My recent post, Too Big to Succeed, generated some discussion about what constitutes success. I believe organizations would likely define success as implementation of their mission at the highest level permitted by their finances. Does this make sense? Yes, of course, but it obfuscates the delicate relationships within the production of the artistic product, its relationship to money and organizational size.
We have become accustomed to a certain kind of thinking, that in order to perform or exhibit a challenging contemporary work, it must be balanced by something equally traditional or standard. As soon as a decision is made to premiere a play by a new, but promising playwright, the decision is made to program an Our Town. Or in the musical world, why is every contemporary work paired with one by Beethoven. There’s something inherently wrong about this commonly-accepted equation.
I would argue that artistic success is the true fulfillment of an organization’s mission and that in fulfilling it, its honesty and power can, and should attract needed financial support. However, a necessary condition to this equation is that the organization must appropriately size itself. Unfortunately, as I stated in my previous blog, it appears that there is a point in an organization’s growth when pragmatic thinking overwhelms this line of action and implementation. Growth in the NFP arts sector has meant, almost without exception, growth in size, not growth in depth. Internally-focused organizational forces drive growth in size, and are usually explained as mission-driven to reach a wider audience. Unfortunately the result of this development is a standardized way of planning and action that is inculcated into all facets of the arts world. Only the rarest arts administration textbook or resource does not reflect and support this line of thinking. It’s called sustainability.
My concern: because determination of artistic quality is so difficult, and so PC super-charged, funders and others who determine arts sector thinking gravitate to sustainability as a definition of success.
Isn’t it time we start to ask the really tough questions. Isn’t it time we started to value the quality of the artistic expression, not the “art” of sustainability?
I couldn’t agree more. We have focused enormous resources into the shoring up of the administrations of organizations, but very little into improving the work of the artists. While I believe the intentions when we sink more and more resources into development and marketing are noble, we don’t put nearly the same amount of resource into improving the art itself. Somehow we expect the art to flourish on its own. How much better would the American Theatre be if we allowed artists an extra week or two of rehearsal? Or gave more playwrights enough money form commissions so that they could write full time instead of part time.
We have created job stability for arts administrators, but not for artists. If we subscribe to the notion that better art is the goal, rather than survivability of organizations, then perhaps we’ll look at a different set of goals, priorities and structures for our organizations.
No, sustainability does not mean artistic success. Yet neither is sustainability—the remaining in existence—an illegitimate objective for any organization to pursue with gusto. The dilemma is created when that desire to continue is hijacked by those who advocate for future growth built on structures that are already proving unworkable. That is why in our work we advocate for three important values for any organization to pursue vigilantly. First, to be mission-driven, in essence, to be about something that matters (the work and legacy of a living artist, high quality service to the field, or artistically significant programs—as examples); second, to be resilient, to be able to recover quickly from the influence of external forces; and thirdly, to be adaptive, to be able to ‘refit’ to meet the oncoming challenges as they present themselves.
While, as you say, a standardized way of planning—that purports sustainability for its own sake is evident in ‘all facets of the arts world,’ it is not the only modality in use. David LaPiana and his emphasis on real time strategic planning and systematic readiness; and EmcArts and their development of the Innovation Lab which emphasizes the challenging of current operating assumptions and the fostering of innovative practice are evidence that new ways of considering the organizational sustainability/artistic vitality conundrum are not only available, yet are gaining traction in the field.