ARTSblog

Max Donner

Dozens of new records were set at the historic auction of the Elizabeth Taylor Collection December 13-17. This crowned two years of historic new price records for all types of art, all around the world.

The momentum began with the auction of Alberto Giacommetti’s “Walking Man I” for $104 million at Sothebys-London in February 2010. The sale remains the highest auction price for sculpture, but a new record for art at auction was reached just three months later with the sale of Picasso’s painting “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust.”

New artist and category records have continued to impress the art world almost daily ever since.

Research indicates that art market prices will continue to increase for several years and that art organizations need to plan ahead for this.

One important trend is “White Glove Auctions.” These are auctions at which every single work offered for sale is sold. While they used to be rare, this phenomenon accelerated at the auctions of photographs by Richard Avedon in Paris in November 2010 and drawings by Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt in December 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 11%

Will Maitland Weiss

I had a cup of tea recently with Rachel Cohen. You probably don’t know Rachel, which is too bad.

She’s a choreographer, and her dance company is called Racoco. She’s lithe and creative—and happens to be really smart and articulate (it cracks me up to know her Ivy League alma mater, a place you do not associate with turning out dance talent).

She has a day job, three days a week, in order to afford cups of tea and, really, to feed her demon within, which cries out her version of Gotta dance!

There is absolutely only one Rachel Cohen, but—you know what I mean, you know some of them—there are hundreds of Rachel Cohens. Thousands, just in NYC.

She talked to me about how Racoco partners with a couple of other dance companies to pay for a booth at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters gig in NYC each January, and for a space and time to showcase some of their work. How else, we wondered to one another, might Racoco partner with other companies?

Share the effort to get college residency bookings, and share the residencies? Share marketing, having figured out who would perform on which weekend in which venue, so every one of their precious few NYC performances isn’t on the same Saturday? Share auditions, and you know what—share hiring of dancers who can perform the work of more than one choreographer, offering them a longer, contiguous chunk of employment? Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 6%

John Eger

Declaring October as National Art and Humanities Month, President Obama made the observation:

“Educators across our country are opening young minds, fostering innovation, and developing imaginations through arts education. Through their work, they are empowering our Nation’s students with the ability to meet the challenges of a global marketplace. It is a well-rounded education for our children that will fuel our efforts to lead in a new economy where critical and creative thinking will be the keys to success.”

More and more people in high places seem to be saying the right thing. Last April, Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, said: “The Arts can no longer be treated as a frill. Arts education is essential to stimulating the creativity and innovation that will prove critical for young Americans competing in a global economy.”

But we have seen too little in the way of action.

Is this because the administration really doesn’t believe what they say about the arts? Because Washington, D.C. can’t get anything done? Or because the benefits are still not obvious to most politicians. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 11%

Mara Walker

We all know finding a job is no easy task these days. To help, we just completed the second in a series of webinars about how to get a job in the arts today.

It featured four brilliant colleagues and myself:  Tara Aesquivel from Emerging Arts Leaders/Los Angeles; Stephanie Evans Hanson from Americans for the Arts; Marialaura Leslie from the Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts; and Jennifer Cover Payne from the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington.

Last week’s webinar focused on the interview process from the perspectives of both the interviewer and the interviewee, and included a lot of valuable tips. Our previous webinar talked about getting noticed through a cover letter and resume that clearly explain why you are the right person for the job.

I have the privilege of interviewing all of our finalists for positions at Americans for the Arts and regardless of the level of the position or whether the job is operational or programmatic in nature, here’s what I look for in an interview:

1) Personality: Come into the interview relaxed, interested, and prepared. Be genuinely enthusiastic about the organization and the job and let it show. The interviewer wants to know that you are a good fit and if you seem uncomfortable or disengaged during the meeting, then they will assume that’s the real you. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 14%

Jim Sparrow

In Fort Wayne, IN, the arts are an active part of the downtown redevelopment. One of the anchors to this involvement is the new Auer Center for Arts and Culture, which is aligned with our vision of integrated partnerships.

These partnerships are both traditional, such as the ballet, an arts gallery (Artlink), and the administrative offices for Arts United, as well as non-traditional, including a small business partnership with Pembroke Bakery and offices for Fort Wayne Trails.

We have also formed a Cultural District Consortium with our organization, the city, our CVB, and our Downtown Development Group that has a presence in the building. Its focus includes development of business, activities, and public art within the downtown core.

The center’s concept includes fully-integrated business services; financial, insurance, IT, phones as well as shared common space and business service staff and operational space. It is also structured with the objective of changing the operation and relationship of the arts with the community and its development.

The Auer is a community center with activity focused less on events and more on active arts and cultural space. Our model defines arts in a very broad manner, but has high-quality traditional arts at the center. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 10%

Kelly Lamb Pollock

At the end of August, when the staff at COCA (Center of Creative Arts) in St. Louis, MO, is typically enjoying a rare moment to breathe — between the end of a busy summer of arts camps and before the dance, theatre. and visual arts students return for fall classes — we were in high gear hosting an unlikely population of arts participants.

COCA’s new program, COCAbiz, was hosting its first Business Creativity Conference “Play @ Work,” which attracted the likes of Boeing engineers, architects from Cannon Design, and Nestlé Purina and Anheuser-Busch executives.

Accountants, marketing professionals, entrepreneurs, and business managers from St. Louis’ top companies listened to nationally regarded speakers on innovation and rubbed shoulders in arts-based learning sessions.

After more than twenty years of focusing almost exclusively on students with a penchant for dance, theatre, or the visual arts — for arts’ sake — we at COCA have come to understand that developing skills through the arts, using the arts as the vehicle to learn the lesson, instead of just as the lesson itself, is the key to our relevance, sustainability, and impact. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 14%

Neil McKenzie

Our economic growth is stuck at a snail’s pace and at the same time our federal government seems unable or unwilling to find any meaningful solutions. States and local governments across the nation are scrambling to develop their own economic development plans and strategies to fill this void.

In the past, local economic development usually had a large public expenditure component that involved raising money (taxes) to build public works projects such as roads, bridges, and public venues. Many of these efforts were also based on subsidizing new businesses through tax incentives or direct subsidies. The problem now is that public money is in short supply and using these methods are limited if nonexistent.

While most businesses have experienced less demand for their products and services and have reduced their workforces, there are many companies that are expanding. There has been a fundamental shift in the goods and services we produce as the world has become flatter through international trade and new technologies.

Many of these companies are part of what has become to be known as the “creative economy.” The creative economy is characterized by companies whose products and services have a high content of creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Arts and culture can play an important role in attracting companies in the creative economy to a local area. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 7%

Damon Rich

With Red Lines Housing Crisis Learning Center (2009), I tried to transform several galleries of the Queens Museum of Art into a place to explore how our society pays for housing, how the system has broken down, and the arguments over fixing it.

Developed between 2006 and 2008 at the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, the work included video conversations with mortgage investors, homebuying counselors, bankers, financial justice advocates, and government regulators; a model of the city’s foreclosure geography using the Museum’s famous Panorama of the City of Newark; the inhabitable head of a real estate appraiser; a sinister forty-foot interest rate graph; bus-stop-style posters on the history of mortgage institutions; and puppet shows about mortgage scams and how to avoid them.

Even with this physical setting, the life of the exhibition as a learning center — not just a conceptual model for one-depended upon connections beyond the gallery, allowing the museum to play a distinct role as part of a larger democratic discussion, providing an aesthetic and abstracted supplement to the concrete but disassociated facts of the news and the disciplined and goal-oriented work of community advocacy.

While artists like Fred Wilson, Andrea Fraser, Martha Rosler, Adrian Piper, and Hans Haacke have focused art audiences on the limitations of the institutions that show their work (including class and race biases and their role in the self-legitimation of the powerful), few institutions have built upon these critical insights to develop the organizational capacities to overcome them. Which organizational capacities? Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 7%

Joanna Chin

Community connections are being eroded on multiple sides. There are growing divisions amongst Americans on how to deal with our social, economic, and political problems. Technology is making it possible to never physically interact with another human being and warping the way we relate to one another. Small towns and cities alike are losing their sense of identity and facing crises involving lack of affordable housing and declining social services.

Perhaps in reaction to this erosion of community ties, there’s been an increased interest in cultivating civic engagement, placemaking, and change at a local level.

There is a growing body of evidence and examples of how communities have utilized local assets in order to begin to address this problem. We assert that the arts and culture have always had a place in this work of creating a sense of place, strengthening civic participation, and bolstering positive social change.

For this Blog Salon, we’ve dared our bloggers to answer big questions, like:

1. Where do you see breakthrough work at the intersection of art and community, civic, or social change? What makes it effective?
2. Looking to the future, what will it take to move and sustain arts and culture into its most potent role in community development, civic engagement, and social change?
3. What are the principles we have to hold onto and what are the shifts that need to occur? Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 6%

The art of signs used at #OWS (photo from hyperallergic.com)

Throughout history art has been fundamentally intertwined with social movements and political activism and it continually serves as a critical avenue through which to question, comment on, and influence change in the world around it. And this time around is no exception.

While the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to gain momentum, the arts have become a unique tool in the movement’s development and have played a central role in the creative expression of the movement’s message.

On any given day the artistic pulse of the movement can be witnessed through the countless cardboard signs on display throughout downtown Manhattan’s Zuccoti Park, as well as the emergence of a screenprinting lab, daily open stage performances, and the constant presence of musicians who add song to the movement’s message.

Only fourteen days after protesters began occupying, the formation of the Arts and Culture Committee emerged as a subcommittee of the movement’s general assembly. This collection of painters, graphic designers, musicians, art students, and more, represents the creative voices of the movement and have been working to support the peaceful occupation of Liberty Square and to foster participation in the creation of cultural work that amplifies the movement’s message. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 9%

Alison French

As the 2011 National Arts Marketing Project (NAMP) Conference: Winning Audiences quickly approaches, we are taking a cue from our keynote speaker, Scott Stratten and his best-selling book, UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.

What better way to kick off a meeting about audience engagement, communications, and revenue generation than with an online discussion with you and 18 top marketing practitioners and consultants in the field?

Join us on ARTSblog for a dialogue on the broad landscape of arts marketing, social media, and audience engagement.

From October 3-7, join us as we wrestle with and ponder on such questions as:

•    What new ideas or campaigns are you deploying to win new or broader audiences?
•    How do you consider your audience’s perspective in your marketing and fundraising choices?
•    How are you identifying your audiences and how are you keeping them coming back for more?
•    How is social media changing how you speak with your audience and what you say?
•    How is the fear of a double dip recession affecting your marketing and fundraising strategies?

We hope you will visit us in the salon and take a moment to leave a comment, share an opinion, or ask a question.

Then come to Louisville, KY, November 12-15 to continue the conversation in person at the NAMP Conference.

Popularity: 6%

Jessica Wilt

In part 1 of my blog post, I started to talk about how the economy is affecting arts administrators. Specifically, how the financial and jobs crisis is weighing heavier on midcareer level individuals. Now, what we can do about it?

Here are three things I see happening today, mainly due to the economy:

#1 – Unpaid internships have now replaced what used to be the entry level job. Anyone can be an intern, no matter what age, and companies get by with more unpaid labor. Ultimately this helps with their bottom line, but in turn is destroying the pay scale. What used to be respectable manager/director pay is often times now entry level salary.

CBS Sunday Morning recently did a great story highlighting the new trend employers are quickly taking advantage of. Just get an intern! They can fix and solve all your problems…for FREE! I’ve watched job posting sites like NYFA.org and Idealist.org shift from a plethora of full-time job listings to include more internship posts.

#2 – Due to budget cuts and downsizing, full-time jobs are being given part-time titles with no benefits. Or, full-time employees are asked to take on even more responsibility with less staff, give up percentages of their pay, watch benefits disappear, and participate in work furloughs. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 20%

Jessica Wilt

With the national focus shifting from the financial crisis to job creation (and now, this week back to the financial crisis once more), I thought I would use my personal story as a midcareer arts administrator to help shed light on the impact the economy is having on jobs in this field.

I’m in my mid-thirties and keep asking the question, “How much longer does work have to consume my entire life before the level of financial security matches my professional accomplishments and experience?”

I’ve made great professional strides in the arts education field living in one of the most ruthless and expensive cities in the world. However, the cost and sacrifices, both financial and personal, have been significant over the past several years leaving very little to show for my efforts.

In his blog post The Twelve Attributes of a Truly Great Place to Work, CEO Tony Schwartz of the Energy Project, recently wrote:

“great employers must shift the focus from trying to get more out of people, to investing more in them by addressing their four core needs – physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual – so they’re freed, fueled, and inspired to bring the best of themselves to work every day.” 

Amen Mr. Schwartz — count me in! Now, where in the arts, education, and nonprofit industries can I actually find these attributes in action? Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 22%

Stephanie Riven

One of the most compelling ideas related to workforce development is the report issued in February 2011 called Pathways to Prosperity by Robert Schwartz and Ron Ferguson of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The report points out that every year, one million students leave school before earning a high school degree.

Many of these students say that they dropped out of high school because they felt their classes were not interesting and that school was unrelentingly boring. They say that they didn’t believe high school was relevant or provided a pathway to achieving their dreams.

According to the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University, the U.S. economy will create 47 million job openings over the 10-year period ending in 2018. Nearly two-thirds of these jobs will require that workers have at least some post-secondary education. Applicants with no more than a high school degree will fill just 36 percent of the job openings or just half the percentage of jobs they held in the early 1970s.

How can we reverse these trends? Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 14%

Sarah Murr

In Tony Wagner’s book The Global Achievement Gap, he writes that “the Global Achievement Gap is the gap between what our best schools are teaching and testing versus the skills that all students will need for careers, college, and citizenship in the 21st century.”

Wagner based this book on extensive interviews not with educators, but with corporations.

Those interviews led Wagner to develop the “Seven Survival Skills…people need in order to discuss, understand, and offer leadership to solve some of the most pressing issues we face as a democracy in the 21st century”:

1.    Critical thinking and problem solving
2.    Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
3.    Agility and adaptability
4.    Initiative and entrepreneurship
5.    Effective oral and written communication
6.    Accessing and analyzing information
7.    Curiosity and imagination Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 11%