by Emil J Kang: You said something on PBS NewsHour that I want to take seriously: “We cannot have arts institutions that lose money.”
You are responding to real pressures. I’ve spent thirty years in this sector. I’ve sat in rooms where we discussed debt reserves, union contracts, and ticket revenue that could not cover costs. I’ve felt the anxiety you’re responding to. It’s real.
But the conclusion you’ve drawn from it reflects a misunderstanding of what you’ve inherited.
2 comments:
I completely agree with this author that the legal distinction between nonprofit and commercial performing arts institutions is completely necessary to protecting the integrity, authenticity, and diversity of public art. Its important that popular arts are not the only arts available. If the only arts that are able to function properly are the ones that make money, I believe this defeats the purpose of public art as a social function. Its important that arts be able to function simply because they serve the people, and that they be allowed to continue serving the people with support from the government no matter the messaging. I love the quote that “The job of a major cultural institution has never been simply to follow taste. It has been to shape it.” If we followed taste, our taste would never evolve. Public, nonprofit art not only serves the people, but promotes the development of society in terms of culture.
This article very much reminded me of the discourse surrounding Timothée Chalamet with his comments regarding the “irrelevancy” of older, classical performance mediums such as opera or ballet. While I do believe his statements may have been blown out of proportion with the responses from these art enthusiasts, it reflects a broader issue of the dying regard for the theatrical medium. Personally, I see this as more of an issue with class, accessibility, education and eliticism that’s often associated with many forms of the non-profit regional theatrical sector, as its underappreciation can also be tied to the shift towards digital content consumption, but I completely agree with this author in their assessment of the need for maintaining and supporting arts institutions that potentially “lose money”. Theatre is meant to be consumed for cultural, artistic enrichment by audiences, money be damned if it’s a sacrifice for the necesity that is artistic cultural enrichment. I fear that sentiment grows less popular by the day, but I do have hope for the future in people advocating and realizing its truth and importance.
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