Nonprofit News and Comment

ARTS & CULTURE

“Geffen Donates $25 Million to Film Museum Project.” By Brooks Barnes. New York Times. April 8, 2013. This city already has the Geffen Playhouse for the performing arts and the Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art, a visual arts space. Now add the David Geffen Theater, a significant new movie site. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said on Monday that it had received a $25 million commitment from the David Geffen Foundation toward its $300 million museum project. In return, the academy will name the museum’s theater for Mr. Geffen, the retired entertainment mogul. The theater will be large enough to host major movie premieres. With Mr. Geffen’s gift, the academy’s museum fund-raising campaign, started last year and lead by Robert A. Iger, the Walt Disney Company’s chief executive and chairman, has secured more than $150 million. In a statement, Mr. Geffen called his gift “an exciting opportunity” to help “provide a permanent public home for the academy’s rich tradition of honoring the shining stars of the cinematic arts.” The planned film museum, now anticipated to open in early 2017, is to occupy a former department store building owned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which adjoins Lacma’s exhibition halls in the mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles. The architects Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali are working on the design, which will include a large spherical section that will house the theater.

“A Billion-Dollar Gift Gives the Met a New Perspective (Cubist).” By Carol Vogel. New York Times. April 9, 2013. In one of the most significant gifts in the history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the philanthropist and cosmetics tycoon Leonard A. Lauder has promised the institution his collection of 78 Cubist paintings, drawings and sculptures. The trove of signature works, which includes 33 Picassos, 17 Braques, 14 Légers and 14 works by Gris, is valued at more than $1 billion. It puts Mr. Lauder, who for years has been one of the city’s most influential art patrons, in a class with cornerstone contributors to the museum like Michael C. Rockefeller, Walter Annenberg, Henry Osborne Havemeyer and Robert Lehman. The gift was approved by the Met’s board at a meeting Tuesday afternoon. Scholars say the collection is among the world’s greatest, as good as, if not better than, the renowned Cubist paintings, drawings and sculptures in institutions like the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and the Pompidou Center in Paris. Together they tell the story of a movement that revolutionized Modern art and fill a glaring gap in the Met’s collection, which has been notably weak in early-20th-century art. “In one fell swoop this puts the Met at the forefront of early-20th-century art,” Thomas P. Campbell, the Met’s director, said. “It is an unreproducible collection, something museum directors only dream about.”
Related stories:
“$1 Billion Cubist Gift for Met.” Wall Street Journal. April 9, 2013.
“New York Metropolitan Museum of Art receives $1bn donation; The 78 cubist works will transform the Met’s 20th Century art collection.” BBC News. April 10, 2013.
“A Square Deal; Leonard Lauder’s $1 billion gift of Cubist masterpieces will transform New York’s Met.” Times of London. April 11, 2013.
“$1bn gift of cubist art to transform New York’s Met; Cosmetics heir and heavy-weight philanthropist Leonard A Lauder has donated 78 pieces to the museum.” Independent (UK). April 10, 2013.

“12-Year-Old Building at MoMA Is Doomed.” By Robin Pogrebin. New York Times. April 10, 2013. When a new home for the American Folk Art Museum opened on West 53d Street in Manhattan in 2001 it was hailed as a harbinger of hope for the city after the Sept. 11 attacks and praised for its bold architecture. “Its heart is in the right time as well as the right place,” Herbert Muschamp wrote in his architecture review in The New York Times, calling the museum’s sculptural bronze facade “already a Midtown icon.” Now, a mere 12 years later, the building is going to be demolished. In its place the adjacent Museum of Modern Art, which bought the building in 2011, will put up an expansion, which will connect to a new tower with floors for the Modern on the other side of the former museum. And the folk museum building, designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, will take a dubious place in history as having had one of the shortest lives of an architecturally ambitious project in Manhattan. “It’s very rare that a building that recent comes down, especially a building that was such a major design and that got so much publicity when it opened for its design — mostly very positive,” said Andrew S. Dolkart, the director of Columbia University’s historic preservation program. “The building is so solid looking on the street, and then it becomes a disposable artifact. It’s unusual and it’s tragic because it’s a notable work of 21st century architecture by noteworthy architects who haven’t done that much work in the city, and it’s a beautiful work with the look of a handcrafted facade.” MoMA officials said the building’s design did not fit their plans because the opaque facade is not in keeping with the glass aesthetic of the rest of the museum. The former folk museum is also set back farther than MoMA’s other properties, and the floors would not line up.
Related story:
“MoMA Tear-Down; Architects Blast Museum Plan to Raze Former Folk-Art Home.” Wall Street Journal. April 11, 2013.

“SF Symphony players ratify contract.” By Joshua Kosman. San Francisco Chronicle. April 13, 2013. The musicians of the San Francisco Symphony voted Friday to ratify a new contract, two weeks after voting to return to work after a strike that led to the cancellation of a prominent East Coast tour. Provisions of the new 26-month contract include a wage freeze through September increasing to a 4.5 percent raise over the life of the contract, changes to some work rules and an increase in funding for the orchestra’s instrument loan program. But the musicians, who walked out on March 13, had to give up on the increased pension funding they were pushing for and accept higher out-of-pocket costs for medical coverage. “The musicians believe that this is not the right financial package, based on where the Symphony is right now,” said violist David Gaudry, the chairman of the musicians’ negotiating committee. “But there was a limit to what we could do, and the potential for a destructive turn of events was pretty strong.” Executive Director Brent Assink said, “Our overall objective was to strike a balance that would maintain the orchestra’s top standing, but to do it in a way that was financially sustainable. This agreement puts us on that trajectory.” In a statement, board President Sakurako Fisher said, “This agreement represents a significant amount of collaboration and a recognition that only a shared vision and a true partnership will propel our outstanding 100-year-old orchestra toward an even greater future.” The musicians’ previous agreement expired Nov. 24 and was extended by mutual agreement to Feb. 15. The new contract is retroactive to November, meaning it has only 20 months to run.

“How charities can become more entrepreneurial; Social enterprise trading arms are a great way for charities to commercialise and become more sustainable in the process.” Guardian. April 11, 2013. The Co-operative’s latest annual Ethical Consumer Markets report tells us that the UK is close to breaking the £50bn barrier in terms of ethical spending and that half of all consumers avoid products based on a company’s reputation for “responsibility”. Businesses see this as an opportunity to tailor goods to a social market, but could it represent more of an opportunity for charities to tailor sales to a commercial market? This isn’t simply a matter of whose brand is better placed to sell a responsible or ethical product or service – a high street business or a high street charity. It is more about whether the insight and expertise charities gain in going about their work makes them better positioned to deliver higher quality, socially focused products and services. To be a really effective charity, you will often need a combination of an expert understanding of a problem, unparalleled insight into the populations you are serving and a route to market to those populations and a trusted brand when you get to them. Is it potentially easier for charities to figure out how to commercialise their expertise than it is for corporations to figure out how to do more good?

“NCVO and Serco launch code of practice for public service provision; Advice aims to help prime contractors and charities to work together.” By David Mills. Guardian. April 11, 2013. NCVO and Serco have published a new code of practice to help prime and subcontractors, whether in the private or voluntary sectors, work better together and minimise the problems encountered by some subcontractors. The code provides advice on a range of issues in the relationships between prime and subcontractors, including setting reasonable expectations, having strong mechanisms for open dialogue between contractors and developing financially sustainable models. The Code warns against primes paying lip service to voluntary and community sector organisations in order to boost their chances of winning public sector contracts – often referred to treating such organisations as ‘bid candy’. It says that regular discussions should take place between prime and subcontractors if, for example, referral numbers are lower than expected. It also advises that delivery models should recognise and mitigate the risk of primes ‘cherry picking’ clients, and that primes should ensure subcontractors are not exposed to disproportionate financial risk. Serco has pledged to follow the guidance when it subcontracts within its public service contracts, and will also encourage other outsourcing companies to sign up to the document.

“Is the way we view the voluntary sector counter-productive to charities? Judging charities by their overheads and not their impact has become commonplace and is detrimental to the sector.” By Alastair Sloan. Guardian. April 11, 2013. From medical labs to refugee camps to community centres, there’s no doubt that the voluntary sector plays a critical role in society. But if you compare the mission statements of voluntary organisations with their achievements, there is often a mismatch. ‘Ending homelessness,’ ‘stopping cruelty to children,’ ‘curing Alzheimers.’ None of these things have happened, yet. Sure, these are complex problems with no quick fix. It will take years of expensive commitment and expertise and command of a vast range of external variables to tackle them. But is part of the slow progress down to not raising enough money to throw at the problem? Is it naive to force charities to spend less on advertising, salaries and innovation than their counter-parts in the private sector, despite facing greater challenges? In a closing speech at TED conference, veteran US fundraiser Dan Pallotta put forward the argument that we judge the profit and not-for-profit sectors by a different set of rules, and that these rules dramatically reduce the potential impact of charities. An obsession with keeping overheads low is part of the problem, he later explained. “If you want to raise money, you might decide to have a bake sale. You’ll raise a certain amount and a very low proportion will go into your overheads. Or you can do something big.”

ARTS & CULTURE

“San Francisco Symphony Strike Ends.” By Daniel J. Wakin. New York Times. April 1, 2013. The musicians of the San Francisco Symphony and its management have settled a strike and performances will resume on Tuesday, the orchestra said. The agreement, for a 26-month contract, ends the strike called on March 13 that forced the cancellation of orchestra appearances at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. As if to emphasize an orchestra’s broad reach in the community, in a news release the San Francisco Symphony described the concerts that can now go forward this week: free performances for schoolchildren, a Music for Families concert, a regular performance of Handel and Mozart works conducted by the maestro Bernard Labadie, a chamber music performance and a workshop for amateur musicians. The musicians and the orchestra’s board must still ratify the agreement, which the orchestra called tentative. The terms were not released. The labor dispute centered on salaries.

“Chastened, Folk Art Museum Puts Down Healthier Roots.” By Robin Pogrebin. New York Times. April 2, 2013. The American Folk Art Museum’s attendance is projected to be 80,000 this fiscal year, up from 66,000. Important donors are giving again. And for the first time in its history, this summer the museum will send a work from its collection to the Venice Biennale. Not the stuff of headlines for an institution like the Metropolitan Museum of Art or even the Frick Collection. But not bad for a museum that was a few steps from extinction in 2011. In fact, the folk art museum’s greatest success, its supporters say, may be its decision to shed, for now at least, the outsize ambitions that steered it toward trouble in the first place. “We’re all cautious now about taking too big steps before we’re ready for it,” said Audrey Heckler, a folk art collector who is one of the newer members of the museum’s 13-member board. “I really think we got our act together.” The museum almost went out of business two years ago because of financial problems resulting largely from its decision to build a flagship building on West 53rd Street in Midtown Manhattan, alongside the Museum of Modern Art. It borrowed $32 million to construct the building, which was designed by the architects Billie Tsien and Tod Williams and opened in 2001; it then struggled to pay off the construction bonds that had been issued through the city’s Trust for Cultural Resources, a public benefit corporation that helps institutions finance capital projects. In 2009 the museum defaulted on its debt payments, the first institution borrowing through the trust ever to do so.

“Building on the Works of Its Artist; The Whitney Organizes an Auction to Help Finance Its New Downtown Home.” Wall Street Journal. April 4, 2013. It takes a lot to move a museum. The Whitney Museum of American Art’s new downtown location, at the southern tip of the High Line promenade on Gansevoort Street, is set to open in 2015 with fresh displays of contemporary art. But to get closer to its $760 million fundraising goal, the museum is asking some artists to pitch in now. On May 14 and 15, Sotheby’s New York will auction off 25 works by artists with strong ties to the Whitney, including living artists such as Jeff Koons and Jasper Johns—whom the museum championed early in their careers—as well as the estates of late giants including Alexander Calder, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. Sotheby’s specialist Alexander Rotter estimates the auction will raise about $8 million, though the Whitney’s director, Adam D. Weinberg, said the museum is hoping for more. He said the sale will augment the $562.4 million it has already raised ($225 million of which is earmarked for its endowment), and that the Whitney is on track to open the new 200,000-square-foot downtown building, designed by Renzo Piano, in 2015.

ARTS & CULTURE

“Art marriage may yield L.A. mega-museum; LACMA makes a preliminary offer for taking over MOCA. Eli Broad might need to OK any merger.” By Jori Finkel and Mike Boehm. Los Angeles Times. March 7, 2013. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has proposed acquiring the troubled Museum of Contemporary Art — a move that would combine the biggest art collection west of the Mississippi with one of the world’s most prestigious troves of contemporary art. The acquisition could put to rest long-standing concerns over the financial viability of the Museum of Contemporary Art, or MOCA. But it also faces potential opposition from the region’s most influential art patron, billionaire Eli Broad. In funding a 2008 MOCA bailout valued at up to $30 million, Broad won a stipulation that MOCA could not be acquired for 10 years by “any museum located within 100 miles of MOCA’s Grand Avenue facility,” excluding “educational institutions or museums affiliated with educational institutions.” The acquisition offer was made in a letter from the leaders of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, or LACMA, to the co-chairs of the MOCA board. LACMA would preserve MOCA’s two downtown locations and operate them under the MOCA name. With money an obvious issue for MOCA’s future, the letter guaranteed that LACMA would raise $100 million for the combined museums as a condition of the deal. “MOCA has a great brand, a great history and its art collection is known and loved internationally,” Michael Govan, LACMA’s executive director, said. “Combining the two museums would create one of the largest and most significant art museums in the U.S.”
Related stories:
“Los Angeles Museum Weighs Two Merger Bids.” Wall Street Journal. March 8, 2013.
“Cautious Approval for a Plan to Merge a City’s Museums.” New York Times. March 8, 2013.

“Higgins Armory Museum to close.” By Geoff Edgers. Boston Globe. March 8, 2013. The Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, for almost eight decades the only museum in the country devoted solely to arms and armor, will close for good in December — the end of an institution renowned for its castlelike building and fanciful activities as well as for its historical treasures. The museum’s interim director, Suzanne W. Maas, will announce the closure Friday. The armory is a rare combination of serious conservation, preserving more than 2,000 objects such as armored suits and weapons dating to ancient Egypt, and community participation, including “Over¬Knight” sleepovers for youth groups and birthday parties in which the cake is sliced by a sword-wielding, costumed “interpreter.” Most of the prized collection, visited by hundreds of thousands of people over the years, will remain in Worcester and accessible to the public. The Worcester Art Museum will receive the Higgins’s inventory, and the Higgins will also transfer its endowment of almost $3 million. The Worcester Art Museum, in turn, will renovate its current library by 2015 to become a gallery for the Higgins pieces. A temporary exhibit featuring collections from both museums will go on display as early as 2013. The deal gives the Worcester Art Museum material that has proved popular at other museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Cleveland Museum of Art. Last year, in fact, the Higgins Armory, with an annual budget of $1.3 million, attracted 60,000 visitors. The Worcester Art Museum, with a $9 million annual budget, had about 46,000 visitors.

ARTS & CULTURE

“The Cloisters Opens Up; Medieval-Art Museum Gets Wired and Adds Contemporary Works to Its Exhibits.” By Jennifer Maloney. Wall Street Journal. February 25, 2013. Set on a hill overlooking the Hudson River in northern Manhattan, the Cloisters museum and gardens were designed to give visitors the impression they are stepping back in time, wandering through what feels like an old-world monastery. But as America’s only medieval-art museum approaches its 75th anniversary this spring, its curators are stepping gingerly into the modern world. This year, the Cloisters will for the first time present a contemporary-art installation. The museum, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is developing new digital content for visitors to view on iPods. And after decades of displaying the same permanent collection, the museum is making a bid to attract return visitors with more special exhibitions, made possible by climate-control improvements in recent years. “I think the Cloisters is one of the lesser-known wonders of New York,” said Met Museum Director Thomas Campbell. “It’s a place that really grounds you and is inspirational, so I want to keep that, I want to preserve that.” What he hopes to change, he said, is the adjective “lesser-known.” The museum and its cloistered gardens opened in May 1938, 13 years after philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. made a gift to the Met to purchase the medieval architecture collection of sculptor George Grey Barnard. To house the collection, the donor chose a building design evocative of the historic churches and monasteries of Europe. Fragments of centuries-old buildings were stitched together to create a medieval feeling in an urban park. To preserve the Cloisters’ vista of the Palisades, Mr. Rockefeller donated some 700 acres of bluffs on the west side of the Hudson to the state of New Jersey. More than 245,000 people visited in fiscal year 2012.

“The New High-Tech Patrons; Silicon Valley power players, from Marissa Mayer to Marc Andreessen, are beginning to buy art—and museum directors and dealers are eager to help; Creating a ‘farm team’ of young donors.” By Ellen Gamerman. Wall Street Journal. February 28, 2013.Tech entrepreneurs are starting to peer out from their hoodies and explore the art world, and dealers and museum boards couldn’t be more thrilled. Next week, San Francisco will unveil a major public art installation using 25,000 energy-efficient lights to illuminate the city’s Bay Bridge in countless abstract combinations. The Bay Lights, set to run every night for the next two years, will also spotlight a new role for the area’s tech entrepreneurs: patrons of the arts. putting a distinctive spin on the art scene—both in the type of work they collect and the low-profile way they acquire it. Many tech collectors exploring the market, for instance, are seduced by works with a digital twist. “An engineer will look at a photograph or video art in a way a banker couldn’t—we think in ones and zeros, we think in terms of screens,” said Trevor Traina, a 44-year-old collector of photography who sold his first tech company to Microsoft for more than $100 million. Unlike on Wall Street, where a trophy canvas can work as a passport to highflying social circles, flaunting isn’t part of the tech culture. “If you saw these people, you’d never guess that they have money—it’s all about just being cool,” said San Francisco dealer Chris Perez, who works with about 20 tech clients.

ARTS & CULTURE

“Amid Turmoil at Museo del Barrio, Its Director Steps Down.” By Felicia R. Lee. New York Times. February 15, 2013. Margarita Aguilar, the director of El Museo del Barrio since August 2011, has left the position amid turmoil at the museum, which in recent months has slashed its days of operation and instituted layoffs and furloughs, museum officials confirmed on Friday. “She is stepping down as of yesterday,” Tony Bechara, an artist who is the chairman of the museum’s board, said on Friday of Ms. Aguilar. “We are in the process of finding a replacement. That’s all I know. We have ended the relationship.” Founded in 1969, the museum is considered a major center for Latino art and culture. Its collection contains 8,500 objects, including Mexican masks, textiles from Chile and photographs and traditional art from Puerto Rico. Ms. Aguilar had been a curator at the museum from 1998 to 2006, before going to Christie’s as a vice president and specialist in Latin American art; she took over from Julián Zugazagoitia, who left El Museo in 2010 to become the director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo. Ms. Aguilar inherited a transformed museum, which had two years earlier unveiled a $35 million renovation of its Beaux-Arts complex on Fifth Avenue and 104th Street in East Harlem, with a glass-front facade designed by the architects Gruzen Samton, a redesigned courtyard and modernized galleries. But she arrived just as the museum was completing a round of layoffs. And since then, revenues from fund-raising and attendance have continued to decline from their high in the 2008 fiscal year and have struggled to keep pace with the $5.3 million annual budget. Late last month, the museum laid off 8 of its 41-person staff and required staff members to take furloughs over the next two months. Earlier in January the museum, which had been open six days a week, reduced its hours to four days. Ms. Aguilar could not be reached for comment.

ARTS & CULTURE

“Brooklyn Museum Tests A Democratic Model.” By Vera Haller. Wall Street Journal. February 5, 2013. For years, Gabrielle Watson kept her art to herself. She painted large, expressionistic oil portraits of friends and relatives in her Crown Heights apartment when she wasn’t at her day job as a lawyer. Some of her friends didn’t even know about her art habit. That changed in September when Ms. Watson, who is 31, “came out” as an artist by participating in “GO,” an open-studio weekend organized by the Brooklyn Museum, during which artists of every level across the borough welcomed the public into their work spaces. Now her paintings hang in the museum as part the group exhibit that is the culmination of that “community-curated” weekend. For some artists, it has meant unexpected and welcome recognition. But others are unhappy that the public has been given a role in deciding what art will be displayed in a major American museum. Created by Sharon Matt Atkins, the museum’s managing curator of exhibitions, and Shelley Bernstein, its chief of technology, “GO” was modeled after ArtPrize, the annual event in Grand Rapids, Mich., where artists compete for cash prizes during a similar open-studio weekend. The idea, they say, was to connect Brooklyn’s leading art institution to the thousands of artists working there, and to invite residents to engage the artists in their neighborhoods. Let people vote on what they like and then bring that art to the museum. “We wanted to force people to see a selection, make a judgment, choose from a list and pick only from those they saw,” said Ms. Bernstein. “It was carefully designed so people were not judging by looking at art work on the Internet and then pushing a ‘like’ button.”

“NYC Labor Chorus Tries To Hit Right Note, Attract New Voices.” By Margot Adler. Weekend Edition Saturday/National Public Radio. February 9, 2013. Union membership is at its lowest point since the 1930s. New figures show a drop, and only about 11 percent of workers belong to unions today. But these numbers don’t deter the New York City Labor Chorus, which has been singing in praise of unions for more than 20 years. Jana Ballard, the choral director of the labor chorus, is one of the youngest in the group. She’s 38. The average age of the 80 members is about 65. Ballard grew up in Kentucky and now teaches voice and chorus at La Guardia High School — often called the Fame school — in New York City. She was intrigued when this job opening appeared, but she wasn’t very familiar with labor songs. Chorus President Barbara Bailey recalls the inception of the chorus, when a crew of people from different unions realized that most members didn’t have any knowledge of their history. “The art of singing was being lost,” she says. “A lot of union members don’t know labor songs and don’t know too much about labor. And we felt this would be a way of reintroducing it to some and introducing it to others.”

ARTS & CULTURE

“Pushing Its Way Back Into the Frame; A Seminal Voice in the Art of Photography Tries to Adapt to the Digital Revolution.” By Lana Bortolot. Wall Street Journal. January 27, 2013. In 1953, Minor White, a founding editor of a new photo magazine called Aperture, wrote that “photography seems to be reevaluating itself these days—probably preparatory to taking off in a new direction.” He was explaining why a group of writers and photographers including himself, Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange had decided to launch their quarterly print publication, but he just as easily could have been writing about the state of image-making today. Now, 60 years after the birth of Aperture, the magazine White helped launch (and the foundation that grew out of it) is once again evaluating its place in the photo industry—this time in an effort to stave off extinction. A decade after White and his cohorts started their seminal magazine, Aperture incorporated as a nonprofit foundation and, in 1965, established a book-publishing division where the world’s best photographers wanted—and needed—to be. It helped launch the careers of Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin and others from its storefront offices on West 23rd Street, and expanded into gallery exhibitions after moving to West 27th Street in 2005. “Aperture, for the photo world, was not just a household name, but one of the brands and arbiters of taste,” said New York photographer Ed Kashi. “They’ve published some of the signature books of the most prominent photography of the last thirty years. But as magazines struggled in the digital age and global art-book publishers aggressively marketed photo books for mass audiences, the foundation’s influence eroded. When photo-centric social-media sites crashed the scene, Aperture was essentially rendered a relic. So when the foundation reintroduces its flagship magazine next month, it will double as an attempt to reintroduce a critical voice in the conversation about the meaning of images and, more specifically, how to keep photography in focus in an amorphous digital world. “We’ve really tried to think what a magazine of photography should be,” said Chris Boot, who has headed the initiative as Aperture’s executive director since 2010. “With so many things changing so fast in the photography world, we wanted a vehicle to deal with a variety of views in a way the magazine for the past 10 years never did.”

ARTS & CULTURE

“Robert Polito Named President of Poetry Foundation.” By John Williams. New York Times. January 23, 2013. Robert Polito, the director of the creative writing program at The New School since 1992, has been named the new president of the Poetry Foundation, based in Chicago. Mr. Polito will begin his tenure on July 8. The organization’s inaugural president, John Barr, who caused occasional ripples in the poetry world, is set to retire but will stay on until July and then help with the transition. Mr. Polito is a poet, critic and author of several books, including “Savage Art,” a biography of the crime writer Jim Thompson that won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 1995. The foundation, which publishes the century-old Poetry magazine, was created after Ruth Lilly, an heir to the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical fortune, shocked the arts community and gave the magazine $100 million in 2002. (The gift, given in stock, has since come to be valued at nearly $200 million, according to the foundation.) Poetry also will have a new name at the top soon. Christian Wiman, editor of the magazine since 2003, recently announced he will leave the position in June.

ARTS & CULTURE

“New Funds Help Revive a Theater in St. Paul.” By Felicia R. Lee. New York Times. January 7, 2013. The Penumbra Theater Company in St. Paul, a leading African-American theatrical organization whose financial woes forced the cancellation of shows and the trimming of staff last year, has raised enough money to resume programming on a limited basis, Penumbra officials announced Monday. The company took in $359,000 during an emergency fund-raising campaign that ended Dec. 31, allowing it to plug a $340,000 budget shortfall and to mount a production in March of “Spunk,” George C. Wolfe’s adaptation of stories by Zora Neale Hurston. But long-term challenges remain, notably finding new sources of money to offset shrinking foundation and corporate support. While trimming its coming seasons to three productions (from as many as five), Penumbra plans to bolster the business savvy of its directors and focus more on education programs. “What we’re trying to do is have a diverse kind of revenue stream,” Lou Bellamy, the theater’s founder and artistic director, said by telephone. “There will always be a gap, but we have to fill it with workshops or whatever.” The problems faced by Penumbra — founded in 1976 and long a home for artists like August Wilson (a founding member) — are emblematic of those facing many arts groups that were built by or rose to prominence under a galvanizing personality. Intiman Theater in Seattle, which rose to national prominence under Bartlett Sher, winning a regional theater Tony Award in 2006, has drastically scaled back its offerings since he left in 2010, following years of expanding budgets and inconsistent fund-raising made worse by the fiscal crisis of 2008.

“Performing arts face strikes, layoffs, bankruptcy.” By Natalie DiBlasio. USA Today. January 10, 2013. Several major orchestras and operas are facing deficits. Performing arts dependent on donations, endowment and government support. Organizations are cutting schedules, pay and staff. The fat lady might not be singing much longer in more than a dozen states where performing arts groups are facing massive deficits, bankruptcies, strikes and layoffs. Delaware Symphony Orchestra has cut back performance schedules. Seattle Opera expects a shortfall of $1 million for the 2011-12 season. Chicago Symphony Orchestra had a strike, and the Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra locked out their musicians amid labor disputes. Musicians say the biggest deficit will be cultural. “When orchestras put on concerts, the entire downtown community thrives,” said Bruce Ridge, chairman of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians. “Cab drivers are at work; restaurants are full. When (orchestras) aren’t supported, the community suffers.” The financial problems are part of a longstanding trend that has been exacerbated by the recent recession, says Robert J. Flanagan, economist and author of The Perilous Life of Symphony Orchestras: Artistic Triumphs and Economic Challenges. “Even if you remove the effect of recessions, attendance has been declining year after year,” Flanagan says. “No orchestra in the world is able to cover its expenses with the revenues it earns from ticket sales, recordings and broadcast.” The financial security of an orchestra often rests on donations, endowment and government support, but even those funds aren’t covering all of the recent costs.

“A Patron With Passion in Los Angeles.” New York Times. January 11, 2013 [For story, go to Philanthropy].

ARTS & CULTURE

“A small-town theater campaign’s larger projections; Three childhood friends in Oakhurst, Calif., believe they’ve developed a subscription plan that could save not only the local Met Cinema but other struggling small-town theaters across the country.” By Diana Marcum. Los Angeles Times. December 31, 2012. Once in a while, Hollywood comes through this gateway to Yosemite National Park. People still talk about the time Ron Howard accidentally left one of his children (briefly) in a doughnut shop. But Oakhurst’s main connection to the movies has been the local Met Cinema, scene of countless first dates and family outings. When the Met closed abruptly in November — “Skyfall Coming Soon” still up on the marquee — it meant that those living in this mountain town and neighboring communities would have to drive at least 70 miles to Fresno to see James Bond on the big screen. Three childhood friends believe they’ve developed a subscription plan that could save not only the Met but also struggling small-town theaters across the country. The deadline to find out if they can make it work here is Dec. 31. If enough people enroll, the trio will be able to sign a lease and reopen the movie house. If not, the landlord plans to look for other tenants. While researching the theater business, Nelson learned that studios are transitioning to digital distribution. Thousands of independent theaters that couldn’t afford equipment upgrades have closed over the last 10 years, according to industry experts. Hundreds of others — which, like the Met, still show print films — remain on the brink. The subscription business model could pay for the new equipment. “We realized this could be our big idea, the one we’ve been waiting for,” Nelson said. “Saving small-town movies.”

“Was 2012 The Year That American Orchestras Hit The Wall?” By Euan Kerr. Morning Edition/National Public Radio. January 1, 2013. 2012 will go down as a year of orchestral turmoil in the U.S.: Strikes, lockouts and bankruptcies erupted time and again as once seemingly untouchable institutions struggled financially. There’s been particularly little seasonal cheer in Minnesota’s orchestral community. Protests erupted after management at the Minnesota Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra each locked out their musicians, after the musicians had rejected contracts that cut their salaries by tens of thousands of dollars and reduced the size of the orchestras. They are not alone, says Michael Henson, the president and CEO of the Minnesota Orchestra, who points to recent renegotiated deals in cities like Philadelphia, Detroit, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Pittsburgh and St. Louis as examples. Both the Minnesota Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra face large deficits, caused by declining revenues, increased expenses and the lingering effects of the poor economy. So Henson says his ensemble needs to cut $6 million a year from its budget, and that means cutting musicians’ salaries. “That is an approach that most orchestras have sought to avoid over the years,” Henson notes, “because for the most part they have sought to avoid the conflict that that produces.” A year ago, Stanford University economist Robert J. Flanagan published The Perilous Life of Symphony Orchestras, a book based on his study of the finances of more than 60 top orchestras. He resists using the term “tipping point,” but he says the funding model for orchestras has always been problematic — and that the economic downturn brought things to a head.

“Historic house museums struggling to survive; Drop in visitors is traced in part to poor economy.” By J. Freedom du Lac. Washington Post. January 6, 2013. The hilltop mansion at Berkeley Plantation has a sweeping view of American history, if you’re still into that sort of thing. English colonists settled the land along the James River a year before Plymouth and held one of the earliest recorded Thanksgiving celebrations there. The three-story Georgian house, built by the Harrison family in 1726, was the birthplace of a US president and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Taps was even composed at Berkeley 150 years ago during the Civil War, when Union soldiers used it as a base. There is an abundance of history at the home. Visitors, however, aren’t so plentiful anymore. Mirroring what’s happening to other historic house museums around the country, attendance is down 20 percent over the past five years at Berkeley Plantation, according to the national historic landmark’s private owner. The situation, he said, is bad and getting worse.