Arguably, the dominant cultural issue of our time is the changes in how people are finding and getting culture. In response, business models supporting culture and the kinds of culture being made are also changing. It also underpins debates about diversity, engagement and power. Some broad themes this week: 1. How we want the culture we want Record Profits As Concert Business Booms The … [Read more...]
Five ArtsJournal Stories From This Week You Shouldn’t Miss (2.21.16)
1. Is Funding Really The Top Issue In The Arts? Doug Borwick says no. "Insufficiency of funds will never go away. It’s a state of being in the nonprofit sector. Overfocus on this as an issue can get in the way of addressing the causes that might be contributing to it." Michael Lind writes that taxpayer shouldn't be funding the arts. "Why should writers get $25,000 for ‘travel, and general … [Read more...]
Get Your Damn Ads Out Of My Social Media! (They Don’t Work Anyway)
Anyone you know like ads? No. They're the cackling crows getting between you and what you're after. They're uninvited, unwelcome, and we do whatever we can to swat them away. So why is my social media packed with ads for the arts? What's the point? Every arts organization does social media. But much of it is essentially self-serving product promotion. "Catch this show..." "This awesome artist … [Read more...]
The “One New Thing” Rule
Adam Grant, in his new book, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World writes about the necessity of anchoring new ideas in familiar things. To generate creative ideas, it’s important to start from an unusual place. But to explain those ideas, they have to be connected to something familiar. That’s why so many startups are introducing themselves as the 'Uber for X'. It's why when writers … [Read more...]
Editors’ Choice: ArtsJournal Stories You Shouldn’t Miss From The Past Week
1. This week in What-Does-The-Audience-Want? Cheaper tickets, for sure. Or at least the opportunity to pay what they want. One theatre converted its season to pay-as-you-want and saw a 50% increase in audience. But perhaps it's frustrating that people don't see more people like themselves on stages. "One of my frustrations with what happens on the stage a lot of the time when working class … [Read more...]
Five ArtsJournal Stories You Shouldn’t Miss This Week
Ah, an old-fashioned press-banning. Feels like the good old days. Of the 162 stories we collected this week, a few memes emerged: It was the week of artistic directors in dance. First, Benjamin Millepied said he would be leaving Paris Opera Ballet after a rather short tenure. Why? “I want to regain my freedom and I want to create," he said. "This job, as it exists today, is not something I … [Read more...]
We Asked: What’s the Biggest Challenge Facing the Arts?
Last week we conducted our first ArtsJournal poll, asking readers: What's the biggest challenge facing the arts? We had 3,191 votes, with the largest percentage - 37% - answering funding. Second at 24% was "relevance/changing tastes" followed by "diversity" at 15% and "leadership" at 13%. Technology came in a distant fifth at 4%. I will admit that the results surprised me a bit. Over the past … [Read more...]
@AJDoug’s Top Arts and Culture Stories of the Week for 01.31.16
It's the week before the American primary season gets real with voting in Iowa on Monday and I'm sure you've all checked out the candidates' positions on arts and culture, right? If so, let me know - I went looking this week and found... nothing. But here here are some highlights from the 172 stories we did find: The New York Philharmonic Chooses a New Music Director and the Reaction … [Read more...]
The Virtual Arts – Have It Your Way?
C-NET came away from this month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas pronouncing that virtual reality is going to displace traditional porn. No surprise that the porn industry leads in technology. Because of all the money in the early days of the internet, porn invested heavily in technology and pioneered pop-ups, redirects, payment collection and more. Much of your everyday internet … [Read more...]
FIVE PICKS: Stories From This Week’s ArtsJournal
Welcome to our weekly "best of" ArtsJournal. These aren't necessarily the most important of the 156 stories we found this week, but they particularly caught our eye. Your #AllWhiteOscars Controversy Primer The biggest flurry of stories this week was the reaction to last week's Oscars nominations, where for the second week in a row, all the top nominees were white. The week began with talk … [Read more...]
What Makes A Great Blog(ger)? Five Observations
As inconsistent and distracted a blogger as I am, I am hardly a great blogger. But as someone who runs a network of arts blogs, I do have some observations. Great bloggers don't just get you interested in a post, they draw you into a topic. They stake out that topic, pick away at it, play with it, make you care about it. No one post explains who they are; you only get it over time, as they … [Read more...]
Playing For The Screens – Is Our Obsession With Video Changing The Live Arts Experience?
One weekend last November, the biggest box-office at movie theatres throughout the UK wasn't for the latest Hollywood blockbuster (the latest "Hunger Games" movie opened that Friday). It was for a live broadcast of Kenneth Branagh’s production of "The Winter’s Tale" which was streamed live to 520 theatres in the UK and 100 more internationally on November 26. Starring Branagh and Judi Dench, it … [Read more...]
If Dance Can’t Pay Its Dancers What Does It Mean To Be A Professional Dancer?
A survey of dancers in the UK last summer reported that "more than half of professional dancers earn less than £5,000 a year from their performance work." That's professional dancers. "The statistics also show that around 50% of dancers’ jobs pay less than the minimum wage, and that 70% of dancers have performed in 'unsuitable work environments' in the past 12 months." Add to this how short … [Read more...]
Last Week’s Top Stories on ArtsJournal
We're aggregating upwards of 150 stories a week on ArtsJournal these days. Despite the decimation of the daily newspaper arts journalism profession, there are more good stories about the arts now than there have ever been. But that also means it's more difficult to sort through. We look through more than 1000 stories a day and pick 20-30. But maybe there's a finer sort that would be useful. In two … [Read more...]
When Libraries Realize That The Most Valuable Thing They Own Isn’t Their Collections
Remember when the internet came along and everyone wondered whether there would still be a use for libraries? Oddly, just as the question was being called, in the early 2000s there was a building boom of new libraries around North America. And public libraries didn't die, they flourished, many reinventing themselves as community centers for the 21st Century. The idea of a public library is … [Read more...]