Too often, arts advocates speak of the arts as if all that humans create is virtuous; the events of this past month offer a sobering reminder to the contrary.
Netflix Is Taking Over (and Other January Stories)
Not satisfied with killing Blockbuster, the streamer is now setting its sights on Hollywood and the world.
To Build or Not to Build (And Other October Stories)
This month, it’s (mostly) all about the Benjamins.
Around the horn: Four more years edition
ART AND THE GOVERNMENT As you know, there was an election last week, and Barack Obama won it. Thankfully this means that Barry Hessenius’s worst fears about the NEA likely won’t be realized, but Barry does have some useful advocacy advice that is worth a read regardless of the outcome. Ted Johnson has a helpful pre-electionRead More
Around the horn: Linsanity edition
Quick announcement: Createquity Writing Fellowship alumna Katherine Gressel is curating an art show! And raising money for it! OK, back to regularly scheduled programming… ART AND THE GOVERNMENT Kickstarter got a whole bunch of press mileage last week out of the idea that it “gives out” more money to the arts than the NEA. Tim Mikulski explains why that’sRead More
On Michael Kaiser and Citizen Critics
Michael Kaiser is so hit or miss. Last week he published this truly unfortunate commentary on the slow death of professional arts criticism, and the rise of citizen critics as a result: [T]he growing influence of blogs, chat rooms and message boards devoted to the arts has given the local professional critic a slew of competitors….Many artsRead More
New Blogs!
Here are this week’s newly added blogs….enjoy! ARTSBLOGWho knew? It seems I’m a little late to the party, but apparently DC-based advocacy organization Americans for the Arts has been running this quite lively group blog with a dizzying array of volunteer contributors since 2007. With so many authors, you’d expect the quality to be aRead More
Around the horn: home stretch edition
My fourth and final semester at the Yale School of Management has begun, and classes-wise, it’s looking to be the most interesting yet. I’m taking Endowment Management with the folks from the legendary Yale Investments Office, which has performed in the top one percent of institutional investors over the past two decades; Philanthropic Foundations withRead More
Newspapers and Symphony Orchestras
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote up a Stanford case on the San Francisco Symphony for my Nonprofits class. The project was timely, given the recent release of the controversial Flanagan report (pdf) commissioned by the Mellon Foundation that studied the economic environment of symphony orchestras. The Flanagan report has gotten a lot ofRead More