The Biggest Problem Facing the Arts
This week we will welcome ten new arts management fellows to the Kennedy Center. These talented young people will spend an academic year with us studying the many elements of arts management including planning, marketing, programming, and fundraising. They will work on major projects in our numerous departments and participate in high level meetings with senior staff, donors and board members.
This Fellowship program, now in its ninth year, is but one project of the Kennedy Center Arts Management Institute. We also have developed programs for arts organizations of color, international arts managers, arts managers in Washington D.C., New York City, and the Midwest and for the training of board members of arts organizations.
Why does the Kennedy Center devote so many resources to these programs? Because the central problem facing the arts today is not a lack of flute players, choreographers, actors or painters. The main challenge the arts world must address is the lack of a large, trained corps of managers who know how to find resources, attract audiences and other constituents and provide support to our artists.
Arts management is a young field. While wonderful impresarios have operated for centuries, serious codification of the rules of arts management began less than fifty years ago. And while we have a number of academic programs offered by universities across the nation, there are simply not enough of them, and several are too academic in their approach. Arts management, after all, is a practical field, like medicine, and must be taught through real-time, real world experiences.
There are, of course, a large number of wonderfully talented arts leaders; many of them were self-taught, others learned from a mentor. But there are not enough of these excellent leaders to serve our many arts organizations. Smaller arts organizations have a particular challenge with management. All too often, when managers distinguish themselves in small organizations, they are wooed away by larger, more prestigious institutions that can afford to pay higher salaries. The small organizations, which enjoyed a period of great entrepreneurship and growth, find themselves unable to attract equally talented replacements.
Arts leaders in the next decades will face radical changes in technology, a generation of potential audience members who did not participate in the arts at school, ticket prices that disenfranchise whole blocks of our population and on-line activities that provide serious competition for audiences. If the arts are going to survive this period of transition, we need to invest far more heavily in arts management than we have in the past.
Strong, trained, talented arts administrators will find solutions to this growing list of problems. They will help their organizations adapt and thrive and they will provide the support artists need to do their work.
But I fear that unless we address the arts management challenge, too many arts organizations will fail to find proper solutions to these challenges and we will see too many talented artists without the resources they deserve and too many communities without access to the arts and arts education.
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Dear Michael:
While I appreciate you taking the opportunity to shine a light on this critical topic, I think the issue you’ve touched on is much deeper than the one you’ve presented and reflects a systemic structural problem within our nation’s non-profits.
There isn’t a shortage of committed, eager, and smart emerging/mid-career arts management professionals desiring to be the next generation of arts leaders. The issue is the challenge of “getting a seat at the table.” Over the past decades, non-profit arts have developed an infrastructure which presents severe challenges for talented candidates looking to advance their careers.
An emerging/mid-career professional faces a myriad of obstacles in trying to climb their career ladder: limited "stepping stone" salaried positions coupled with current leaders postponing retirement and creating a severe bottleneck; life/work balance challenges including identifying ways of consistently making a living wage ; lack of health insurance; limited opportunities for growth within an organization or a specific city; limited access to or resources to support deeper professional development and travel; and, a lack of access to a cohesive, national networking structure.
I have regularly spoken to current leaders who have expressed that their organizations have grown increasingly complicated over time and that, upon reflection, they might not have hired their “younger, less experienced selves” for their positions. This mindset is also echoed by board members on search committees who are less likely to take a risk on an “untried” leader." (continued
The choices that the current leaders make could have long-lasting impact on future leadership. Frankly, if organizations strictly follow the advice in your book and focus resources primarily on marketing and art, and therefore seriously limit professional development, travel and salary budget lines, I fear that many potential leaders will either leave the field or grow stagnate in their current positions.
Luckily, this is a conversation that many have begun to address. Programs are emerging within the different arts disciplines offering professional development, mentorship opportunities, and travel stipends for conferences. That’s a great first step.The issues are much deeper than what can be solved by a one-year professional development opportunity, as valuable as that individual experience may be. We need to invest much deeper in a national, multi-disciplinary effort. On-going learning and relationsh
I don’t think anyone really chooses a career in arts administration to become wealthy or famous. They do it because they want to dedicate their lives to something meaningful with interesting challenges and want to use their skills to create an environment which allows great art to be created and shared with a community. However, if we don’t remove the roadblocks to career growth, our most talented future leaders will leave the field, creating a void which will impact and be felt by all.
Conductors need to spend more time in the community in which they conduct. Many simply fly in, conduct the rehearsals and concerts and leave. It's pretty hard to promote someone when no one gets to know them. Many conduct several orchestras getting big bucks while giving back little or nothing to the community, the musicians or the orchestra as a whole. This needs to stop. Several orchestras are struggling and dying because of this practice.
There's a wonderful report that began to look into the problems of orchestras called, "The Search for Shining Eyes." It was a study funded by the Knight Foundation. It's a good read.
I've worked the last 7 years in orchestra administration. I would have to disagree with Mr. Kaiser that arts administration is a young field. If he means getting a degree, that part is fairly new. However the problems I've seen in the orchestra world have to do with understanding what you are selling and how you sell it. You can get a hall about half full on promoting what you are playing. That won't generate enough income or businesses that want to sponsor concerts or donors. You're not selling music. You're selling the opportunity to see the conductor and the soloist. I remember when I was younger how people would brag about having seen Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones but couldn't tell you what they played. People want to brag about what they've seen or heard or where they've been. That's what fills the rest of the hall. If the conductor is not one of the best know people in your town you will have trouble filling the hall and will have financial problems. This may seem cynical but it's true.
Also, though it has been lauded as being very important, education and outreach usually gets very few resources. Too much is aimed at children when orchestras need to build audiences now. Much more needs to be aimed at young professionals.
Musicians are not known to be good self promoters because their craft has grown in a personal space and are not taught those skills. Not great managers. So those who are schooled in management and are versed in today's modern modes of communication are still one step ahead of those that aren't.
Word of mouth is still the best way of getting your product (or art) sold. Today, people have too many choices, most of which are being thrown at them by the media, ie sports and by society.
They are not as well versed in the arts because their attentions are being drawn away. The truth is that we have to sell to the average consumer why the arts should be a vital part of their lives. If you as an artist have time to do that and make a living - good for you. I would rather rely on someone else to do that end of the business so that I can do my art - teach young people a craft and to enjoy music making.
Michael Kaiser speaks from a background running nonprofit arts organizations like ABT, Ailey, and the Kennedy Center. He is neither an agent nor a personal manager. But this issue, that of the lack of talented arts managers, is simply not true.
Arts managers are everywhere, graduating in the thousands from universities all over this country every single year. This third generation of arts managers are being taught, in large part, by second generation managers -- those who did not have a formal education as their students have had, but who have years of practical experience. The first generation were artists themselves, and did not segregate their duties. As the economy has changed, I believe it has become imperative that arts managers have a personal connection to the art, either as a performer, artist, or technician. Those with commercial backgrounds who try to manage their nonprofit as a commercial venture are doomed; nonprofits fail when run as quasi-commercial organizations (see Jim Collins' writings).
Nonprofit arts organizations are also not formed to serve artists (unless the nonprofit is a service organization or union). They are there to execute a mission, an active, external purpose, and success can be measured by the ability to better people's lives in a specific way. It's about the mission, not the artists doing the mission.
The biggest problem with a number of these posts is that they confuse artist agents with arts managers. The article is about those managers who run arts organizations that hire artists to perform in their theaters, not those who take a percentage of your hard earned money. There have been a number of arts organizations that have dissolved in the past two years because of poor management, even some that had been in existence for 50 years or more. When these organizations dissolve, so do the artist's opportunity to perform. Well trained and fiscally responsible managers are much needed and that is what this article is about.
Wow JNagarya, your comments are utterly offensive and totally off-base.
Speaking as a member of the "unnecessary deadweight" let me tell you that I make $40,000 a year, live in a one-bedroom apartment and drive a 8-year old PT Cruiser. I do NOT leech off artists----I raise money to allow them to share what they do with others. Take your bile somewhere else. You are NOT morally superior. You’re just bitter and hate-filled.
Lots of good comments here, so I will try to add a couple of other thoughts.
1. About 20 years ago Holand, or the Netherlands, or Belgium, whatever it is, had a program whre the govt. would buy art from any artist and warehouse it. Good idea to some extent. Whatever happened to that program. At least govt single-payer-health care would keep artists from dying for lack of a provider.
2. Even the most seemingly egalitarian arts organizations, say for public art, are way conservative.
They want indestructable, visually safe, and predictable art, preferably by known artists.
Take the Lincoln Center for example. It's a good attempt at providing intelligent (that's the key word) contemporary music, but it seems to be restricted to the tastes of Wynton Marsalis.
3. Museums are keyed to the past with blockbuster shows which sometimes verge on fraud. e.g., the Portland, OR museum had a highly advertised show on Rembrant Van Rijn. Thousands of people attended. How many Rembrandt paintings were in the show? Two or three and none of the famous ones. All the rest were contemporaries of Rembrandt.
4. re experimental art, which is the only kind I consider to be art; the rest is just painting (in visual art), or as Truman Capote said, it's just typing in writing, I guess you have to have a professorship in academia and do art on the side.
This country does almost nothing to encourage "art" - in any form; probably because the country - really doesn't value "art". It values "profits". We have our priorities wrong. What needs to happen is to bring art (not pop-art) - to the people, to have it literally become part of our lives. It's not going to happen with $100 tickets to a Broadway show, or displaying obviously ridiculous sculptures or a cross in urine, etc. things that are pure garbage and call that "art".
What I think we need - is - (dare I say it?) - was what the former USSR had - which was "Art Palaces" I think they called them - in every town. It was a place where children would go after school, to study music, painting, dance, etc. It kept them off the streets, introduced them to creating/partaking in "art" - and gave real artists a "job" teaching, - and it created a love of art that lasts through out their life. Also it was free (I believe) - and would showcase their abilities. In this country, it could become a sort of renaissance-type of vaudeville show and art gallery.
First of all, we must encourage art in this country, make it affordabe for the audience - because if you continue to out-price art - from the average everyday person (especially in this recession/
I couldn't disagree more.
The absolute LAST thing the arts need is someone to jam it in terms that make profit. Look at what the music indmade out of music. Look at what the health industry made out of healthy americans. Look at ANY are where profit is the prime drive.
I won't go into what that prime drive means in health and music here.
But art is by its very nature an expression of the artist himself and his view of life. Jamming art into something sellable castrates it. You will have something they will call art but is their idea of something no one wants. Neither the artist nor the customers.
Art costs. It has to be that way. If You make a profit out of it it becomes a prostitute. And the analogy doesn't end there. Sex also is best if we give instead of taking. We are enriched by our artists. and that is all the reason we need to support them. Paying them to do what we want is the exact opposite of the freedom art needs to BE art.
My husband is a classical musician, and his union provides healthcare, ensures that he gets paid for his work, and provides a good pension. I, as a writer, have none of these advantages, and have had to take clients to small-claims court to get paid. Not to mention that my agents have not been able to sell my larger works, despite publishers' responses to my "well-written" prose.
Visual artists have a tough roe to hoe, producing work that is innovative and nontraditional. I admire them. They don't get hired, like me and my husband; rather they depend on wealthy collectors and patrons.
"Managers" are not the answer. Visual artists should have commissioned agents or (good luck!) a union.
"The main challenge facing the arts world is the lack of a trained corps of managers who know how to find resources, attract audiences and other constituents and provide support to our artists. "
Bullshit.
I'm an artist, and this is the reality of the "arts world: those who "manage," etc., in it are usually rewarded with six-figure incomes. At the same time, artists -- those who PRODUCE the EXCUSE for those six-figure incomes, are eligible for food stamps.
In short: the "arts world" consists of artits, most of them underearners, and a fat bureaucracy of non-artists who leech off the work of the artists.
There is far to much _self-dealing_ passed off as "managing," etc., in teh arts -- including diversion of funds meant for artists to "bonuses" and awards for non-artists. What do they "accomplish"? They increase "access" to the arts -- they sell tickets.
What makes me sickest are those who pose as experts, etc., on the arts who couldn't draw anything other than their obscenly inflated paychecks. There are many leeching off the those who produce their income-source -- most being mere "managers" doing make-work invented by other non-artists. .
Do us actual artists a faver: pass the money directly to us; leave out the unnecessary deadweight intermediaries who skim their unearned income off the top before any artist sees any of it, if any at all.
As an artist myself, I can't really agree with most of this. For one thing, the biggest problem facing the arts is health care -- pure and simple. It's just devastating. As an artist who wants to make a living, I'm not at all in favor of non-profit arts groups at all, except those that do definite charity work. There's plenty of money to be made in the arts these days, but it's very, very difficult to compete against non-profits who are giving it away for free.
The biggest problem facing the arts in HEALTHCARE?! Methinks you wouldn't recognize art if it bit you on the butt!
Artist? You have got to be kidding me. What we have are commercialist not artist. managers know this it is why they survive and thrive. they protect themselves by only promoting and supporting only the commercialist. True artist concentrate only on their art not on the promotion or commercialization of it. there are a lot of professionals in the art world who make a good and sometimes great living at it by knowing how and what to sell. great for them but don't call them artist. entertainers? yes artist? some but very few and far between. if you are willing to sell the soul of your art to commercialization that's all well and good but you will be forgotten in the long run for the most part.
I have to say as an artist I totally agree that we make lousy managers. I wish that someone was able to explain it all to me..but I get by. I can't afford a manager..w
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