ART AND THE GOVERNMENT

•  At the end of April, the City of Philadelphia unveiled a free online tool called CultureBlocks for “research, planning, exploration and investment” in creative placemaking. Gary Steuer, the Chief Cultural Officer of the City of Philadelphia, gives an inside look at the tool, and the Philadelphia Inquirer has more on how it can be used.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art is returning two statues to Cambodia, where they were determined to have been looted from. Tess Davis, a researcher on Cambodian antiquities, told the New York Times, “The Met Could have treated Cambodia’s request as an obstacle. Instead, the museum recognized it as an opportunity to set the moral standard for the art world.”

MUSICAL CHAIRS

• Jeremy Nowak, the co-founder and former CEO of  The Reinvestment Fund in Philadelphia, was named the interim Director of ArtPlace, a collaboration of organizations focused on creative placemaking.
• Tim Mikulski, the current editor of ARTSblog, is leaving Americans for the Arts, and posted a warm farewell. (ARTSBlog really flourished under Tim’s leadership, and he’ll be missed. -IDM)
• The Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council’s new Research and Policy Director David Pankratz, who came to the organization and the city at the beginning of this year, offers his thoughts on Pittsburgh as a dream city for the arts policy enthusiast. Read David’s guest post for Createquity on creative placemaking here.

ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS

• The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has announced its 2013 Doris Duke Class of Artists. The Doris Duke grant includes up to $25,000 for audience development and up to $25,000 for personal reserves or creative exploration during retirement.
• New Music USA has announced changes to its grantmaking strategy, uniting five  programs into one flexible fund targeting a wide range of music projects.
• You may have noticed that a new model of TV programming has emerged in the last ten years — dark, gritty shows — but shows like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad are the product of a new model behind the scenes, as well, one that pay networks are better positioned to use, according to a New York Times article last week. YouTube just announced that it is piloting a system in which 30 channels will offer paid subscription access to additional content. I wonder whether these channels will find the same advantage pay networks on TV have, or whether paid YouTube will fizzle as a latecomer competitor to Netflix and Hulu Plus.

IN THE FIELD

• After a 191-day lockout, the musicians of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra finally ratified a three-year contract. However, the Minnesota Orchestra’s season has been canceled, following an ongoing labor dispute.
• Finding ways around traditional funding and production models is also one of the goals motivating a growing movement of a very different kind — public libraries as performance venues. By bringing in artist talks, concerts, and comedy acts in the evening, libraries become more of a community hub, while the performers get a place to share their most expressive works, away from the pressure to bring in big ticket sales that they find at many venues.
• The 9/11 museum has decided to charge a mandatory admission fee when the museum opens next year, citing high security costs and questioning whether a donation-only model would support them after the first year. Not directly in response, but on-topic, Jim Undercofler wonders aloud why contributed revenue is considered less stable or predictable than earned revenue.
• The Rio Theater, a beloved mom-and-pop cinema in Monte Rio, California, recently raised $63,993 in a Kickstarter campaign to switch to digital projection and stay open in the face of rapid technological change.
• “How do you reconcile the desire to be inclusive with the practical imperative to target?” asks Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History director and Museum 2.0 blogger Nina Simon. She’s referring to museum marketing and mission, but it can apply to any organization striving for community relevance. Her answer is “social bridging,” deliberately creating programs that appeal to and “matchmake” unlikely segments of the population.
• The Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York recently surpassed 500 members, many of whom are young metropolites. The New York Times provides a style-section type look at who these people are and what goes on at their gatherings.
• A growing number of business colleges and schools are using art as a teaching and learning tool, and some are amassing important collections of modern and contemporary art. Meanwhile, MIT is teaching young people computer programming as a thinking tool, with some artistic results.
• Dayton, Ohio may soon be the home of two separate museums dedicated to funk, leading some to speculate whether it can support two of them.

BIG IDEAS

• In an interview Laura Zabel, director of Springboard for the Arts in St. Paul, talks about the new CSA (Community Supported Art!) supporting health care for artists rather than health insurance for artists, and other projects. She says, “In the work we’ve done in the Central Corridor we have seen that artists can see the opportunity in a challenge… and have nuts-and-bolts skills that can draw people, attention, and dollars to a place.”
• In a new book, Jaron Lanier asks, “Who Owns the Future?” and presents a manifesto for an economy in which the middle class is supported by micropayments for all data we create online, from tweets to purchasing decisions. For a summary, see Evgeny Morozov’s skeptical review in the Washington Post.
• How can foundations become leaders in their communities? The Center for Strategic Philanthropy and Civil Society has just published an essay on how the one group has done it,  Changing the Game: Civic Leadership at The Boston Foundation, 2001-2012, authored by the president of The Boston Foundation.

CONFERENCES AND TALKS

• In New York on May 23, and in Berkeley on June 2, Author Arlene Goldbard will give book talks to launch her two new books: The Culture of Possibility: Art, Artists & The Future, a collection of short essays on the potential for positive social outcomes through art and creativity, and The Wave, a novel set in a future in which the hopes and predictions of The Culture of Possibility have come true. Goldbard presents both books on her blog, and last week, Barry Hessenius interviewed her on his blog (parts I, II).

RESEARCH CORNER

• The Center for Effective Philanthropy’s experiments with a tool called Strategy Landscape have drawn to a close (at least for now; they are considering re-releasing it open-source) and Kevin Bolduc shared some lessons learned from the project on their blog.
• The National Center for Arts Research has a short summary of the implications of the Nonprofit Finance Fund’s 2013 State of the Nonprofit Sector survey.
• The Centre for Economics and Business Research has released a report demonstrating the economic benefits of the arts and culture on the UK.
• The European Expert Network on Culture has released a report on strategies for export and internationalization of cultural and creative industries in the European Union. Find a brief summary here, and the report here.
• Pacific Standard Magazine reports on two studies that suggest musicians — or at least men holding guitars — are more attractive to women than non-musicians. I’d like to see more scientific (and less heteronormative) studies, but it’s an interesting theory.