Mile-High Musings on Arts, Culture, Creativity and Philanthropy

The current exhibition at the Art Gallery at City Hall is called "The Department of Alternative Affairs" and it is a collaboration between three artist collective groups in Philadelphia: Little Berlin, Extra Extra, and FluxSpace. One of the especially vibrant aspects of Philadelphia's visual arts scene is a growing number of artist collectives, some (but not all) of which may also have physical spaces, usually in areas of the City where really affordable space can be found. We thought it would be valuable to invite in three of these collectives and give them the opportunity to figure out how they would like to use the gallery space. What they have chosen to do is create a new "City agency" for the duration of their exhibit called "The Department of Alternative Affairs" (DAA). This conceit is carried through in the installation of desks and other office equipment in the space, at which members of the groups actually do their work. There are also per...

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) just now announced the recipients of grants under their new "Our Town" arts and placemaking initiative. $6.575 million in grants will go to 51 communities in 34 states that have created public-private partnerships to strengthen the arts while shaping the social, physical, and economic characters of their neighborhoods, towns, cities, and regions. NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman made the announcement during a press conference this afternoon. The full NEA press release and descriptions of all the grantee projects is available here . I am very excited that the City of Philadelphia (the Office of Arts Culture and the Creative Economy, working with our Commerce Department) has partnered with The Reinvestment Fund (TRF) and University of Pennsylvania’s Social Impact of the Arts Project (SIAP) to secure one of the largest grants awarded, $250,000, to build and launch a Creative Assets Mapping Database for the City of Philadelphia (TRF is the ...