Seward Johnson, “A Reason to Smile,” installed at Grounds For Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ. (Photo by Flickr user Wally Gobetz)

On November 13, gunmen opened fire on approximately 1,500 unsuspecting audience members at an Eagles of Death Metal concert at Paris’s historic Le Bataclan music hall, killing 89. The Bataclan was the deadliest site in a cluster of coordinated terrorist attacks throughout the city that evening for which ISIS claimed responsibility. While U2 frontman Bono described the Bataclan massacre as “the first direct hit on music in this so-called war on terror,” the scale and locations of these attacks only solidified an unsettling new direction in terrorism: concert halls, stadiums, cafes, museums, and other cultural institutions (not just local or politically symbolic international sites) have all been targets this year. Indeed, ISIS’s statement of responsibility indicated that the attack sites were carefully chosen as symbols of “abominations and perversion.”

Leaders have responded by bolstering both physical and financial security for cultural venues. In addition to new safety measures, French cultural minister Fleur Pellerin established a “solidarity fund” of approximately $6 million to protect music groups from “expected declines in business and other financial hardships.” President François Hollande revealed a proposal for France’s museums to temporarily house Syrian cultural objects “at risk” of ISIS looting. Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has pledged 1 billion euros to spend equally on culture and security, which has raised concerns among Italy’s business leaders that a corporate tax cut could be postponed as a result. How to protect concert halls and stadiums, and who will ultimately pay, have likewise come up in New York City: Ray Waddell, a senior editor at Billboard, suggested that more metal detectors and bag checks may mean higher ticket prices.

While questions remain about how best to allocate resources, protecting culture now seems especially urgent in “fighting back against a group that is notorious for destroying cultural symbols and objects it deems idolatrous.”

STEM education just got a little STEAMier: In what arts education advocates considered a “huge win,” the joint House-Senate Conference Committee unanimously accepted a bipartisan amendment to the rewrite of the nation’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) (aka “No Child Left Behind”) that will integrate the arts into STEM education. Introduced by Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), the amendment sets the stage for new K-12 education policy by acknowledging that arts integration can “improve attainment of STEM-related skills” (science, technology, engineering and math). Last week, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) that reauthorizes ESEA and includes additional language about the importance of the arts to a “well-rounded education.” ESSA’s more flexible math/reading test requirements and emphasis on state-level decision-making may also be friendly to arts education strategies, according to a detailed analysis by the National Art Education Association. This victory for arts ed advocates comes just after the Arts Education Partnership launched a five-year Action Agenda for Advancing the Arts in Education. It similarly emphasizes the importance of arts integration especially in underperforming and impoverished schools, and recommends incorporating the arts into training for teachers and academic leaders.

A new day in Canada: In a November letter to Minister of Culture Melanie Joly, new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau demonstrated his intentions to make good on campaign promises to double the Canada Arts Council budget, provide $150M to CBC/Radio Canada, reinvest in Telefilm Canada and the National Film Board, and provide increased support for indigenous culture and youth initiatives. This is welcome news to arts groups after nine years of arts funding cuts under former conservative PM Stephen Harper. According to the Globe and Mail, Joly’s youth and relative inexperience in government will hopefully be an asset rather than liability in achieving this ambitious agenda while also redefining the ministry with “symbols of progressiveness.” Trudeau also gained popularity with social scientists when he announced in early November the reinstatement of a mandatory national census, which serves as the bedrock of all government data collection.

Ford Foundation’s new inequality-focused agenda will include the arts: In June we reported on Ford’s announcement that the foundation will shift its entire focus to fighting inequality. Three months later, president Darren Walker has revealed more detail on the specifics of the new strategy, which will involve consolidating 35 program areas into 15. While detailed arts funding guidelines have yet to be announced, Ford’s website lists a reframed creativity and free expression program encompassing “social justice storytelling” and “21st century arts infrastructure.” Walker’s “New Gospel of Wealth” essay suggests that the foundation’s ultimate goal is a reformed capitalist system, and creative expression is considered a piece of the puzzle. Ford will privilege initiatives for broader structural change over those providing direct assistance to the poor; discontinued programs include direct cash transfers in Latin America and microfinance, as well as causes like LGBT rights that have gained philanthropic support from other sources in recent years.While Ford’s program to construct new art spaces will also be cut, the foundation will increase its general operating support–with a new BUILD initiative to specifically strengthen the operations of social justice-oriented institutions and partnerships.

Cleveland arts organizations light up on election day as cigarette tax for the arts is renewed: An overwhelming majority of voters passed Issue 8, which will renew Cuyahoga County’s 10-year, 30-cent-a-pack tax on cigarettes to support arts and culture. The original approval of this tax in 2006 turned a region with scant arts funding into “one of the most highly ranked metro areas in the country in local public support for the arts.” More than 300 large and small arts organizations have depended on the $125 million in cigarette tax proceeds distributed since 2008 for both general operating support and special projects. The campaign to renew the levy was propelled by an Arts and Culture Action Committee that raised over $1 million for advertising, but the renewal faced very little visible opposition.

MUSICAL CHAIRS/COOL JOBS

• Prince Charitable Trusts welcomes Carolynn Brunette, who will head its Washington, D.C. office as Managing Director and also co-direct the Rhode Island program, beginning on January 1. Carolyn succeeds retiring Managing Director Kristin Pauly, who has been with Prince Charitable Trusts since 1998.
• New Orleans Arts Council CEO Kim Cook announced her departure at the end of 2015; Acting Director Nick Stillman will oversee the organization in the interim. Cook is moving to the Bay Area to serve as Burning Man’s Director of Art & Civic Engagement, a newly created position.
• Longtime theater critic Steven Leigh Morris will assume the role of LA Stage Alliance’s new executive director.
• UC Davis Law professor and international human rights scholar Karima Bennoune has been appointed special rapporteur on cultural rights to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
• The nonprofit sector mourned the sudden November 17 death of Rick Cohen, nonprofit advocate and national correspondent for Nonprofit Quarterly. Cohen previously led the led the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a foundation watchdog, and was known for focusing on the needs of low-income and underrepresented populations.
• CERF+, a national nonprofit that “provides a safety net to artists through readiness, education and relief programs,” seeks a Director of Programs. Deadline 12/18.
• The Newark Arts Council seeks a new Executive Director. Deadline January 1.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• The new book Making Culture Count: The Politics of Cultural Measurement, part of Australia-based publisher Palgrave Macmillan’s New Directions in Cultural Policy series, explores diverse approaches to cultural measurement and their political implications.
• Nesta, a UK-based foundation, presents a potentially fresh approach for measuring the intrinsic benefits of the arts–including asking people how much they would need to be paid to compensate for the removal of cultural institutions.
• An initial report on spillover effects of public investment in arts and culture in Europe reviews existing evidence and recommends a future “holistic research agenda” for the European Union.
• In the United States, the Nonprofit Finance Fund published an arts-specific analysis of its annual State of the Sector Survey, encompassing data from over 900 arts, culture and humanities organizations. Trends include decreased debt (but ongoing challenges with sustainability), and an emphasis on expanded programming and audience-building, as well as more focus on outcomes measurement.
• The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance’s new assessment of the nonprofit arts sector spanning 11 U.S. metropolitan areas (using Cultural Data Project data) found that increased earned income is driving many organizations’ recession recovery, but they also face decreased contributed income among other fiscal challenges.
• A Theater Communications Group study indicates that U.S. nonprofit theaters still face shrinking attendance despite increased revenue; offering more family-friendly programming may help. Early exposure to theater could benefit young people in various ways; the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders published findings from a randomized control trial that suggest theater training may boost skills in kids with autism.
• A new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia offers a closer look at the pros and cons of gentrification in the City of Brotherly Love, with implications for national urban policy.
• The arts management workforce still does not match the diversity of the general population. Meanwhile, a survey of UK arts professionals suggests a “stark gender pay gap.”
• A Los Angeles County Arts Commission report analyzes the importance of volunteers to arts organizations – and of volunteer management.
• With Adele’s new album enjoying record-breaking sales last month despite not being available for streaming, researchers continue to debate the impact of digital music distribution. The NEA responded to a methodological debate that broke out earlier this year between the New York Times Magazine and The Future of Music Coalition by looking at what two alternative datasets might tell us about the viability of making a living as an artist in the digital age. Meanwhile, an analysis of two years of Spotify data from the Bureau of Economic Research suggests that music streaming “brings virtually no financial gain to the industry, but it also prevents losses.”
• Several reports explored the “dark side of creativity,” with growing evidence that creative people may be more dishonest and prone to depression and an exaggerated sense of entitlement.
• Finally, will there be more to be thankful for than usual this year? A Charities Aid Foundation study found that charitable giving is up around the world, including an increase from young people and men.

National Geographic Magazine covers display – photo by flickr user greyloch

In the world of media, the line in the sand between commercial and nonprofit has long been getting washed away, but this past month’s announcements leave behind even less of a trace. First came the news that premium cable channel HBO had struck a deal with the nonprofit Sesame Workshop to bring first-run episodes of “Sesame Street” exclusively to its network and streaming outlets starting in the fall. The deal will allow Sesame Street to double the number of episodes it produces, and alleviates a number of financial pressures. Although new episodes will eventually be available on (free) PBS–the show’s home for the last 45 years–the news raised some troubling questions about mission and access. Lest you think of this as a simple story of a media empire benefiting from the public purse, though, know that Denzel Washington also plans to produce adaptations of all ten of esteemed playwright August Wilson’s works for the network, one per year for the next decade.

As if that weren’t enough, after 127 years, the National Geographic Society, “one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational institutions in the world,” has sold a 73% stake in its iconic magazine and other media assets to a Murdoch-headed partnership in exchange for $725 million. (The relationship is not a new one: the society first partnered with Fox in 1997 to launch the National Geographic cable channel.) Many were dismayed by the news, citing concerns about the “Foxification” of National Geographic, and the effect of the partnership on the magazine’s standards of reporting. Others are more positive: the new joint venture (and a newly bolstered endowment) will give the National Geographic Society the “scale and reach to continue to fulfill [its] mission long into the future,” and allow it to double spending on research, science and other projects.

Cultural Colonialism or Sound Business Strategy? Vivendi to Open Venues in Africa. This month, French media group Vivendi announced it will build ten performance venues in Africa to “enhance access to culture and entertainment in countries frequently lacking such facilities.” The venues will be built in Cotonou (Benin), Brazzaville (Congo), Conakry (Guinea), Dakar (Senegal) and other locations to be determined, and will operate under the name CanalOlympia. These venues, which will serve a concert halls, theaters and cinemas all-in-one, are part of Vivendi’s strategy to reinforce the Group’s presence in high-growth markets, where an emerging middle class is consuming more content. They will also include recording studios and a rehearsal rooms, in support of Vivendi’s strategy of identifying and supporting new talent (key to its growth in international markets,) and will form a network of sites for the organization of tours by Island Africa, an initiative of Universal Music Group.

LA Philharmonic Goes Virtual (Reality). Free concerts in the park. HD screenings in movie theaters . Classical music institutions have long played with innovative and accessible ways to take their performances out of the concert hall and into the community. This month, the venerable Los Angeles Philharmonic took it to the next level: with artistic director Gustavo Dudamel at the helm, the orchestra is going on a virtual reality tour. A bright yellow van, nicknamed (of course) VAN Beethoven and outfitted with Oculus virtual reality goggles, Samsung headsets and half-dozen seats from the Walt Disney Concert Hall, is hitting the road for five weeks, stopping at county fairs, street food festivals, and everywhere in between. Individuals will be invited in to experience four minutes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, complete with Fantasia-like visual effects. For those already in on the VR game, you can watch it at home.

The Islamic State vs Digital Archaeology. In March, the Islamic State’s seemingly endless destruction of Mideast antiquities made our roundup of top arts stories. The destruction has continued in recent months, and if anything, is accelerating. In May, ISIS militants occupied the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra–a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In June, they blew up a tomb. In July, they attacked a dozen ancient statues. In August, they leveled two more temples of great cultural significance (and beheaded an expert who was fighting to protect the city’s relics.) As this newsroom “goes to print,” news arrives that the 1,800 year old Arch of Triumph is the latest cultural casualty. The situation is dire, and archaeologists have been galvanized into action, racing to capture Middle East’s historical sites with digital renderings before they’re destroyed. In the coming months, the Institute for Digital Archaeology, a joint venture between Oxford and Harvard universities, plans to distribute thousands of low-cost, high-quality 3D cameras across the Middle East with the help of UNESCO and New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. These cameras will capture 3D renderings of a (for now secret) list of ancient sites and artifacts for preservation and, ultimately, recreation.

Despite Changes at the Helm, Future of Australia Arts Council Remains in Question. Australia made Createquity headlines in May with the news that Arts Minister George Brandis had diverted a whopping $104.8 million from the arts council budget to a newly established policy, the National Programme for Excellence in the Arts, managed by his own ministry. The move made many enemies of the Arts Minister among Australia’s cultural sector. This month, the sector celebrated the news that Brandis had been removed from his post. Unfortunately, the celebrations may be premature: although the $104.8 million has not yet been spent, incoming Arts Minister Mitch Fifield has indicated for now that he is planning to move ahead with Brandis’s agenda.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• Sharon Alpert, currently the Vice President of and Strategic Initiatives at the Surdna Foundation, has been appointed president of the Nathan Cummings Foundation. She will be the foundation’s fourth president and first female leader.
• Music coverage at metropolitan dailies took a hit in September: Jim Farber was let go from the Daily News (New York) where he’d been writing since 1990s; longtime music writer Brian Mansfield left USA Today; and the New Orleans’ Times-Picayune dissolved its music department in its entirety.
• H.E. Shaikha Haya bint Mohammad Al-Khalifa has joined the Culture & Archaeology Authority of Bahrain as its new director of Culture & Arts, Dawa Gyeltshen was formally appointed the Cultural Affairs Minister of Bhutan, and Trinidad and Tobago has named Dr. Nyan Gadsby Dolly its new Minister of Community Development, Culture and the Arts.
• The Institute of Museum and Library Services is hiring a Program Analyst. Posted September 14; closing date October 9.
• Grantmakers in the Arts invites consulting firms/individuals through an RFP process to submit a proposal to conduct an audit of GIA with respect to the organization’s goal of racial equity in arts philanthropy. Posted September 22; closing date October 26.
• The Walton Family Foundation seeks an Arts and Culture Program Officer for its Region Program. Closing date October 31.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• A new survey conducted by the CECP and Conference Board finds that corporate giving is, and is expected to remain, stable. On the other hand, a report from the consulting group Camber Collective suggests that better meeting donors’ needs and preferences could open up access to quite a bit of additional giving.
• A couple of studies from this past month look into the question of gender gaps. One study suggests that disparity stems from a reflexive tendency to link masculinity & creativity, implying that similar work by women will be deemed less creative simply by being executed by women. The second suggests that the gender imbalance among the highest level positions in some cases may in part be the result of differences in lifestyle preference.
• Recently released research suggests that television has the potential to be used in teaching tolerance, increasing political tolerance, and eliminating racism, sexism, and heterosexism.
• Several studies out of the UK this month bear mention. One suggests that arts participation is strongly correlated not with class, but with education, which paints a slightly different picture from Createquity’s previous research on the topic. A second, from the UK Office for National Statistics has crunched the numbers and found that net financial wealth does correlate with happiness quite well, thank you. The third, a survey of theater goers in the UK reveals that recognizable cast members is the biggest driver of ticket sales. And on the topic of theater, a report published by the Creative Industries Federation suggests that theaters and performing arts organizations are markedly less ethnically diverse than other creative industries.
• Two new studies released this month suggest that music does in fact have the power to influence us, though not always in a good way.
• A survey of social media use in USA published this month shows that Facebook and Twitter usage has plateaued, while Instagram and Pinterest users have doubled.

North Adams, Massachusetts – photo by flickr user John Herr

In 1986, Thomas Krens, with an MBA in hand from Yale University and new to his consultancy for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, suggested turning a shuttered electrical plant in North Adams, Massachusetts into the world’s largest contemporary art museum. He had spent six years in North Adams as the director of the Williams College Museum of Art, and the plant had been in his backyard. It was a big, wild idea, and it came to fruition thirteen years later, when the site became the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in 1999. Now, nearly thirty years later, Krens is back with a newer, bigger idea for North Adams: a 160,000-square-foot art gallery on the city’s Harriman-West Airport grounds. This new museum is designed to complement, rather than compete, with the “old” one: it would only show its contemporary-art collection, and there would be no exhibition programming. The idea is unusual in structure, as well; unlike most museums, Krens’ idea is for this one to be privately owned by a for-profit group of investors, and they’re only seeking a twenty-year lease. Not much has been heard of from Krens following the end of his twenty-year tenure as director of the Guggenheim Museum, but this new idea–five years in the making and originally planned for China–is sure to push him back into the limelight. The North Adams Airport Commission is on board. Next up: the Federal Aviation Administration.

Chula Vista Schools Invest Heavily in Arts Education. Chula Vista Elementary School District, which lies just south of San Diego, California, serves some 30,000 students. The last time the district had an arts coordinator was the 1970s, and last school year, the district had just four full-time art teachers. All this is about to change: this summer, the district has undertaken a massive expansion of its arts education program, hiring 60 new art teachers, with 16 spots still left to fill. This unprecedented investment in arts education, spearheaded by Lauren Shelton, has been made possible by $15 million in funding approved by the Chula Vista school board in June. The money comes from from Governor Jerry Brown’s state local control funding formula, which shifted education spending decisions to the local level and targets disadvantaged students. Chula Vista is not the only district to benefit from Governor Brown’s formula, but it’s the first to focus the entire pool of funds–$5 million a year for the next three years–on aggressively expanding arts education. The District’s goal is simple, if ambitious: to raise student engagement, boost attendance and improve academic performance among low-performing students, and of course, implement a long-term plan to restore arts instruction in the district.

Social Sciences Scrutinized, Found Lacking. The social sciences have found themselves in the Createquity limelight recently, and not necessarily for good reason. In March, we reported that the journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology had banned testing for statistical significance and related procedures in papers published in its pages. In May we covered Michael LaCour’s study on the impact of gay canvassers on voters’ behavior, which was retracted when its data was found to be falsified. And this past month, the journal Science released the findings of a yearslong effort to faithfully reproduce 100 studies, in most cases using original data. These studies, published in the leading journals Psychological Science, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, are considered some of the most important work published on personality, relationships, learning and memory. In the case of more than half of the studies, the replication project found that “the evidence for most published findings was not nearly as strong as originally claimed.” While the study of the studies itself could stand some further investigation, the shocking numbers are just the latest warning not to take research results at face value. Is increased competition for academic jobs and research funding to blame, or is the Internet merely making it easier than before to spot crimes against science? Either way, social science is not doomed–but it sure is harder than we give it credit for.

China Lifts 14-Year Old Ban on Video Gaming. In 2000, the Chinese government banned the production and sale of video game consoles, citing concerns that games could have “adverse effects” on Chinese youth. Last year, China eased those restrictions, letting game console-makers operate in the Shanghai free trade zone (though even then they had to enter into contracts to build new manufacturing facilities, secure approval for console sales from regulators, and allow every console to be individually inspected.) This month, the Ministry of Culture lifted the ban altogether, opening the door to Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft to manufacture and sell their Xboxes, Playstations and Wii. Although China is expected to overtake the US as the world’s largest mobile gaming market by 2016, it’s not immediately clear what impact the lifting of the ban will have on Chinese gamers, or on the bottom line of the big three. In the absence of consoles, PC and web based games have eaten up the lion’s share of the market, leaving little room for new products, especially new consoles, which have, despite it all, long been available on the grey market.

Art School Profits off of Student Dreams. Remember when the entire first year MFA class at USC Roski School of Art and Design in Los Angeles dropped out in May on account of their funding and teaching opportunities being curtailed? If that story made you mad, have we got a tale of student exploitation for you. The for-profit Academy of Art University, based in San Francisco, was by founded by Richard S. and Clara Stephens in the 1920s. Under the watch of granddaughter Elisa Stephens, who became president in 1992, the school has become the largest private art university in the United States, with 16,000 students (35% of which are online-only) generating an estimated $300 million in annual revenues. The Stephenses are purportedly worth some $800 million, which they spend–lavishly and visibly–on prime San Francisco real estate, summer homes, yachts, jets, and cars. According to a Forbes exposé this month, it seems that fortune has been built on the selling of false hope. The Academy accepts any applicant with a high school diploma and the willingness to spend $22,000 a year on tuition–no art portfolio required. Only 32% of full-time students and 3% of part-time students graduate, and it takes most full-time students six years to do so. (The school keeps a full semester’s tuition if the student is enrolled for at least four weeks.) Add to this a caginess around job placement statistics and numerous building violations, and regulators are finally taking notice. It’s worth reconsidering the white-hot controversy surrounding Roski dean Erica Muhl in this light: shady as the university’s dealings might have been, they affected a grand total of seven students.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• At long last, the National Endowment for the Arts has a new theater director: Greg Reiner.
• Charlotte Cohen has been appointed executive director of the Brooklyn Arts Council, succeeding Ella J. Weiss who is retiring after serving 16 years as president of the organization.
• The Tucson Pima Arts Council announced a leadership shift this month: Debi Chess Mabie was appointed CEO, with current executive director Roberto Bedoya transitioning to the new role of Director of Civic Engagement.
• Angie Kim was named president and CEO of California’s Center for Cultural Innovation.
• Jennifer Coleman has been appointed Senior Program Officer for the Arts at the George Gund Foundation in Cleveland.
• After fifteen years with the Walton Family Foundation, Buddy Philpot will step down as its executive director.
• Sarah Martínez-Helfman has been named president of Philadelphia’s Samuel S. Fels Fund.
• Former Microsoft executive Michael Thatcher was named president and CEO of Charity Navigator.
• Scott Cantrell, long time staff music critic at the Dallas Morning, is the latest writer to accept a buyout at the paper.
• The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation seeks an arts program officer. Posted July 27; no closing date.
• The David and Lura Lovell Foundation seeks an executive director. Posted July 31; no closing date.
• The Krupp Family Foundation is hiring a part-time Foundation Grants and Program Director. Posted August 4; no closing date.
• The Prince Charitable Trusts is hiring a managing director. Posted August 5; no closing date.
• The California Arts Council is hiring a deputy director. Posted August 19; closing date September 18.
• The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is hiring a Program Fellow for the three-year Hewlett Fellowship. Posted August 28; no closing date.
• The South Jersey Cultural Alliance seeks an executive director. Closing date September 11.
• Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts is hiring an Assistant Director for the Arts Research Institute. Closing date September 30.
• The New Jersey Council for the Humanities seeks a Director of Programs. Applications will be reviewed beginning October 15.
• ArtsEnging/a2ru_News has openings for a Research Director and Research Fellow. No closing date.
• AEA Consulting is recruiting a research analysts and consultants. No closing date.
• The Oklahoma Arts Council is hiring a Director of Art in Public Places. No closing date.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• A recent analysis of the Mellon Foundation’s Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program by the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute has found that the program has “no significant effect” on Ph.D. completion rates among minority students.
• The University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism examined the 700 top-grossing films between 2007 and 2014 and released a report revealing, in no uncertain terms, Hollywood’s bias against women, people of color and LGBT characters.
• A new study suggests that educational television programs such as Sesame Street have not been successful in reducing kids’ prejudices.
• The U.S. Department of Education released two reports assessing the qualifications of middle & high school instructors across arts disciplines. Spoiler alert: they’re not all qualified.
• How do you get to Carnegie Hall? A new study published this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that individuals underestimate the value of persistence for creative performance. Another report from the same journal indicates that money does matter, and what’s more, that low-income individuals are less happy in places with greater income inequality.
• A public study of Chicago residents commissioned by Arts Alliance Illinois last year reveals that while Chicagoans are united in wanting access to arts, not all have access: 28 of 77 of the city’s neighborhoods are home to zero arts organizations.
• A report published by Gulf Labor, a coalition of artists and activists, reveals that underpayment and harsh working conditions have persisted for migrant workers building new Guggenheim, Louvre and Zayed National museum branches in Abu Dhabi.
• A survey of professional dancers in UK revealed that more than half of them earn less than £5,000 a year from their performing engagements (and other bleak statistics).
• And in more lighthearted news: baristas rejoice! A new study reveals that people are willing to pay more–13% more!–for latte art.

“Day #244 The Colour of Money” — photo by flickr user Martin Weller

Next time you hear someone complaining yet again about hard times for the arts, you might want to point out that Giving USA Foundation and the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy reported in June that charitable giving is up for a fifth consecutive year. In 2014, contributions increased more than 7%, and were up across all four categories tracked: living individuals, foundations, bequests, and corporations. Not only that, giving in the arts increased by 9.2%, the biggest jump of any sector. Overall, 4.8%–roughly $17.2 billion–of the $358.38 billion in charitable donations given in 2014 was directed towards arts and culture, placing seventh out of ten cause areas. (Religion, the perennial winner, pulled in $114.9 billion, though its share continues to drop.) Total gifts last year–driven by mega-gifts given by tech entrepreneurs–surpassed the peak last seen before the Great Recession.

Supreme Court Upholds the Affordable Care Act: We would be remiss to pass by June without acknowledging the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in favor of allowing the federal government to provide tax subsidies to help individuals buy health insurance. This is the second time the Affordable Care Act has come before the Supreme Court, and the second time that Chief Justice Roberts–a Republican–sided with his liberal colleagues on the bench. In 2012, his controlling opinion was belabored; in 2015, affirmative, establishing an expansive precedent that will make future challenges difficult. Had the Supreme Court not upheld the subsidies, residents of the 34 states which refused to set up exchanges of their own (and thus use exchanges managed by the federal government) would have lost their subsidies, affecting at least six and half, and as many as nine million, Americans. Much has been written about the benefit of the Affordable Care Act to independent artists, and we can only imagine that the loss of subsidies in states without their own exchanges would have been a disaster for this community.

Ford Foundation Focuses on Inequality: In the first major overhaul of its grant making priorities since 2007, Ford Foundation president Darren Walker announced that the foundation will direct all its resources to curbing global inequality. Although the foundation is committed to asking hard questions of its grantees, its view of inequality is broad, encompassing wealth, race, ethnicity, and gender as well as issues of access to technology and the arts. Crucially, Mr. Walker has also pledged to double the foundation’s general operating support to 40% of its grant-making budget, which will no doubt be welcome news to grantees the world over. As the second largest private foundation in the United States, one with a rich history of supporting the arts, Ford’s choices will have deep and far-reaching impact. Still, given the foundation’s pre-existing focus on social justice, it remains to be seen whether this new focus will result in significant changes in the way the foundation functions or simply new branding for the work it’s already doing.

Apple Unveils its Music Streaming Platform: Apple is the latest to jump on the increasingly crowded music streaming bandwagon. In June, it unveiled Apple Music, its own music streaming platform spearheaded by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame. There’s nothing particularly innovative about Apple’s platform, though a few features may ultimately set it apart: Netflix-level hyper-customization, hyper-vigilant personalization, Beats 1 radio with shows by Dr. Dre, Elton John, Pharrell Williams, Drake, Q-Tip, St. Vincent, Ellie Goulding, Jaden Smith and others, and an emphasis on the artist-centric social network (as opposed to the friend-centric one, embraced by Spotify and others.) There’s also no free version, only a $9.99/month subscription, but Apple has a marketplace advantage: the app is packaged into every iOS download, and it integrates neatly with iTunes, which at last count had some 800 millions user accounts. The roll out was overshadowed, however, by a letter posted by New York’s attorney general mere hours after the reveal, announcing that the streaming music business, Apple included, is under antitrust investigation.What everyone’s really talking about, however, is Taylor Swift, and how she–along with others–managed to pressure Apple into paying royalties for music played during the app’s three-month trial period. If only authors had a similarly powerful superstar who could pressure Amazon into paying royalties on the number of Kindle books downloaded, rather than on the number of pages read (currently applied only to self-published books, but the backlash has been quick).

Canada Council to Simplify Grant Programs: In a major restructuring, the Canada Council announced in June that it would streamline its grant making programs, reducing 147 separate programs–each with its own guidelines, deadlines and reporting–to a mere six. The new format will kick in in 2017, when the council turns 60. With this restructuring, the council hopes to eliminate administrative redundancies and increase organizational capacity, which would allow it to expand and refine the peer-review evaluation system and offer more application dates, making it easier for artists and organizations to apply on a cycle that makes sense of their work.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• After serving nearly three decades as the 13th Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington will step down from his post in January – opening up some new possibilities for copyright policy.
• Elspeth Revere is leaving her post of Vice President for Media, Culture and Special Initiatives for the MacArthur Foundation after 24 years with the foundation.
• Ben Cameron, currently Program Director for the Arts at the Doris Duke Foundation, was named president of the Jerome and Camargo Foundations.
• Eileen Wiseman has been appointed Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Tow Foundation.
• Angelique Power has been promoted to Program Director, Culture for the Joyce Foundation.
• Jaime Cortez joined the Barr Foundation from the San Francisco Arts Commission as a program officer for Arts & Culture.
• Eric Jolly, current president of the Science Museum of Minnesota, has been tapped to become the head of Minnesota Philanthropy Partners.
• DanceUSAorg seeks a Director of Information Services. Deadline July 8.
• The National Endowment for the Arts seeks a Media Arts Director. Posted June 15; deadline July 14.
• Zellerbach Family Foundation is hiring a Program Executive, Promoting Culture. Posted June 15; no closing date.
• Irvine Foundation is hiring a Senior Program Fellow, Arts. Posted June 16; no closing date.
• Fractured Atlas is hiring for a newly created position: Director of Programs. Posted June 18; no closing date.
• Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation seeks a Program Associate. Posted June 19; no closing date.
• The Pricing Institute seeks an experienced arts marketing professional. Posted June 28; no closing date.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• A study commissioned by the James Irvine Foundation in San Francisco, The Cultural Lives of Californians: Insights from the California Survey of Arts & Cultural Participation, takes a broad view of arts participation in California, revealing trends and statistics that are more favorable than recent NEA studies on the same topic.
• EmcArts released in-depth case study documenting the successes of Latino New South, one of its Innovation Labs for the Arts, featuring a collaboration between Levine Museum of New South, the Atlanta History Center, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
• The Center for an Urban Future released a report, a decade after their initial study, charting changes in New York’s cultural landscape.
• The Center for the Future of Museums has drafted a self-assessment tool for internal practices related to social justice within museums.
• A new guide published by the Wallace Foundation looks at benefits of audience research, and offers suggestions for carrying out effective research.
• A groundbreaking study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience sheds light on the cognitive costs of poverty.
• A new Canadian study finds that despite increased access to musical genres, musical tastes still mirror class lines.
• A paper published in the Journal of Adolescent Research finds positive outcomes for families who use media such as TV “as a tool—to laugh together, to become informed, to connect, to spark discussion.”
• A new survey of executives reveals tips and tricks for influencing decisions at the executive level.
• A recent survey conducted by the Writers’ Union of Canada finds that despite the explosion in e-publishing, salaries for writers have dropped 27% for men, and more for women.
• Two reports of note from the UK this month. The first, A review of the Social Impacts of Culture and Sport, finds that ‘evidence gaps’ are in fact holding back policy development. The second reveals that arts engagement across England as a whole has been static since 2005/06.

The Dance to the Free the Arts – photo from Melbourne Web Fest

Cuts to arts council budgets are commonplace, but the news that the Australia Council will see $104.8 million slashed from its budget over the next four years isn’t your usual tale of shifting budget priorities amid tough economic times. What makes this story alarming (instead of just sad) is that the money didn’t disappear from the arts; rather, Arts Minister George Brandis moved it–to a newly established policy, the National Programme for Excellence in the Arts, managed by his own ministry. The Australia Council, founded in 1973, is governed by the principle of arm’s length funding, which allows the council to decide how to allocate the funds it receives from the government. Minister Brandis has long appeared hostile to this principle, having attempted in the past to assert personal control over the Council’s funding decisions. Accordingly, many in the arts community worry the new policy will allow the Minister to pursue his own arts agenda without the checks afforded by peer review, with implications for artistic independence in Australia. The National Programme will focus on funding tours, festivals, endowments and on attracting private sector cultural support, potentially at the expense of smaller, more experimental organizations. Artists across the country have rallied against the budget cuts, signing petitions and staging protests.

Christie’s, Picasso and the Billion Dollar Week: The art world oft goes the way of celebrity, though in May it reached new levels of wealth and grandeur. On Monday, May 11th, Christie’s 35-lot “Looking Forward to the Past” auction raised a jaw-dropping $705.9 million. Among the sales were two works estimated at more than $120 million, including Pablo Picasso’s 1955 painting “Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’)” which sold for $179.4 million including fees–the highest price on record for a work of art sold at auction. Two days later, the auction house raised an additional $658.5 million worth of pieces at a postwar and contemporary auction, giving Christie’s the first-ever billion dollar week. (Not to be outdone, Sotheby’s raised close to $750 million in the first two weeks of May, at auctions of American-oriented contemporary pieces and Impressionist and Modern art.) Forget the 1%: the stratosphere of wealth on display at Christie’s in May was that of the 0.1%. Since 1997–the last time that Picasso was on the market–the pool of mega-wealthy art buyers has quintupled: a glaring  example of the increasing wealth inequality globally.

Broadband for All: Fresh off his success in classifying broadband internet as a public utility this February, Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler circulated a new proposal to revamp Lifeline, a $1.7 billion subsidy program whose goal is to ensure all Americans have affordable access to telecommunications. Lifeline was created in 1985 under the Reagan administration and at present subsidizes landline and mobile telephone service for some 12 million low-income households. Wheeler’s proposal would allow participants to apply their subsidy to broadband internet as well. Although at $9.25/month the subsidy isn’t enough to cover most plans, as educational, health, employment and other social resources move online, broadband access has become increasingly important and advocates for bridging the digital-divide argue that every little bit helps. Critics of Lifeline and the proposed changes argue the subsidy is wasteful, and plagued by fraud and abuses. A vote has been set for June 18.

Revolt at Actors Equity Association: In April, despite strong opposition from its Los Angeles membership, the Actors Equity Association ordered small theaters in LA County (that’s theaters with fewer than 100 seats) to pay its actors a $9 hourly minimum wage in the somewhat infamous 99 Seat Plan battle. This month, that same membership voted to oust incumbent president Nick Wyman–who presided over the 99 Seat controversy–electing Kate Shindle to the presidency. The win is an upset for an organization where union leaders seeking re-election are almost always reelected. The election outcome is almost definitely the result of the ongoing revolt by the LA contingent, and may just be the first of many steps towards a re-imagined AEA.

Retracted Study Shows How Easy It Is to Fake Data and Get Away With It: In December 2014, Michael LaCour, a political science grad student at UCLA, and Donald Green, a professor at Columbia, published a paper in the journal Science showing that one short but focused conversation with a canvasser could change a person’s opinion with lasting, and contagious effects (in this case, softening or changing one’s opinion of same-sex marriage). The paper’s rigor, scale, and results earned it devoted admirers and mainstream coverage in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, This American Life – even a tweet on Createquity – and launched LaCour’s career all the way to a plum tenure-track job at Princeton. The fairy-tale triumph unraveled quickly this month, however, after fellow graduate students David Broockman and Joshua Kalla reported a number of irregularities in the study, prompting co-author Green to request a retraction. These irregularities included fabricated data, fabricated funding, and a fabricated survey contract–fraud on a scale one would never expect to find in a journal such as Science. The story raises important questions about how many other celebrated studies have never-caught “irregularities” lurking within them, particularly since publicly challenging a peer’s academic work, especially as a jobless graduate student, carries far more career risks than it should.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• Kristina Newman-Scott has been appointed Connecticut State’s director of culture.
• Jessica Mele will join the Hewlett Foundation as program officer in the Performing Arts Program in August.
• The Henry Luce Foundation appointed Teresa A. Carbone as program director for American Art, succeeding Ellen Holtzman who held the post for twenty-three years.
• After more than a decade as CEO of the LA Stage Alliance, Terence McFarland will move on to become the associate executive director at Valley Performing Arts Center at California State University in Northridge.
• The Whiting Foundation seeks a Program Assistant. Posted May 3; no closing date.
• The Cultural Data Project seeks a Research Associate. Posted May 7; no closing date.
• The Foundation Center seeks a part time, Special Projects Associate for Glasspockets. Posted May 13; no closing date.
• Exponent Partners seeks a Foundation Practice Manager. Posted May 21; no closing date.
• Ford Foundation is hiring a Director, Creativity and Free Expression. Posted May 26; no closing date.
• The Arts, Culture and Social Justice Network is hiring a part-time Facilitator. Deadline: June 11.
• The League of American Orchestras seeks a Research and Data Manager. No closing date.

 NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• National Endowment for the Arts released “Beyond the Building: Performing Arts and Transforming Place,” a report featuring the outcomes of a 2014 convening of the same name which looked at the performing arts and their role in creative placemaking.
• Several reports this month pointed a spotlight on museums. “New Practices in Digital and Technology” from the Association of Art Museum Directors looks at recent innovative projects at more than forty museums nationally; a second report from Contemporanea looks at the Latino experience in museums.
• The Nonprofit Finance Fund released its annual analysis of the State of the Sector, including a special supplement on arts and cultural nonprofits.
• Foundation Center and Grantmakers in the Arts released an update to their 2005 collaboration, Foundation Funding for Arts Education.
• A report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy reveals that the hype outpaces reality when it comes to private foundations’ investment in impact investing.
• A study by TRG Arts and the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance looking at audience engagement with different arts organizations across Philadelphia finds that loyalty sustains arts communities.
• A study from Richard Florida’s Martin Prosperity Institute finds major differences between “creative” neighborhoods and “science” neighborhoods, calling into question the conflation of these two communities.
• A report from the NAMM Foundation finds that a majority of teachers and parents believes music and arts education is important for children.
• A first-person report published in the journal The Arts in Psychotherapy offers insights into using art therapy to work with radical fighters in Saudi Arabia, including jihadists.
• A recent report from Committee to Protect Journalists focuses, for the first time, specifically on the myriad of threats that cartoonists face worldwide.
• A recent YouGov survey of US citizens has some mildly depressing results concerning the American public’s attitudes towards the visual arts, with “expensive” the most common word respondents associated with them. Also of note – the museum field’s official policy towards deaccessioning is vastly out of step with public attitudes.
• And finally, from outside the arts with implication for within, in August Rebecca Ratner will publish a study in Journal of Consumer Research which makes a case for doing (fun) things solo.