictable pushback from the conservative press.

Fixing the arts education crisis in Detroit schools. Detroit’s public school board seeks to address a yawning gap in arts instruction in the city’s public schools, of which nearly half offer no formal education in music or visual arts. Detroit’s decline in arts education stems, in part, from the public school system’s exclusion from the city’s reorganization after filing for bankruptcy. (The situation is not restricted to Detroit: In 2012 a reported 108,000 students across Michigan were lacking arts education despite the State Board of Education’s mandate that students earn at least one arts credit to graduate high school.) After Detroit’s new superintendent Nikolai Vitti started in June, a freshly elected school board has allocated $500,000 for Vitti to hire art and music teachers who will travel between schools and begin to fill the gap, which is most prominent in elementary and middle schools.

Separation of church and retail? Controversy surrounding Washington, D.C.’s proposed Museum of the Bible has come to a head regarding the museum’s Green Collection. Scholars have long expressed concerns about the Green family, which began acquiring extraordinary numbers of biblical artifacts in 2009. The evangelical Christian family also owns Hobby Lobby, a U.S. chain of retail arts and craft stores, which received shipments containing ancient clay cuneiform tablets in 2010 as packages marked “tile samples.” The artifacts have now been seized as part of a federal investigation claiming that the items were smuggled from historical sites in Iraq. Hobby Lobby’s failure to verify the artifacts’ origins means the company is facing a hefty $3 million fine, on top of relinquishing a majority of the 5,500 pieces, which were bought for $1.6 million. Controversy is not new to Hobby Lobby, which in 2014 won a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the company’s right to refuse contraception coverage to full-time employees, but the new probe also casts a cloud over the Museum of the Bible – for which Steve Green sits as chairman of the board. Museum leaders claim they were not aware they were smuggling artifacts into the country, despite obtaining legal advice from an expert in cultural properties law warning against the 2010 purchase.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS:

• Ted Russell has been appointed associate director of arts strategy and ventures at the Kenneth Rainin Foundation in Oakland, CA.
• Karen Mittelman has been appointed director of the Vermont Arts Council. Mittelman was previously at the National Endowment for the Humanities.
• The Robert W. Deutsch Foundation has appointed Jessica Solomon as its new senior program officer overseeing arts and culture.
• Arts research and strategy consultant Victoria Plettner-Saunders has joined WolfBrown as principal.
• The International Federation of Arts Councils and Cultural Agencies has appointed Magdalena Moreno Mujica as executive director.
• Dennis Scholl, former vice president of the Knight Foundation, has moved to Miami’s ArtsCenter as its new president and chief executive.
• Former NEH chairman William Adams and Spencer Foundation’s Michael McPherson have been appointed senior fellows at the Mellon Foundation.
• The arts management program at George Mason University has announced a new director: alum Aimee Fullman.
• New York magazine has named theater director Sara Holdren as its lead theater critic.
• DataArts seeks a new president and CEO.
• Dance/USA is accepting applications for director of programs through August 18.
• The Glorya Kaufman School of Dance at USC is seeking a part-time professor specializing in Dance Leadership.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE:

• Consumers are spending more on the arts, according to data collected between 2000 and 2014 by the Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account. The trend is particularly strong for opera and musical theater.
• Research by British publication The Stage indicated a nine-to-one ratio of male to female writers in books, lyrics, or musical scores across musicals presented in the West End over the last decade. Howlround looked at designers and directors within the League of Resident Theatres and similarly found a staggering gender gap in all areas except costume design.
• On the heels of the successful Wonder Woman film, a new report analyzes the gender expression and representation of female comic book characters.
• In the UK, jobs in creative industries are growing as a faster-than-average pace compared to the general workforce.
• A data analysis from Know Your Own Bone suggests Generation X citizens and Millennials will not “grow into” caring about arts and culture as much as previous generations.
• R&B and hip-hop are the top music genres in the U.S. this year, while classical music registers last with just 1% of sales so far. Research in the Journal of Popular Music Education has tried to get to the bottom of why millennials aren’t into classical music, citing length of concerts, restrained audience behavior, and lack of emotional attachment as barriers to appreciation.
• New York City is still king for artists, says a CityLab report, but artists are increasingly moving out of neighborhoods traditionally considered to be “artsy.” With work space at a premium, some artists are looking to school facilities as a potential resource.
• A report from the Creative Industries Federation offers policy recommendations on how governments can provide support to the creative freelance economy.
• Results for All recently published the Global Landscape Review, which aims to understand approaches governments take in using data to make decisions.
• New online tools provide insight on the arts and culture sector. GEOLOOM co>map visualizes cultural activity in Baltimore, neighborhood by neighborhood, and the National Center for Arts Research has created a visitor-to-staff index for comparing performance among similar sized organizations.
• Two reports looking at creative placemaking as a driver for community development show promising results in Cleveland and Washington, D.C.
• A new monitor provides comparable data on European cities across multiple domains related to culture and creativity. Meanwhile, an index published by the Joint Research Centre identifies the ideal European locale as a combination of eight cities.
• A new report makes a case for funding amateur choirs at the same level as sports teams.
• Survey data confirms that Australians place high personal and societal value on the arts.
• The Asia Europe Foundation has released the Indonesia edition of its series of guides looking at the connection between art and sustainability in Asian countries.
• A report of pilot projects by the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation evaluates a framework by which social issues might be positively impacted by indigenous artists’ work.
• Digital tools are reducing opportunities for kids to create original artwork. The trend is not exclusive to the U.S. and recently supported by research from the Netherlands.
• A University of London study reports that one in three professional musicians have suffered from an eating disorder at some point in their lives.
• Two years in the making, the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing has released findings on the potential benefits of arts participation.
• The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies has published its annual report forecasting arts funding at the state level.
• GrantCraft’s paper on theoretical frameworks shaping private foundations offers tools for aligning purpose, public benefit, and action.
• In a survey of 3,200 donors, women gave differently and more generously than men.
• A Grantmakers in the Arts report offers proposals on how funders might reshape their strategies to better reflect the cultural landscape in the 21st century.
• Writing for the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Megan O’Neil and Joshua Hatch’s analysis of 1600 organizations shows that many big nonprofits are stockpiling cash, with more money coming in than goes out.
• Art hung above eye-level is perceived by most to be aesthetically inspiring.
• Surprise! Democrats and Republicans don’t agree on whether the impact of the news media on society is positive or negative.

“I am the walrus” by Steven Coutts | via Flickr (Creative Commons)

A controversial editorial published by the Writers’ Union of Canada’s magazine Write has resulted in resignations from the author of the piece, Hal Niedzviecki, and an editorial board member, as well as a formal apology from the union and statement from its Equity Task Force. Niedzviecki had made the interesting choice to publish an editorial brushing off the harms of cultural appropriation and calling for a tongue-in-cheek “Appropriation Prize” as the introduction to an issue of the magazine dedicated to the voices of indigenous Canadian writers. Niedzviecki’s prize would have encouraged writers to reach outside their personal experiences to “imagine other peoples, other cultures, other identities.” The backlash was swift, but many top members of Canada’s literary community defended Niedzviecki’s statements on Twitter – which in turn led to editor-in-chief Jonathan Kay’s resignation from The Walrus, a highly esteemed literary magazine. Debates about cultural appropriation and representation in the arts world appear to be only intensifying in recent months. Also in May, the Walker Arts Center in Minnesota decided to work with Native American elders to dismantle a sculpture by a white artist evoking the hanging of 38 Dakota men in 1862 that it had started to install in a public park, following a public outcry that echoed the strong opposition to a white artist’s painting of Emmett Till’s casket showcased at the Whitney Biennial earlier this year. Meanwhile in the theater world, the Edward Albee estate’s decision to block the casting of a black actor in a production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is likewise stirring widespread contention.

Terrorists make arts and culture targets the new normal. The May 22 suicide bombing killing 22 and injuring more than 100 people outside an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England signaled a direct attack on young people enjoying a cultural event and engaging in leisure activities. On the heels of the one-year anniversary of the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Florida, the Manchester atrocity came just days before terrorist attacks – with responsibility claimed by ISIS – on an ice cream parlor in Baghdad and unassuming pedestrians on London Bridge. The attacks point to a larger trend: the desire to bring chaos to cultural products and turn places of joy into tragedy. It remains to be seen whether and how heightened security measures at live events and heritage sites will alter the ways in which people engage in arts and culture.

Federal arts agencies get a boost – for now. Despite the potential threats of federal slashing of agencies such as the National Endowments for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Corporation for Public Broadcasting that made headlines in January, February, and March, arts organizations can breathe a small sigh of relief: the final federal spending bill for fiscal year 2017 spares the CPB and actually increases the budgets for both the NEA and NEH through September. The Trump administration had sought to cut the current year’s budget as well as next year’s, but those recommendations met opposition on both sides of the aisle, with several key Republicans among those fighting to maintain arts funding. Nevertheless, with President Trump’s proposed 2018 budget officially released this month. Entitled “A New Foundation for American Greatness,” the budget, if enacted, would take deep bites out of funding for the arts, education, scientific exploration and scholarly research – it remains to be seen whether the future will be sunny on Sesame Street.

Seattle’s art tax goes to the ballot box. King County residents will vote in August on whether or not to raise sales taxes in an initiative intended to fund more than 300 arts organizations across the region. Modeled after the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District in metropolitan Denver and other tax initiatives in places like St. Louis and Cleveland, the bill imposes an additional 0.1% sales tax hike, yielding approximately $67 million a year toward Seattle-based arts and culture. Amid concerns that the arts would get a bump over critical issues such as homelessness, poverty, and the criminal justice system, council members ultimately altered the measure to ensure the county’s outlying areas see an equal share of the money in an effort to encourage Washingtonians to start and maintain arts organizations in rural locations.

New rights and protections for NYC and Hollywood freelancers. On May 15, New York became the first U.S. city to enact a law aimed at shoring up protections for freelance workers. The Freelance Isn’t Free Act places harsh penalties on employers who withhold payment from independent contractors or fail to pay on time or in full. The law rose out of an extensive 2015 report created by the Freelancers Union illustrating the impact of freelancers and the high percentage of workers who have struggled to receive payment. Under the new law, New York freelancers stiffed by their employers can file a complaint with the city, which will intervene on their behalf. The news follows the announcement earlier in the month of a new labor agreement between the Writers Guild of America and Hollywood studios which was widely seen as a win for struggling television and movie writers.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS:

• Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities William D. Adams unexpectedly announced his resignation on May 22. Deputy Chair Margaret Plympton will serve as acting chair until a replacement is named, which could be a while since that replacement would have to be nominated by the Trump administration.
• Publisher Françoise Nyssen has been appointed the new Culture Minister of France.
• Jaime Dempsey will be the new Executive Director at the Arizona Commission on the Arts in August. Previously deputy director of the agency, she succeeds Robert Booker, who will retire after 40 years in the arts.
• Rose Ann Cleveland will retire from the D.C.–based Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation in October.
• Executive director Eloise Damrosch of Portland’s Regional Arts & Culture Council will retire at the end of June.
• The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving announced its new president, Jay Williams, will begin in July.
• Motion Picture Association of America chief Chris Dodd will leave his post five months before his contract ends, to be replaced by Charles Rivkin. Rivkin was an assistant Secretary of State for economic and business affairs during the Obama administration.
• Juilliard has named Damian Woetzel as its seventh president. The former New York City Ballet star was previously the director of the Aspen Institute Arts Program.
• The New York Review of Books named Ian Buruma as its new editor after the death of founding editor Robert B. Silvers.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE:

• A recent study from Berlin promotes incentives for donors, with results indicating that those provided with a certificate stating the quality of the charitable product or organization gave approximately 10 percent higher contributions. However, a study by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy indicates that President Trump’s proposed tax reforms could reduce charitable giving by as much as $13.1 billion in the United States.
• The first ever World Cities Culture Finance Report analyzes how cities fund cultural activity. Results indicate that Paris, Moscow and London spend the most on arts and culture.
• A new report analyzes results from a pilot program by the National Endowment for the Arts aimed at increasing access to arts education in rural areas. Access is proving to be key: A deeper analysis of the 2016 National Assessment of Educational Progress in the Arts indicates that access and opportunity take precedence over achievement in the arts.
• A policy briefing from the Brookings Institute provides a framework for implementing the goals of the Every Student Succeeds Act and measuring success in arts education.
• Aesthetic Perspectives is a new framework produced by Americans for the Arts’s Animating Democracy program. It establishes 11 attributes that may be used to describe and assess creative work intersecting community engagement and social justice.
• Across the pond, the UK’s Department for Culture, Media & Sport published an in-depth review of Arts Council England’s priorities and positioning. A House of Lords report indicates that theater patronage in the UK is “still dominated by rich, white people.” These findings are supported by additional survey data indicating a 7 percent drop in participation among Asian audiences across all artforms in the UK over the last 10 years. And MyCake founder Sarah Thelwall completed her fourth annual ‏report on the Arts Council’s grantees, analyzing income sources across creative organizations, and differences between small and large organizations.
• George Windsor and Cath Sleeman have completed an analysis of job advertisements in the country to determine what skills creatives need to be successful professionals in the UK.
• A new publication explores the current status of urban cultural policy at local levels across Europe and outlines the challenges that lie ahead.
• People from working-class backgrounds tend to view themselves as relatively more interdependent with and connected to others, according to new research.
• Some librarians really hate those cute “Little Free Libraries.” Research indicates that they are most present in upper-middle class, white neighborhoods – areas that already have increased access to public libraries.
• Apparently rainy days motivate people to visit museums, but more so if storms ease up in the afternoon. And though tourism and leisure are many visitors’ primary goals when visiting museums, measurable learning occurs even when it’s not their intention.
• UNESCO-funded initiatives safeguarding and rebuilding indigenous architecture in Vanuatu following the 2015 Tropical Cyclone Pam are evaluated in this final report.
• New data indicates that automation will affect jobs in Las Vegas and California’s Inland Empire more than the so-called “Rust Belt.”
• A visual interpretation of research spanning three years, 75,000 concerts and 7,000 bands analyzes the chances of a band “making it” big in New York City. The odds? Roughly 0.3 percent.
• The fiction books you read can shape your world view and tilt your moral compass, according to newly published research in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Poetry may also have a profound effect: scientists researched physiological responses to “this is your brain on poetry” and discovered that responses differ from those of music or movies.
• Research suggests a gap between fact and myth in what music teachers believe about music and the brain.
• Last but certainly not least, is the Biebs responsible for killing the good, old fashioned love song? According to the journal Sexuality & Culture, hit songs are more likely than ever to be all about sex.

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.

For the past decade, Createquity has taken a technocratic approach to covering arts policy in the United States and beyond. We’re not mindless cheerleaders for arts funding; we recognize that governing requires making tradeoffs in the face of limited resources, and have argued against certain types of government arts support in the past. Nevertheless, we believe that the National Endowment for the Arts and other targeted federal agencies do valuable work and are worth saving.

Here are some perspectives on the current budget situation that you may find of use:

Are all these cuts actually going to happen?

Probably not, but that doesn’t mean the danger isn’t real. It appears that Trump’s budget was heavily influenced by staffers from the conservative Heritage Foundation, which has long targeted agencies including the NEA and CPB out of an ideological belief that the government shouldn’t be funding the arts and humanities at all. Nevertheless, the budget proposal is already running into opposition from Congressional Republicans, who are seeing it as unrealistic and poorly targeted. Furthermore, eliminating the NEA and NEH will require an actual act of Congress, not just a ratification of the president’s budget. All of that suggests it’s unlikely (though possible) that the agencies will disappear completely, at least in FY18.

That said, it seems virtually certain that we will see at least some cuts. Trump’s budget is so aggressive in so many areas that pushing back on all fronts simultaneously will be very difficult—indicative of a classic hardball negotiation technique.

How will regular people be affected if these agencies are actually eliminated?

It depends on where they live. The vast majority of foundations and individual donors concentrate their giving in the immediate geographic area around where they’re based, which means that the areas with the most wealth (largely big cities on the coasts) are also the ones that receive the most philanthropic funding. As a result, resources are few and far between for arts organizations and public radio and television stations alike in rural America.

In the NEA’s case, the agency has made a point to provide direct funding in every congressional district in the country. Perhaps even more important, though, is the NEA’s system of partnerships with state and regional arts councils, which come with a carrot of matching funds from the federal government in exchange for appropriations from state budgets to their respective state arts councils. In the years following the Great Recession when state budgets were under severe pressure, many of these state arts councils survived in no small part because of this matching fund arrangement. Meanwhile, an external assessment estimates that eliminating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would mean 12 million people losing their access to over-the-air public television, mostly in isolated areas.

As for arts organizations, museums, and public broadcasters in other regions of the country, some will have a tough time to be sure, but the overall effect on the ecosystem would be subtle. The United States didn’t have the NEA, the NEH, CPB, or IMLS for the first 190 years or so of its existence. We believe these agencies create more value than we spend on them, but if they are eliminated, arts and culture will soldier on.

Speaking of creating value, I read that the NEA gets a return of $9 for every dollar invested. Is that true?

No, and we wish arts advocates and the agency itself would avoid using this misleading statistic. It falsely assumes that none of the matching funds leveraged by the NEA would otherwise be there for grantees if the federal funding went away. In reality, matching funds are fungible to a large degree, meaning that the non-federal money is often already committed and it’s really the government that is providing the match, not the other way around. (The big exception here is matching funds for low-budget state arts councils, as discussed above.) Framing it as a “return on investment” is even more misleading, as this implies an astronomical multiplier effect to the spending that simply has no basis in evidence.

Right. So why can’t the arts just fend for themselves on the free market?

They already do. The United States is an outlier among developed-world economies in that its arts funding system is highly decentralized and market-driven. Just 1.2% of arts organizations’ budgets comes from the federal government, so artists and arts organizations have no choice but to sink or swim in the private sector. And as noted above, for all conservatives’ trumpeting of the free market, private philanthropy isn’t very generous to the rural areas and red states that helped Trump get elected. In any case, getting rid of the NEA doesn’t get the government out of the business of funding the arts. In fact, the most significant federal arts funding sources are the Smithsonian ($840 million) and the Department of Defense ($437 million for military bands alone). Yep, that’s right: we spend three times as much on military bands as we do on the entire budget of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Not to mention, it’s a little rich to complain about nonprofit arts organizations drinking from the government trough when we give away billions of dollars in free money to for-profit industries including oil & gas, corn, and airlines.

Wait, so if the NEA is so insignificant, why bother fighting for it? Wouldn’t it be easier to just take the money and create a parallel private endowment with the same mission?

Yeah, that does sound nice, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it probably wouldn’t work. Just to maintain current funding levels, which are well below the agency’s inflation-adjusted peak from 1992, one would have to raise an endowment of approximately $3 billion, which would rank up there with the nation’s largest private foundations. Interestingly, Kansas tried to do something like this several years ago—Governor Sam Brownback terminated the Kansas Arts Commission with the plan of setting up a new private entity, the Kansas Arts Foundation. The plan never got off the ground due to poor fundraising results, and the next year, the arts council was brought back to life under a new name.

The NEA’s budget is slight, but as a result it’s had to learn to accomplish a lot with a little (by federal government standards, anyway). The agency does important knowledge infrastructure work, most notably by organizing the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA), conducted every five years in collaboration with Census Bureau. The SPPA provides us with widely-used statistics about arts participation that would be extremely hard to replicate with the same accuracy in the private sector, because the imprimatur of government is so important for reliable surveys. As a government agency, the NEA also possesses an important power to help set agendas in an otherwise leaderless ecosystem. The contemporary creative placemaking movement was almost entirely incubated at the NEA under the leadership of former Chairman Rocco Landesman, which looms as one of the Endowment’s biggest policy wins in recent history.

What about the argument that the arts and media are better off operating outside the influence of government?

We largely agree with this—it’s one reason why the United States is better equipped to withstand creeping authoritarianism than democracies with more centrally controlled institutions. But as noted above, America’s arts funding system is already far too weak to make political work risky for artists in the way that it is risky in some other countries. Thus, while protecting freedom of expression could be a valid argument against increasing the agencies’ budgets by too great an amount, it is not an argument for decreasing them.

What about other agencies? Is the impact on the arts limited to the Endowments, IMLS, and CPB?

Unfortunately, no. The Trump budget is very wide-ranging in its targets, and includes relevant cuts to the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Interior Department’s National Heritage Areas, funding for after-school and summer enrichment programs within the Department of Education, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, which helps fund low-income artist housing initiatives.

Is it wise to put energy into defending the NEA and these other agencies when there’s so much else going on (climate change, threats to immigrants, international relations, etc.)?

That’s a tough call, but we believe the answer is yes. The Trump administration represents a unique challenge for America today, and picking battles seems to play into its strategy. Legislators make the budget, legislators for the most part want to keep their jobs, and they respond to pressure from their constituents. So you know what to do. #SavetheNEA.

Cover photo credit: Felix Russell-Saw

“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.

crown – Photo by Flickr user Jason Train, Creative Commons license

Both the NEA and the NEH have new official leaders this month: Jane Chu, head of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, Missouri, will be the 11^th chair of the NEA; William “Bro” Adams, formerly president of Colby College, will be the 10^th chair of the NEH. Respected internal acting chairs had been manning the ships since Rocco Landesman’s resignation from the NEA at the end of 2012 and Jim Leach’s resignation from the NEH in April 2013. The new appointees are just in time for the Congressional debate over the President’s budget, which requested essentially flat funding for the cultural agencies.

In her previous job, Chu oversaw the mid-recession capital campaign that built the Kauffman Center, a major performance venue that is now home to the Kansas City Ballet, Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. She has a background as a grantmaker, with a PhD in philanthropic studies and a previous post as the vice president of community investment for the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation. A former member of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, she may also be well equipped to reach across the aisle – or at least to continue making the case for the economic impact of the arts.

Adams, a Vietnam veteran and intellectual historian, has led arts and humanities initiatives at several colleges, including the Great Works in Western Culture Program at Stanford and a major expansion of the Colby College Museum of Art. His long and varied resume of experience in academic administration marks a shift from Leach, who had been a Congressman for thirty years at the time of his appointment. We hope he will continue his tradition of open forums entitled, “Yo, Bro.”

Glimmers of hope in state and local arts budgets: For the first time in many years, public arts funding is increasing in notable areas of the country. The Florida state budget now officially includes $56.4 million for the state’s Division of Cultural Affairs, vaulting the Sunshine State past New York to take the prize of most generous state arts council overall – even if you exclude the $12.4 million in line-item funding from that total. Not to be outdone, New York City’s 2014-15 budget includes a $23 million boost for arts education, to be directed toward arts specialist positions, facilities, and partnerships with cultural institutions. On the opposite coast, the California Arts Council received a $5 million boost from the state, bringing its total appropriation to about $9 million. Paltry as it may seem compared to Florida’s investment and California’s size, that $5 million is the first significant increase the CAC has received since it was gutted by more than 90% more than a decade ago. Michigan allocated an additional $2 million for the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley gave arts advocates reason to cheer by refraining from vetoing funding for the South Carolina Arts Commission for the first time since 2011.

Debate over equity in arts funding adds to Bay Area arts turmoil: In what may be a harbinger of feuds in other parts of the country, arts advocates in the City by the Bay clashed with one another over funding for arts organizations serving communities of color. A recent report from the Budget Analyst’s Office claims the bulk of funding distributed by San Francisco’s Grants for the Arts/Hotel Tax Fund goes to organizations serving primarily white audiences. Amid calls to address the disparity by boosting funds to the Arts Commission’s Cultural Equity Grants, which target underserved and culturally specific communities, sharp words flew between sub-groups of arts advocates, some of whom felt the Arts Commission and Grants for the Arts were being pitted against each other. The budget for Cultural Equity Grants is now poised to receive $119,000 previously allocated to Grants for the Arts, with further action by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors expected in July. This is all on top of the recent shutdown of the San Jose Repertory Theater after 34 years and the dramatic shrinking of San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts announced last month.

The Detroit Institute of Arts continues on its escape path from the city’s bankruptcy proceedings: The Detroit City Council unanimously approved the museum’s plan to privatize as a charitable trust. The so-called “grand bargain” would ransom the DIA from the bargaining table in exchange for more than $800 million in public and private funds to be paid to the city’s pensioners over 20 years. Foundation money currently accounts for more than $350m of that, including major gifts from Ford ($125 million) and Kresge ($100 million). The museum itself is required to raise $100m of the money; they’re about 70% of the way there, thanks to recent donations from the Big Three automakers ($26 million total) and from Mellon and Getty ($10 million and $3 million, respectively). Even if the funds are raised, the deal must still win the approval of pensioners and the presiding judge – which is not guaranteed, as some creditors are calling for part or all of the museum’s collection to be in play to settle the city’s debts.

Creative hubs compete to offer tax credits for film and TV production: A large majority of states offer tax incentives for film and TV production, but the last several weeks have seen several governments advance the arms race. New Jersey’s state Senate passed a bill that would raise the annual cap for film tax credits from $10 million to $50 million; Austin’s City Council approved reimbursement of up to 0.75% of production companies’ wages; and, not to be outdone, the California state assembly passed a “Film and Television Jobs Retention and Promotion” Act that would add an undefined amount to the current $100 million annual kitty. In Pennsylvania, lawmakers may clarify their tax credit rules to better attract feature films and TV series specifically; the shopping network QVC has received more than $26 million under the program since 2008. Meanwhile, Boston is kickin’ it old-school: the state legislature is considering incentives to lure live theater headed to Broadway or Off-Broadway to Beantown and the rest of Massachusetts. As we noted in January, the ultimate benefit of incentives like these to citizens is not always clear.

MUSICAL CHAIRS/COOL JOBS

• After seven months, Los Angeles has a new arts czar: Danielle Brazell is Mayor Eric Garcetti’s nominee to head the Department of Cultural Affairs. Brazell, who has spent the last eight years corralling the region’s arts advocates as executive director of Arts for LA, will take up the reins in August.
• Los Angeles also added a high-profile art education leader to its ranks: Rory Pullens, head of Washington, DC’s Duke Ellington School for the Arts, will take over Los Angeles Unified School Districts’ arts education branch in July.
• After fourteen years as Deputy Director and Director of Programs, Grantmakers in the Arts’ Tommer Petersen will retire at the end of 2014. GIA has announced a national search for his replacement.
• Simon Greer has left the Nathan Cummings Foundation following a two-and-a-half year stint as president and CEO. Greer noted he and the Board were “increasingly unaligned around the hard choices that are inevitably part of implementation.”‘
• Sad news: Rebecca Blunk, former Executive Director of the New England Foundation for the Arts, passed away on June 22 at the age of 60.
• The San Francisco Arts Commission is hiring a Senior Program Officer for Community Investments. Deadline: 6/16. Salary: $73-89k.
• Artist Trust (based in Seattle) is looking for a new Executive Director. Deadline: 7/3. Salary: $85-95k.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• Three new studies examine the link between arts participation and individuals’ sense of life-satisfaction.
• A University of Messina psychologist has linked creative capacity to hormones. Examining a small sample of visual artists, she found evidence of high prenatal testosterone rates among both males and females. A 1999 study of musicians suggested a similar correlation.
• Music education has been linked to increases in mathematical ability – might it help students with reading as well? Unfortunately, it may not do as much for your kid’s skill with the oboe as Malcolm Gladwell believes: a new study finds a strong genetic component to musical talent.
• Last year we outlined best- and worst-case scenarios for the impact of MOOCs on public education. Now, research on the use of educational technology in affluent vs. non-affluent communities suggests the worst-case scenario may be winning, as children from mid- and high-income families benefit more from fancy gadgets and internet access than their low-income peers.
• The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies offers a snapshot of how its members handle fellowships for individual artists.
• Arts Midwest has released a report on its leadership and strategy development program, ArtsLab, including case studies of eight grantees.
• Researchers affiliated with the Cultural Policy Center are preparing a book on the impact of major cultural facilities projects and the mistakes that can drive unwise investment by cities. The book expands on the authors’ previously-released study.

In her previous job, Chu oversaw the mid-recession capital campaign that built the Kauffman Center, a major performance venue that is now home to the Kansas City Ballet, Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. She has a background as a grantmaker, with a PhD in philanthropic studies and a previous post as the vice president of community investment for the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation. A former member of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, she may also be well equipped to reach across the aisle – or at least to continue making the case for the economic impact of the arts.

Adams, a Vietnam veteran and intellectual historian, has led arts and humanities initiatives at several colleges, including the Great Works in Western Culture Program at Stanford and a major expansion of the Colby College Museum of Art. His long and varied resume of experience in academic administration marks a shift from Leach, who had been a Congressman for thirty years at the time of his appointment. We hope he will continue his tradition of open forums entitled, “Yo, Bro.”

Glimmers of hope in state and local arts budgets: For the first time in many years, public arts funding is increasing in notable areas of the country. The Florida state budget now officially includes $56.4 million for the state’s Division of Cultural Affairs, vaulting the Sunshine State past New York to take the prize of most generous state arts council overall – even if you exclude the $12.4 million in line-item funding from that total. Not to be outdone, New York City’s 2014-15 budget includes a $23 million boost for arts education, to be directed toward arts specialist positions, facilities, and partnerships with cultural institutions. On the opposite coast, the California Arts Council received a $5 million boost from the state, bringing its total appropriation to about $9 million. Paltry as it may seem compared to Florida’s investment and California’s size, that $5 million is the first significant increase the CAC has received since it was gutted by more than 90% more than a decade ago. Michigan allocated an additional $2 million for the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley gave arts advocates reason to cheer by refraining from vetoing funding for the South Carolina Arts Commission for the first time since 2011.

Debate over equity in arts funding adds to Bay Area arts turmoil: In what may be a harbinger of feuds in other parts of the country, arts advocates in the City by the Bay clashed with one another over funding for arts organizations serving communities of color. A recent report from the Budget Analyst’s Office claims the bulk of funding distributed by San Francisco’s Grants for the Arts/Hotel Tax Fund goes to organizations serving primarily white audiences. Amid calls to address the disparity by boosting funds to the Arts Commission’s Cultural Equity Grants, which target underserved and culturally specific communities, sharp words flew between sub-groups of arts advocates, some of whom felt the Arts Commission and Grants for the Arts were being pitted against each other. The budget for Cultural Equity Grants is now poised to receive $119,000 previously allocated to Grants for the Arts, with further action by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors expected in July. This is all on top of the recent shutdown of the San Jose Repertory Theater after 34 years and the dramatic shrinking of San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts announced last month.

The Detroit Institute of Arts continues on its escape path from the city’s bankruptcy proceedings: The Detroit City Council unanimously approved the museum’s plan to privatize as a charitable trust. The so-called “grand bargain” would ransom the DIA from the bargaining table in exchange for more than $800m in public and private funds to be paid to the city’s pensioners over 20 years. Foundation money currently accounts for more than $350m of that, including major gifts from Ford ($125m) and Kresge ($100m). The museum itself is required to raise $100m of the money; they’re about 70% of the way there, thanks to recent donations from the Big Three automakers ($26m total) and from Mellon and Getty ($10m and $3m). Even if the funds are raised, the deal must still win the approval of pensioners and the presiding judge – which is not guaranteed, as some creditors are calling for part or all of the museum’s collection to be in play to settle the city’s debts.

Creative hubs compete to offer tax credits for film and TV production: A large majority of states offer tax incentives for film and TV production, but the last several weeks have seen several governments advance the arms race. New Jersey’s state Senate passed a bill that would raise the annual cap for film tax credits from $10m to $50m; Austin’s City Council approved reimbursement of up to 0.75% of production companies’ wages; and, not to be outdone, the California state assembly passed a “Film and Television Jobs Retention and Promotion” Act that would add an undefined amount to the current $100 annual kitty. In Pennsylvania, lawmakers may clarify their tax credit rules to better attract feature films and TV series specifically; the shopping network QVC has received more than $26m under the program since 2008. Meanwhile, Boston is kickin’ it old-school: the state legislature is considering incentives to lure live theater headed to Broadway or Off-Broadway to Beantown and the rest of Massachusetts. As we noted in January, the ultimate benefit of incentives like these to citizens is not always clear.

MUSICAL CHAIRS/COOL JOBS

• After seven months, Los Angeles has a new arts czar: Danielle Brazell is Mayor Eric Garcetti’s nominee to head the Department of Cultural Affairs. Brazell, who has spent the last eight years corralling the region’s arts advocates as executive director of Arts for LA, will take up the reins in August.
• Los Angeles also added a high-profile art education leader to its ranks: Rory Pullens, head of Washington, DC’s Duke Ellington School for the Arts, will take over Los Angeles Unified School Districts’ arts education branch in July.
• After fourteen years as Deputy Director and Director of Programs, Grantmakers in the Arts’ Tommer Petersen will retire at the end of 2014. GIA has announced a national search for his replacement.
• Simon Greer has left the Nathan Cummings Foundation following a two-and-a-half year stint as president and CEO. Greer noted he and the Board were “increasingly unaligned around the hard choices that are inevitably part of implementation.”‘
• Sad news: Rebecca Blunk, former Executive Director of the New England Foundation for the Arts, passed away on June 22 at the age of 60.
• The San Francisco Arts Commission is hiring a Senior Program Officer for Community Investments. Deadline: 6/16. Salary: $73-89k.
• Artist Trust (based in Seattle) is looking for a new Executive Director. Deadline: 7/3. Salary: $85-95k.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• Three new studies examine the link between arts participation and individuals’ sense of life-satisfaction.
• A University of Messina psychologist has linked creative capacity to hormones. Examining a small sample of visual artists, she found evidence of high prenatal testosterone rates among both males and females. A 1999 study of musicians suggested a similar correlation.
• Music education has been linked to increases in mathematical ability – might it help students with reading as well? Unfortunately, it may not do as much for your kid’s skill with the oboe as Malcolm Gladwell believes: a new study finds a strong genetic component to musical talent.
• Last year we outlined best- and worst-case scenarios for the impact of MOOCs on public education. Now, research on the use of educational technology in affluent vs. non-affluent communities suggests the worst-case scenario may be winning, as children from mid- and high-income families benefit more from fancy gadgets and internet access than their low-income peers.
• The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies offers a snapshot of how its members handle fellowships for individual artists.
• Arts Midwest has released a report on its leadership and strategy development program, ArtsLab, including case studies of eight grantees.
• Researchers affiliated with the Cultural Policy Center are preparing a book on the impact of major cultural facilities projects and the mistakes that can drive unwise investment by cities. The book expands on the authors’ previously-released study.

In the recently released federal budget for fiscal year 2015, President Obama proposes a meager increase in allocations for the arts compared to last year. Federally-backed museums will enjoy the bulk of that increase, while funding for NEA and NEH is essentially unchanged after factoring in inflation. Speaking of those agencies, President Obama also announced his plan to appoint William “Bro” Adams as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Adams is currently President of Colby College; he is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Maine Film Center and the Maine Public Broadcasting Corporation.

Democratic Congressmen have introduced a revised version of a droit de suite bill that would require payment of royalties to the creators of visual art when it is resold at public auction. The bill, American Royalties Too (ART), is less generous than its stalled predecessor – reducing the rate from 7% to 5% and adding an overall cap of $35,000 – but may gain momentum from a December report from the Copyright Office supporting resale royalties. California’s royalties bill, recently declared unconstitutional in federal court, may offer useful lessons for how not to implement the policy.

STATE AND LOCAL

Tom Finkelpearl, head of the Queens Museum and former director of NYC’s Percent for Art program, will be the city’s next cultural-affairs commissioner. Among his innovations at Queens, Finkelpearl hired a community organizer to build ties between the museum and the borough. Mayor de Blasio used the announcement to wax lyrical about the importance of access and the power of the arts to strengthen neighborhoods; we’ll get a sense of how this translates into arts policy when his capital budget is released in a few weeks.

The city of Atlanta has proposed an ordinance that would make it much more difficult to display public art on private property- or “areas of private property which are visible from the public right of way or other public spaces.”

And how’s this for a nonprofit/for-profit smackdown? Maryland’s General Assembly, eager to keep production of Netflix’s political drama House of Cards in the state, tried to swipe $2.5 million from the state’s arts fund to secure additional tax credits for filming. Lawmakers argued the decision came down to simple economics, claiming the show “contributed $250 million to the economy and 6,000 jobs during the past two seasons.” (Too bad the research on the economic impact of tax incentives for film and TV suggests those benefits are less attractive than they seem.) In the end, the legislators held firm – or maybe they just didn’t have their act together – and now, we’re all waiting to see whether a change of venue is in the cards for House of Cards.

(Update: According to an email newsletter from Americans for the Arts, the $2.5 million did end up getting transferred from the arts fund after all. “Governor O’Malley originally allotted $7 million in his budget proposal, which then grew to $11 million.  The amount proved to not be enough….To raise more money, the General Assembly authorized applying the Special Fund for the Preservation of Cultural Arts, a fund of $2.5 million on reserve for supporting local arts organizations, toward film incentives. The Senate pushed for the amount to be raised to $18.5 million and requested $3 million from the general fund, which the House rejected. The final agreement stood at $15 million.”)

INTERNATIONAL

Lots of news from Britain this time around: Maria Miller, the UK Culture Secretary whom some accused of not being especially interested in culture, has resigned amid a scandal over her expenses. She will be replaced by Sajid Javid, the current Treasury Financial Secretary. As the EU eases copyright law to make it easier to transfer purchased music from one of your personal devices to another, most countries are simultaneously levying a tax on device manufacturers; the money would go to a fund to support young musicians. In Britain, the potential tax is being fought strenuously by manufacturers. Meanwhile, the UK has closed a tax loophole on domestic music, book, and app purchases; the move could raise as much as half a billion dollars, which retailers may pass on to consumers. In more local news, the Mayor of London has released a revised cultural strategy, which includes support for smaller arts organizations and your friendly neighborhood busker.

Italy has pledged to spend €135 million to restore 46 heritage sites in the southern portion of the country, following an earlier distribution of €222 million last September. On the other side of the Adriatic in Athens, the Greeks are not so lucky: their cash-poor government is thinking about selling off public landmarks near the Acropolis to private investors. Protestors have been staging angry demonstrations to tell the pols to leave their built heritage alone.

Good news for Dubai’s 137 million metro riders: now they can add a little culture to their wait.  Thanks to a new public art project launched by the Prime Minister of UAE, four metro stations throughout the city will be transformed into museums.

And the government of South Korea is digging a little deeper into cultural exchange through a new project set to introduce Korean culture into emerging markets around the world. The NEXT Project to Dispatch International Cultural Exchange Experts by Region sends staff abroad as both representatives and students of the host cultures and are responsible for managing each regional Culture Centre.

JUST ABOUT EVERYWHERE

Finally, the entire Anglophone world suddenly seems to be slashing taxes on live performance. New York State passed a theater tax credit to induce Broadway producers to prepare for touring shows upstate. (Producers and tour operators had lobbied for the incentives, which are already offered in states like Illinois, Louisiana, and Rhode Island.) Within days, Senator Charles Schumer proposed a more ambitious national tax rebate of up to $15 million per production – benefits already extended to film and TV. Both initiatives appear to be driven by the Broadway League. Meanwhile, the UK opened a consultation period for its own plan to provide generous credits for live performing arts; the exact policy objectives of the subsidy remain unclear. This last plan opens out into the world: as long as at least a quarter of the expenditures are in Europe, costs may be incurred in any country.