ISSUES

Why Philanthropists Give?

For some, this elevated focus on philanthropy is not so much a voluntary strategic choice, but rather a response to their existing funders encouraging them to diversify their revenue streams and achieve what they see as a more sustainable future for the sector as a whole. - ArtsHub

It Might Cost Too Much To Rebuild Mackintosh’s Glasgow School Of Art

Rebuilding the school in line with Mackintosh’s designs would cost 265 million pounds, about $355 million, the school said in a news release. That is “an amount that is not affordable and which would compromise the financial sustainability of the organization,” it said. - The New York Times

Arts And Culture Events In Downtown Chicago Contributed $395 Million To City’s Economy In Last Three Months

The figure is a 20% increase over the second quarter last year. There were slightly under 1.5 million visitors in that period, and foot traffic in the Loop on weekdays is still below pre-pandemic levels. - Chicago Sun-Times

How Congressional Republicans Attacked American History At The Smithsonian This Week

Whether “love” is really the metric by which one should assess a historian’s credibility seemed outside the scope of the discussion. Nuance was treated like a threat. - The Atlantic

Vanderbilt University’s New San Francisco Campus Will Include An Arts College

“The Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang College of Art, Architecture and Design will be ‘a cornerstone’ of Vanderbilt's planned campus on the ... site it is purchasing from California College of the Arts.” Huang College, backed by $75 million from a co-founder of Nvidia, will emphasize how the arts intersect with engineering and technology. - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)

Director Of Smithsonian’s American History Museum Grilled By GOP House Members

In a House Subcommittee on Delivering Government Efficiency hearing titled "Rewriting American History: Examining the Smithsonian's Efforts to Reshape the Past," National Museum of American History director Anthea Hartig faced such questions as “When did you know you were a woman?” and “Was Mickey Mouse racist?” - ARTnews

Revisiting The Tortured History Of America’s Culture Wars

“One of the sad things about this story is that we did not emerge with a more active, permanent activist constituency for the arts in America. We got complacent and people were exhausted. - The Guardian

Data: A Widening Gap In Financial Health Of Arts In American Cities

We found that as federal relief funding waned, the gap between the strongest- and weakest-performing cities widened sharply. - SMU Data Arts

UK’s Culture Secretary Will Stay On Under New Prime Minister

“Despite new Prime Minister Andy Burnham undergoing an extensive cabinet reshuffle, incumbent culture minister Lisa Nandy is set to remain in post. Nandy, who has been a member of Parliament since 2010 ..., was appointed secretary of state for culture, media and sport by previous Prime Minister Keir Starmer in July 2024.” - Variety

What Touched Off The Culture Wars

Frohnmayer’s dilemma was that he believed in artistic freedom and didn’t think Congress should dictate what the N.E.A. funded, but he also felt obliged, as a political appointee, to avoid funding work that Congress and the President found offensive. The result was flip-flopping. - The New Yorker

Cleveland Comes Out On Top For Public Funding Of The Arts

The report ranked Cleveland No. 1 revenue growth among arts organizations from 2019 to 2024 in a cohort of 10 U.S. cities. The others were Atlanta, Des Moines, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Sacramento and Seattle. - Ideastream

Music Publishers Drop Lawsuits Against X, Which Drops Lawsuits Against Music Publishers

Why? No one’s saying: “In their legal papers, the companies gave no reason for the stipulation of dismissal and did not mention any settlement.” - The New York Times

Nebraska’s Cultural Endowment Did Decades Of Great Work, But The State’s Finances May Kill It Off

“This unusual, public-private fund is made up of philanthropic donations matched dollar-for-dollar by the state” - and now the state has snatched back one third of the endowment to help balance the budget. - NPR

Why Trump Is Fixated On Smithsonian History

People often joke about how Trumpism would like to return us to some version of the 1950s, when America supposedly was “great.” In this report, the administration has done just that. The report would prefer that nothing had ever happened since the ’50s to mar the White House’s polished, superficial, puerile version of America’s past. - The New York...

How Vanderbilt University Made Itself Competitive With The Ivy League

Twenty years ago, the school’s acceptance rate was 38%; now it’s under 5%, roughly equivalent to Yale’s, and its undergraduates are reportedly the happiest in the country. The change is the result of deliberate, planned effort by two successive presidents over 20 years. - New York Magazine (MSN)

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