The ArtsWave Impact Flip

City Beat's Jane Durrell presents the recent repackaging of the Fine Arts Fund into ArtsWave. In the middle of their capital campaign, the City Beat story provides a short history of the organization and the impetus for its recent rebranding.

Their new broader mission to financially support more and larger institutions outside of Cincinnati, a lack of support for the work of individual artists (Durrell quotes me on this point), and populism are some concerns of potential as well as past supporters of the Fine Arts Fund. The argument for continued support is the organizations newly defined mission to support art's impact on the community. Of course this is not the same thing as supporting the arts.

As you read the story, take the time to watch the 2 videos included. They provide perhaps the best illustration of the new ArtsWave marketing strategy: grant recipients singing the praises of ArtsWave.

With ArtsWave refocusing towards impact, the arts organizations and artists are left supporting ArtsWave.

There's the flip....it's your coin.

2009 Lessons in Supporting Our Cultural Institutions

Steve Rosen of City Beat is reporting a good year for our local art museums reflected in strong exhibitions like Surrealism and Beyond and Tara Donovan resulting in high museum attendance. During this year of economic hardships felt be all, the arts continue to attract growing audiences and support. In the same issue of City Beat Matt Morris reviews a number of alternative spaces that have gained audiences. Alternative spaces growing audiences? Yes.

Such support for the arts and other cultural institutions is not specific to Greater Cincinnati. Nationally, museums and galleries have seen attendance grow. It is generally agreed that this growth is the result of people looking for entertainment and events that are not so expensive. Museums with free admission like the Cincinnati Art Museum as well as gallery openings you can find nearly every week (some with great spreads of food and drink) have enticed many who have been forced to cut their spending.

This support for our cultural institutions is not only reflected in attendance, but also at the polls. In 2009, a year of a struggling economy, Cincinnati saw the passage of two levies. One supporting the Cincinnati Public Library and another for The Museum Center.

At the end of a year that forced postponing building projects, cutting staff, and cancelling shows, further cutting library hours and staff we are reminded of the the importance of our cultural institutions. We can learn a lesson in management from these non-profit institutions. While corporations are still bleeding nationally, the arts and cultural institutions prove to be the true pillars of our community.

These lessons of 2009 should be remembered next time we consider national, state, and local budget cuts.

CAM 3rd Floor Makes Changes

Since I suggested Carl Solway Galleries and not the Cincinnati Art Museum is our local venue for seeing modern and more contemporary works of art by well-known artists, the CAM has made some changes.

The Solway maintains a strong and dynamic exhibition calendar. Up until now, the Cincinnati Art Museum’s galleries of modern and contemporary works have remained static. This was especially true for the 3rd Floor gallery. With the enticing Nam June Paik installation at the top of the stairs to the 3rd floor, the gallery seemed to invite us to see what is new in the history of art. But once we passed the wall of video screens, we’ve been quickly disappointed to find most of the works on the floor almost 2 decades old.

This week City Beat’s Matt Morris reports that Jessica Flores, CAM's Associate Curator of Contemporary Art has made some welcome changes. Perhaps now the CAM can learn from Solway how to invite the public to celebrate modern art. These much overdue changes are not noted on the museum website. Will there be a gallery opening inviting the public to see these changes? In the meantime, we’ll have to continue to find our own way up to the 3rd floor.

Branding Local Art

After thinking more about a previous post regarding art in retail spaces, I began to focus more on how and why this practice has infiltrated Cincinnati’s local art scene. While I enjoy seeing the work of local artists displayed in coffee shops and the like, I cannot help but to suspect that decorating with local art has developed into more of a branding strategy than maintaining a loyalty to local art and artists.

I do not doubt the interest in a thriving local art scene by the owners of these businesses, but I do suspect the motivation is merely monetary. Almost no one argues against the notion that art and culture is good for the community. Though I expect that nearly every successful grant from the Fine Arts Fund in the past five years convincingly pointed to specific commercial rather than cultural benefits towards a developing neighborhood. Recently, this infectious practice has become much more pronounced in Over-the-Rhine.

In this week’s City Beat, leaders in the art community discussed the wealth of art in OTR as well as the challenge of maintaining sincere patronage from the area’s commercial developers. When asked about their relationship with the developers in Over-the-Rhine, both Jason Bruffy, Know Theatre's Artistic Director and D. Lynn Meyers, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati's Producing Artistic Director said the commercial developers have never visited either venue. Yet it is the mere presence of these art organizations that seem to make the area marketable. Like the paintings of local artists on the walls of a coffee shop the art organizations of OTR lend to these businesses and this neighborhood a label of authenticity, a culture, a flavor, a brand.

Why do Cincinnati art organizations insist on adopting a corporate business model to run their non-profit? This business model of Cincinnati, home to Proctor and Gamble is to brand, label, and commodify anything and everything to satisfy the bottom line. This is not to accuse P & G of being Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life. P & G is a business. Instead, mine is a call to artists and art organizations to step up and demand recognition in their communities. Whining about the economy is the song of the corporate world not the non-profit sector. Everyone knows non-profits can and do thrive on a shoestring budget. I certainly understand the dilemma in which Bruffy, Kenny, and Meyers find themselves, but as the “soul” of OTR, they sound rather defeated. People do in fact honestly support the arts, but artists and art organizations cannot allow themselves to be branded.