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

As some may have already heard, I have been appointed the new President and Chief Executive Officer of the  Bonfils-Stanton Foundation  in Denver, Colorado. I am so excited about taking on this new challenge but, of course, sorry to be leaving my friends and colleagues here in Philadelphia. Here is the link to the  City of Philadelphia press release , and to  the Foundation release . Someone congratulated me with the quote "Go West Young Man", which I took as a reference to Horace Greeley who coined the term. He meant it as a reference to the Pet Shop Boys Song , which somehow passed me by completely. (Well, I know how it passed me by - I have a 90's popular culture black hole from the era when I was parenting two young children!) I feel proud of my accomplishments in Philadelphia as Chief Cultural Officer and director of the  Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy , and feel that I am leaving a strong legacy, and a great team in place. I will als...

A few days ago I spoke at a reception for the Philadelphia region music education organization Musicopia . Because so many other speakers were already attesting to the value of their work (which IS wonderful - check out their website), I decided I would focus on the larger issue of the value of arts education, with specific emphasis on what sorts of direct impact on a community quality arts education provides. To me, and to those of us in the field, this information, this perspective may seem self-evident. But to many, this may not be the case. A corporate foundation director came up to me afterwards and asked if could share my remarks with her to be distributed to her board, so they could understand the larger civic and economic value of arts education investments. Unfortunately, I spoke without notes, but I thought it might be helpful to try and recreate my key points on my blog, with links so others can use it if they wish. Arts education is a crucial civic imperative for an arr...

J. Meejin Yoon's Light Drift: October 15-17, 2010 from Philebrity on Vimeo . One of the great installations as part of DesignPhiladelphia was "Light Drift" by artist Meejin Yoon, presented by the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. Only able to be viewed at night, and only up for three days this past weekend, it was one of those "happenings" that are both great art, and great community celebrations. If you missed it, here is a video that captures a little of the magic. Opening on October 25th in the Art Gallery of City Hall will be a salute to some of the DesignPhiladelphia installations that the City was involved in, directly or indirectly, including Light Drift . It will also include material related to the Aurora Robson be like water installation at the Skybox (that runs through November 7th), the Virtual Public Art Project exhibit with Breadboard, Philadelphia Underground , curated by Marianne Bernstein, and FABLASTIC , by Multicultural Youth e...

Aurora Robson - "Up Drop" (detail) One of the great cultural assets of Philadelphia is the now six-year-old DesignPhiladelphia . This major annual celebration of all things design is now housed at University of the Arts, and each year in the month of Ocotber (this year, the 7th through the 17th)  brings together scores of exhibitions, installations, symposia and unclassifiable "happenings around the filed of design - furniture design, product design, sustainable design, fashion design, architecture, landscape architecture, etc. It is definitely a big tent, and plays to the wealth of talent that Philadelphia has in these areas. It also serves as a vehicle for bringing in artists and designers from outside the region to enrich the dialogue. It is the largest celebration of its kind and brings together the work this year of over 450 designers. One of the exciting installations this year is "be like water" - a site specific installation by the artist Aurora Ro...

Leon Jesse James, "Space Modulator", acrylic on board. SCI Graterford The Art in City Hall program of the City of Philadelphia has just opened a new exhibition, INSIDE/OUTSIDE - Art by Prison Inmates and Ex-Offenders . This is a wonderful, powerful, and thought-provoking new show and I encourage everyone to see it. It is open until October 29th, on the secod and fourth floors of City Hall. More information is available here . The show involves participating artists from SCI Graterford, The Philadelphia Prison System, Art for Justice , Snyderman-Works Galleries , Connection Training Services , and the Mural Arts Program 's Youth Violence Reduction Partnership Guild Program, as well as local ex-offenders. Thomas Schilk, "Beetle", melted plastic spoons, paint. When I came to my position in 2008 as Chief Cultural Officer, one of the appeals of the position was the fact that the administration of Mayor Michael Nutter viewed the arts as being integral to virt...

A number of recent articles and threads of exploration have gotten me thinking about the importance of the role of the arts and design in transforming our everyday life. I think we are moving toward an era where the traditional enjoyment of art (performing or visual) in a passive way in a facility/space constructed expressly for that purpose will not die, but will find itself joined (perhaps surpassed) by art that subversively injects itself into our everyday life - you don't make the choice to participate. It chooses you - it is an intervention that is unexpected. This can be disturbing, delightful, inspiring, sometimes all at the same time. I have written before about the "arts flash mob"phenomenon and its vial arts equivalent, here , and here , and here . Here are a few of the items that have inspired me to think about this more deeply. Paul Goldberger reviews in the current New Yorker the new Herzog and deMeuron building in Miami. What is this new structure by this ...

Couldn't resist sharing this new video from the graffiti/street artist from Italy, BLU . In this video he uses stop-motion animation techniques to transform street painting into an extraordinary animated film called Big Bang - Big Boom . I think this is especially interesting as it blends multiple art forms - street art, performance art (it is clear that many people had to have watched the creation of this as a work in progress) and eventually a film. When all of this is free, how does the artist make money?  For one, he sells prints, drawings and books via his Web site. This is all part of the convergence going on now: "outsider" artists are now "inside". Renegade street artists are now at the Tate Modern (as was BLU) and are selling coffee table books. Finding the line between "vandalism" and "art" is increasingly difficult. We ran into this in a small way recently with the Philagrafika art fair here in Philadelphia. A participating artis...

Yesterday I had the opportunity to testify before the Philadelphia City Council about the 2011 proposed budget for the Office of Arts, Culture and the Create Economy. This was actually the first time the Office has been invited to present its own testimony to City Council. In past years (before the Office was shut and then reopened) it was included as part of the testimony of Commerce/City Representative, the department within which the Office was housed. While testimony is not necessarily the most fun part of doing one's job, it is a very important part of the process, and in the case of our work here, a great opportunity to tell the story of what the Office has accomplished this past year. We were grateful to have this opportunity to speak directly to Council and answer their questions. As the testimony is a public record, and may be of interest to the public, I thought it might be helpful to share some highlights here, focusing on the 2010 accomplishments and 2011 plans. FISC...

Yesterday was a jam-packed day, with NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman's whirlwind visit to the City of Brotherly Live and Sisterly Affection. The visit was documented in an article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. It was great to be cited as "a model arts city."  After a morning meeting with the staff of The Reinvestment Fund, Rocco and the rest of the NEA visitors, which also included Deputy Chair Joan Shigekawa, our little band went on a quick tour of the City's cultural sites, but with a special emphasis on the role of the arts in neighborhood transformation. Rocco has been a big fan of the work done by Jeremy Nowak and the Reinvestment Fund in partnership with Mark Stern and his Social Impact of the Arts groip at University of Pennsylvania. In fact that work was funded by The Rockefeller Foundation when Joan was there before moving to NEA. We drove by Painted Bride and had a stop at Asian Arts Initiative before ending up at Crane Arts for a tour and a group conv...

Two big announcements this morning: Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (PIFA) - launched with an extraordinary $10 million gift from the late Leonore Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation, this festival will take place April 7 through May 1, 2011.  It will involve innovative collaborations among scores of Philadelphia's arts organizations and artists, as well as international artists and arts organizations. The theme will be "Paris 1910-1920," drawing parallels between the artistic ferment that took place in the early 20th Century in Paris, and the artistic energy that is now flowing in Philadelphia. The programming principles will be: Collaboration, Creativity and Innovation. Programming details to be announced in early April, but there were some "teasers" - a first-ever collaboration between the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Pennsylvania Ballet, the Roots in performance with "a French chanteusse," and circus artists performing in th...

Today we issued a press release announcing the completion of a new study of Philadelphia's public art landscape. The text of the release follows: Philadelphia, PA - The City of Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy announces the completion of a year-long study entitled Philadelphia Public Art: The Full Spectrum performed by PennPraxis , the clinical arm of the School of Design of the University of Pennsylvania, and funded by the William Penn Foundation .  The study was undertaken to assess how public art is currently commissioned, managed, and conserved by the City and other local public art organizations and to make policy recommendations on how to best utilize this tremendous resource relative to the city-wide goals of neighborhood revitalization, economic development, and the creative economy. “This study will be an essential tool as we develop a strategy for how to take what is arguably already the most extraordinary public art city in the country...