In February 2018, the portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Within this institution of power, a Greek Revival building lined with marble floors and white columns, images of presidents and other US leaders are captured in traditional oil paintings. In envisioning their own portraits, the Obamas made bold choices, which differed from most of their predecessors’ in the artists who were chosen to paint them and the styles in which they were portrayed.
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As arts funders, we know that extensive research has shown that the presence of arts and culture activities at the neighborhood level can improve health and safety and promote a sense of well-being among residents. But how do we identify what activities already exist in a community and, as important, where there are gaps so we can be proactive in advancing a community’s livability?
During the past two decades, cultural planning practice in the United States has fallen behind that in parts of the world where cultural plans are required in city general plans, broader definitions of culture have been adopted, more domains of city planning have been integrated, and theoretical debate has progressed further. In the United States there is neither a field of cultural planning nor of cultural planners.
We’d be able to produce work that is much more based on the community’s input, because we wouldn’t be nomadic. We’d have a more stable audience because we’d be more stable.
— performing artist
— performing artist
We want to be a convener of culture and conversation, to open the larger community to interact.
— clergy leader
— clergy leader
Art is not magic; most artists are not all that different from other people. However, many of them developed a skill or asset that most of us haven’t: a fascination for the undercurrent in our society, in our social encounters, in our practices, in our organizations.
Jaap Warmenhoven, Stanford Social Innovation Review
Despite New York City’s status as the dance capital of the United States, rising real estate prices are challenging the city’s ability to serve as a creative incubator, with space — an essential resource for making dance — in waning supply. Choreographers and dancers need to work in a large open area with a sprung floor, but as real estate values climb, long-standing dance studios are being bought by developers and converted into residential or commercial spaces.
Spurred on by technological advances, the number of aspiring professional artists in the United States has reached unprecedented levels. The arts’ current system of philanthropic support is woefully underequipped to evaluate this explosion of content — but we believe that the solution to the crisis is sitting right in front of us. Philanthropic institutions, in their efforts to provide stewardship to a thriving arts community, have largely overlooked perhaps the single most valuable resource at their disposal: audience members.
Funders, arts administrators, and other people trying their hand at creative placemaking (artists and more unlikely suspects) find their way to me. Because I coauthored Creative Placemaking, the 2010 white paper for the NEA’s Mayors’ Institute on City Design, I’m an authority, yet folks get through to me with a cold call or email, instead of waiting for an announced webinar from the National Endowment for the Arts or ArtPlace or trying to read between the lines of application guidelines.
“Theatres are the best way to keep people from the arts.”
— Simon Dove, Utrecht Festival, Dance/USA Forum, January 2011
— Simon Dove, Utrecht Festival, Dance/USA Forum, January 2011
Why will some people engage with art in one setting, but not another? For example, why will someone watch great drama on television at home, but never darken the door of a theater? Why will someone listen to classical music in a place of worship, but not a concert hall?
