Molly Lederer of East Side Monthly has a great cover article in the latest issue discussing the trouble that non-profit arts organizations face in this economic crisis. And I’m not just saying that because she quoted me. Though she did, and here it is:
Seth Resler, marketing specialist and president of QuickWhatsUp.com, loves the local arts scene. But he believes that old models for corporate sponsorship of the arts need to be re-vamped to fit the times. “The bottom line is that arts institutions which have relied on the traditional non-profit model of corporate handouts can expect to have a hard time when these corporations are suffering. The old argument of ‘the arts provide abstract community value’ doesn’t work when people are jobless, homeless and hungry.” By way of alternative arts programming, Resler recently produced the Gong Show at downtown’s Tazza Caffe to great success. “Going Going Gong” was a contest for a wide range of up-and-coming performance artists, from dancers to comedians to musicians. “We exposed these artists to a wide range of media outlets, including magazines, TV stations, radio, agencies and more,” Resler notes. This was all part of a for-profit venture that drew big crowds for Tazza. As evidenced by the Gong Show, Resler points out, “Arts and commerce can coincide and, in desperate economic times, must coincide.”
You can read the full article here.
Molly asks, “Do we, as a community, value our arts institutions enough to save them?” One might turn this question around and ask, “Do these arts institutions value being a part of the community enough to provide something worthy to its members?” If people aren’t showing up to support local arts organizations, who is to blame: the people or the organizations?
I consider myself a liberal, but whenever I find myself in a room full of artists, I seem to take on the persona of the capitalist pig. I think that’s because I have always lived at the intersection of Art and Commerce. I used to program radio stations for a living, which means my job was to get as many people as possible to listen to my radio stations. And while I love cool, cutting edge art, the simple fact is that most people don’t. What’s worse, most people think they do, even though they really don’t.
So at all my radio stations, I was the guy who wanted to play bands like Radiohead (well, not Radiohead per se because I don’t really like them, but they’ll do as a representative of the quintessential hipster band); yet I understood the necessity of playing Nickelback (another band I can’t stand, but they represent the ultimate commercial appeal without any artistic credibility). The trick, of course, is to play tons of Nickelback, but make people think you’re playing Radiohead a lot more than you really are. So you “image” yourself with Radiohead by finding excuses to say their name without playing their music. Contests and specialty features are a great way to do this. I was the king of this kind of smoke and mirrors. During my time at BRU, the playlist was all Green Day, Linkin Park and the Chili Peppers, but the contests were all about Deathcab for Cutie, Modest Mouse and the Dropkick Murphys. Few people fake indie cred as well as I do.
And this never bothered me, because I knew that the only reason people would ever be able to hear the cool indie bands was because I played mass-appeal bands like Nickelback. Nickelback records pay the bills. And while the true music lovers may hate the band, they fail to realize that without Nickelback, their favorite bands would never get any airplay at all.
This phenomenon is true in other artistic spheres as well. The problem, which Molly’s article highlights, is that when artists run artistic enterprises, they tend to pursue nothing but fringe art. Fringe art doesn’t pay the bills. Don King has done a fantastic job developing Sound Session in recent years (his Nickelback), but he essentially admits that the Black Rep is struggling because its been booking the artistic equivalent of Radiohead. This may have worked when corporate sponsors and high-rolling donors had money to burn, but not in this economy.
We tend to elevate organizations with the “non-profit” label to a saintly status. The truth is, some organizations don’t turn a profit because not enough people care about what they’re doing to pay for it. Just because you’re tax exempt doesn’t mean you’re doing God’s work.
Trinity Rep has realized this and adjusted their 2009-2010 season to give it more commercial appeal: Cabaret, A Christmas Carol, Twelfth Night, The Odd Couple. “This is how you remind me…” And good for them! This is a smart move, especially because they’re balancing it out with edgier works like Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Shooting Star and Syringa Tree.
Artists will applaud the artistic venues that stick to their guns and refuse to embrace things with commercial appeal. The venues that do veer towards the mainstream will be labeled as sell-outs. To me, this is foolishly short-sighted. If artistic enterprises are going to survive, they need to strike a proper balance between artistic integrity and commercial appeal. It’s like they say to actors in Hollywood, you do a blockbuster film first, then you do an indie flick for yourself. You may not like it, but without Nickelback, there can be no Radiohead. If you want to support the arts, you also have to support the people that finance the arts.
