GIA Blog

In July, funding for the Alaska State Council on the Arts (ASCA) was eliminated using a line-item budget veto in a decision by governor Mike Dunleavy, who took office in December. Alaska lawmakers fell short in attempts to override the vetoes, explained AP.

The move not only left the agency without an operating budget, but also required all personnel to be released from state employment, reported the Anchorage Daily News.

Family Pictures USA, a new show on PBS, that highlights local history and heritage, has relevance for philanthropy, as a piece at The Chronicle of Philanthropy points out. "At a time when foundations are being urged to listen more keenly to grantees and their ultimate beneficiaries, show host Thomas Allen Harris offers a master class in the gracious way that he listens intently and draws out the most profound expression of the stories behind family photo albums," details the piece.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced recently that sixteen prominent humanities scholars and advocates have been confirmed to the National Council on the Humanities.

On July 1, the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, formerly the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, marked the official transition and launch of the new department.

In 2001, activist Sadie Roberts-Joseph founded the Baton Rouge African American Museum "after Baton Rouge refused to make black history a mandatory part of schools' curriculum," as CNN reported. Last month, Roberts-Joseph was killed, and in August, a month following her tragic murder, the museum has been vandalized, part of larger anti-justice movements in a polarized country.

This month, as the second anniversary of Hurricane Harvey approaches, the Houston arts community has united to create a website that hopes artists in the area will be better informed and prepared the next time a large hurricane arrives, Nonprofit Quarterly reported.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) recently announced "2020 Vision," a year of exhibitions and programs dedicated to female-identifying artists. The show also marks the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage, and according to the announcement, the initiative will encompass 13 solo exhibitions and seven thematic shows beginning in fall 2019, with additional presentations still being planned.

Last year, six of the Walter & Elise Haas Fund’s arts grantees merged or were acquired, as Frances Phillips, program director of the Arts & the Creative Work Fund at the Walter & Elise Haas Fund, writes in a blog post. Phillips interviewed staff and board members at each of these organizations to learn what shaped their decisions and to ask what advice they have to offer others.

The organizers of an exhibition in Berlin inspired by the Afrofuturism movement and Elon Musk did not include a single black artist in its lineup, as an The Guardian reported, criticism followed. The Künstlerhaus Bethanien space, where the exhibition takes place has fallen into “old curatorial habits that favor white men," according to the activist group Soup du Jour, wrote The Guardian.

A consortium of four foundations — the Andrew W. Mellon, Ford, and MacArthur foundations and the J. Paul Getty Trust — recently announced the acquisition of a historic African-American photographic archive, pending court approval and the closing of the sale.