Give us our art back!

Skim (and I do mean skim) this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/arts/29iht-loot.html?ref=arts


Now here's my tangent. . .if you were a museum collections manager, curator, or director, and were approached by a family/country that wanted its artwork back (I say country because of all of the works stolen from national collections in WWII), and the provenance (history of the work's location) proved it to be truly from this family/country, what are some reasons you would NOT give it back?  We're playing Devil's Advocate here.  And note, there are plenty of works in American museums that have been stolen from other countries, but possibly unknowingly to the museum. 

Image from the blog "Stolen Vermeer"

http://stolenvermeer.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html

Arts Organizations creating a "cash crop"--where's the line?

Santa Rosa Art Foundation Raises Funds With Medical Pot 

Read the article here: http://www.ktvu.com/news/25386184/detail.html

"Funding was challenging,” said Kaechele. “The current economic climate has been terrible, so it seemed like a creative way to address funding the arts."

What does this fundraising activity have to do with the organization's mission?  And please, this is NOT a legalization conversation.  Just simply, does this funding strategy match up?   And does it have to?  Will this turn off potential patrons/donors from the organization?

High Profile Arts School Goes Under

Read this article from the New York Times.

If this school produced artists who "have appeared on Broadway and in feature films" and is so high profile, why could no one afford to save it?  It was, obviously, mismanaged, but why don't schools that are in danger like this reach out to artists they've produced and celebrity connections (assuming that they have some, this is a very high profile school. . .) to be "saved?"  Or did it deserve to go under because of its mismanagement?

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

In 1985, Jane Henry led Shukrani Brown, Hussain Walker and Malik Lewis in a violin class at the Harlem School of the Arts.

 

DC Arts Funding Cut

Here's something that hits close to home.  Who here works/interns for an organization that receives grant money from the DC Commission on the Art and Humanities?  If you don't work for one, you certainly know one. . .or 50.

I work for an organization who applies and receives around 5 or 6 grants from DCCAH each fiscal year.  We just got out of the heat of grant application season for this agency, so it's just an exciting waiting game right now until we get some kind of notification about the respective grants.  Our outreach programs rely heavily on this funding, and we've already planned the programs that this grant money will potentially fund. 

But, I got some alarming news from my friend Rob of DC Advocates for the Arts --  he sent out a message saying this:

"On Monday October 4th, Mayor Fenty took action to prevent increased deficits ordering immediate 10% reductions in the majority of agency budgets. The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities is one of the agencies affected. The DCCAH FY 11 budget, which was $4,940,310, has been reduced by $444,421 to $4,495,889. The Commission had budgeted for and accepted grant proposals for a majority of the FY 11 allocation already, and many of us have been waiting on those grant letters.

What does this new 10% cut mean for pending grants?
Will grant programs be cut, and/or awards reduced?" 

Oh, how easily money can be taken away.  That's $444,421 that DCCAH was planning on giving away to DC arts organizations that now won't be given out to us.  If you were working at the DCCAH and you had to be a part of the decision-making process after this blow, what would you suggest? 

Give the grants to a fewer number of applicants?    

Give the grants to the same amount of applicants as you normally would, but give each a smaller amount of money?

Thoughts. . .