Culture Wars, Podcasting Broadway, Impact Assessment, Capital Gains.
This month I thought you might be able to use these articles in your class discussions or for your own edification. I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to juggle all the arts and culture news that is out there. I hope I am not making things worse for you by giving more yet information to process.
Different Culture Wars?
I thought the article by Isaac Kaplan would make a good discussion topic around chapter 4, “The Adaptive Arts Organization”, because it focuses on the framework within which public conversation about the arts now takes take place. The political environment today is much different from 2014 when the fifth edition of my book was published. Issues about freedom of artistic expression are becoming even more complicated to sort out when factoring in the amplification effects of social media. Outrage about some works of art makes having any kind of civil conversation nearly impossible.
More Accessible Broadway
The short article from Pacific Standard highlights the progress Broadway is making as it tries to become more accessible to people with disabilities. The example cited about Audible books being used as a way to share the production with a wider audience seems promising. The idea of theatres offering expanded closed-captioning and audio descriptive services also connects with topics in chapter 4 about organizations needing to be tuned into the social and technological environments.
Impact Assessment
I came across a story about an impact assessment approach being used in Europe in conjunction with cultural heritage organizations. The methodology used is called the “Balanced Value Impact Model.” I think the brief article in Arts Professional and the links to the playbook are worth exploring. This early iteration of the playbook is 56 pages and explains how to use the methodology. Throughout the PDF you will find additional resources you can download to assist with implementing the concepts in the process. There might be some benefit in comparing the system outlined in the playbook with the information at the Americans for the Arts website which is focused on social impact. Here is the link to the Americans for the Arts website in the event you want to explore these assessment approaches with your classes.
Capital Gains
The book recently published about the early years of Arts Council England lottery panel (1994-2000) sounds like a fascinating read. The review in Arts Professional includes facts and context about the funding program that I was not aware of. Students would likely find it of interest if, for example, they want to do research about the impact of cultural policy and government programs. This book might also be appropriate for a graduate seminar on cultural policy. At the least, Capital Gains should be a good resource to add to your school’s library. I also included a link at the end of the article on how to order the book.
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Don’t Equate Today’s Culture Wars to Those of the 1990s
By Isaac Kaplan, Artsy.net, Dec 26, 2017
In 2017, a recurrent call to “take it down” echoed throughout the art world. It was a year in which a handful of artworks provoked outrage for what critics, largely on the political left, deemed to be an exploitation of marginalized peoples’ suffering. The most controversial examples included Dana Schutz’s Open Casket at the Whitney Biennial, Sam Durant’s Scaffold at the Walker Art Center, and Omer Fast’s “transformation” of James Cohan’s Chinatown gallery into a recreation of the kind of Chinese business that once occupied the space.
Critics of these pieces challenged the artistic value of the works. Some went so far as to demand that the exhibiting institutions and galleries remove them. This call to take down work for being offensive (to put it very reductively) elicited quick comparisons to the “Culture Wars” of the 1980s and ’90s, when conservative politicians tried to cut off government funding for exhibitions featuring artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano, whose art dealing with queer and Christian subjects irked their religious sensibilities.
Link to article: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-equate-todays-culture-wars-1990s?mc_cid=a057031533&mc_eid=1a1932085a
Broadway is Becoming More Accessible, Thanks to a Boost from Podcasting
A recent partnership between podcast leader Audible and Broadway theaters are helping make The Great White Way more accessible for everyone.
Caitlin Cruzian, January 3, 2018, Pacific Standard
In the Vineyard Theatre’s latest production, Harry Clarke, actor Billy Crudup plays a con man from the American heartland posing as two Londoners in a scheme to penetrate a well-to-do New England family. Crudup also plays nearly two dozen other characters in the one-man show.
What’s special about Harry Clarke—besides the many roles Crudup effortlessly tackles within 80 minutes—is that the Vineyard is working to bring the show to people outside of its 132-seat theater. The not-for-profit, Manhattan-based theater company has partnered with Audible, the Amazon-backed e-books company, to create an audio play of Harry Clarke.
“For people who can never come to New York or for whom watching a play is not an option for other reasons, they have access to this storytelling and story we’ve created,” says Vineyard managing director Suzanne Appel. The recording will be available in late January.
Link to article: https://psmag.com/social-justice/broadway-is-becoming-more-accessible-thanks-to-a-boost-from-podcasting
An impact assessment playbook
Undertaking an impact assessment can be a daunting and complex task, but a new European project has developed a practical playbook to make it a whole lot simpler, writes Harry Verwayen.
Arts Professional Blog, by Harry Verwayen, Deputy Director of Europeana, January 25, 2018
Europeana is a digital platform for Europe’s cultural heritage with the ambitious aim of transforming the world with culture. In practice, this means that we work with thousands of European archives, libraries and museums to share their cultural heritage for fun, education and research. And as we enter the European Year of Cultural Heritage, we have been grappling with a number of questions around the theme of impact.
| We wanted to create a common language for the cultural (heritage) sector to use when talking about impact |
Did our interventions improve the way our children are educated? Did they result in a stronger, more cohesive society? Did they enable artists to create ground-breaking new works? What positive change in society have we contributed to? In short, what is our impact?
Link to article: https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/article/impact-assessment-playbook
Link to Europeana – https://www.europeana.eu/portal/en
Link to Impact Playbook for Museums, Libraries, Archives and Galleries: https://pro.europeana.eu/what-we-do/impact
Americans for the Arts Social Impact web page: http://animatingdemocracy.org/home-impact
Book review: Capital Gains
David Powell reviews Prue Skene’s candid account of her tenure as Chair of Arts Council England’s Lottery panel.
David Powell, January 24, 2018, Arts Professional
Capital Gains is the story of how not to spend a billion pounds. Prue Skene has written an account of her tenure as a member and then as Chair of Arts Council England’s (ACE) Lottery panel. This covered the first seven years (1994 to 2000) of ACE’s life as one of the National Lottery distributors.
Based on Skene’s diaries and some contemporaneous data, Capital Gains also includes some personal reflections on Skene’s life in the arts before and after her Lottery labours, and briefly offers some opinions on the state of the cultural nation. There are, in addition, six short interludes where she connects her narrative to Lottery-supported capital projects from the period.
Link to article: https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/review/book-review-capital-gains
Book Purchase Link: Capital Gains: How the National Lottery Transformed England’s Arts
Attempt 2 – posting – Jan 30, 2018.