The Times Devotes Some Major Space to Cultural Economics

It's pretty unusual that the New York Times, or any publication for that matter, goes into much depth about cultural economics - so if you're into that sort of thing (and I know my readers are!), I highly recommend reading Michael Kimmelman's thoughtful piece on the German performance venue Festpielhaus Baden-Baden.

As you probably are aware, European cultural policy is pretty much the opposite of American cultural policy (as in over there, almost all funds come from the government). In my experience, most American arts-makers swoon over this idea. I'm ambivalent. While far from perfect, I'm a big fan of the diversity in the American arts funding model. Anyway, Kimmelman's article goes into some really interesting detail about the pitfalls of state-funding arts - namely, inertia and complacency.

From the article:

...[T]he system, bloated and not everywhere well managed, inevitably produces much mediocrity. The reality is that about 20 percent of the budget for Berlin’s three struggling opera companies today must come from private contributions. Bayreuth scrambles to raise nearly half its budget from donations and ticket sales. It would have gone bankrupt by now if donors hadn’t made up for deficits due to bad leadership.

The concept behind the Festspielhaus was to rejuvenate this city of 50,000 as a cultural destination. “It was a revolution,” said Rüdiger Beermann, the Festspielhaus’s spokesman, “and also a blasphemy in Germany, even though it always used to be the dukes and the counts and the rich people who paid for the arts. At first nobody, absolutely nobody except our patrons supported the idea, and also the audience and the artists, who enjoyed coming.”

Mr. Mölich-Zebhauser elaborated on that thought one recent morning. “With the private sector comes enthusiasm, competence in finance and responsibility,” he said.

... “The truth is that Americans might do better to increase public funding for the arts a little,” he added. “And here we have to become a little less lazy.”

Philadelphia: Christmas in April

This is a nice wrap-up of the massive bailout of Philadelphia's no-longer-flailing Kimmel Center.

My favorite part comes at the end

Now that the debt is gone, Ewers said, the Kimmel will concentrate on two other ambitious efforts: enlivening the public spaces of the center, which are currently populated only around performance times, and undertaking an acoustical remake of Verizon Hall.

Questions about the acoustical work involve not only how to fund it, but also whether the hall's original acoustician or another firm should undertake the effort. Strategies for enlivening the public spaces were unveiled last week in a series of ideas crafted by PennPraxis, the University of Pennsylvania planning authority, proposing physical changes to the building.

Ooh, go with the original acoustician! He deserves a second crack at it.

A Lesson in Grant Writing from the Editorial Staff of the Onion

Want a free lesson in grant writing? The philanthropy desk at the Onion writes a near-perfect request for funding... for a fictional pole-vaulting foundation.

A friend once told me her singing coach regularly advised her to mimic how she thought an opera star would sound in order to sing well. This little article makes me wonder wonder if that approach could work for grant writing - write something you think is so outlandishly over-the-top in order to hit the mark.

Anyway, here's a quote from the article... it's very, very funny.

The statistics are sobering. Studies have shown that less than 5 percent of the poorest urban youth have adequate pole-vaulting facilities. Sadly enough, many schoolchildren have never even pole-vaulted at all, and less than 1 percent go on to pursue a career in pole-vaulting after leaving school. By comparison, 9 percent of American college students have received some exposure to the valuable character-building experience that sprinting full speed, stopping suddenly, and then elevating many feet into the air due to altered angular momentum around a fulcrum can be.