Business Finding New Ways to Aid Arts |
from the September-October 2009 Issue of Arts Management Dollar support may be hard to come by, but business, in addition to sponsorship dollars and funding, is finding other ways to help artists and cultural organizations. A top professional football franchise, The Dallas Cowboys, is giving prominent exposure to art in its new $1.15-billion Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. In a major ongoing program, such well-known artists as Olafur Eliason and Lawrence Weiner have been among the 14 artists commissioned thus far to create site-specific installations to be placed in the stadium’s highest pedestrian traffic areas. Most of the works will be in place by September 20th when the Cowboys play their first home game of the season. The art program, with guidance from local arts professionals, will continue with additional commissions and will include an art education program and art tours of the stadium. An arts organization that brings youngsters together with professional artists to create public art addressing civic and social issues was the beneficiary of a top fashion store in New York City. In celebration of its 20th anniversary, DKNY (Donna Karan New York) honored CITYarts with a champagne celebration at its Madison Avenue store introducing several new sales items to benefit the arts organization. Eight limited edition tote bags designed by DKNY from “Pieces for Peace” art created by CITYarts participants, are being sold for $25 – about 200 bags in all – with all proceeds donated to the arts group. Store designers also created a display of wooden cubes featuring the “Pieces for Peace” designs that CITYarts will use for traveling exhibits. CITYarts is one of five New York nonprofits that will receive a percentage from the sale of $65 DKNY “Chari-Tee” shirts created by store designers specifically to aid the recipient organizations. The Museum of Arts and Design in New York City launched a new project with support from Benjamin Moore & Co., the paint manufacturer, in which artists are being commissioned to transform the stairwells in the 12-story museum building into new exhibit areas through painting projects. Mary Temple, the first artist to participate in the “Art Encounters” program – there will be four over the next three years – applied latex paint to walls and wood stains to floors at a fourth floor stairwell, to create a trompe l’oeill installation, “First Week,” which will remain on view through the end of the year. Two leading Miami arts groups, the Miami Music & Art Fund and the Arts and Culture Center of Hollywood, along with a local hospital, are the designated beneficiaries of Miami GuitarTown, a public art exhibit sponsored by Gibson Guitar, that took over much of the city beginning on August 5. More than 70 guitar sculptures and showcase guitars painted and signed by local artists and donated by Gibson will remain in prominent interior and exterior sites throughout the city through September 13 when they will go on display for several weeks at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood. On September 26 they will be sold to the highest bidders at a gala benefit auction at the Hotel. The Indiana Repertory Theatre, which has been aggressive in building new corporate relationships – a 13% sponsorship revenue increase during the past season – is using a new sponsorship agreement from a long-time supporter, Eli Lilly and Company, to expand its reach into the community. For its upcoming production of “The Heavens Are Hung in Black,” a play about Abraham Lincoln, Lilly sponsorship along with an NEA grant will enable the theater to develop new partnerships with the Indiana History Center and the Indiana State Museum, both of whom are featuring Lincoln exhibits during the current bicentennial year celebration. Events include a family day at the theater with the Indiana Historical Society and a preview of a State Museum exhibit that will include a conversation with James Still, IRT’s Playwright-in-Residence. In the St. Louis suburb of Crestwood a nearly moribund mall, with 75% of its spaces unoccupied, came to life thanks to the owner’s decision to launch ArtSpace, a program offering space to artists at a rock bottom rental of $100 a month. Launched late last year at Crestwood Court with several open houses, the program has since attracted some 50 ArtSpace tenants and more than 200 artists representing virtually every discipline in the visual and performing arts including such renters as Avalon Theatre, Art Coop and Show Me Handmade. The mix, with photography centers, arts classes for children, a dance school and such special arts-oriented events as gallery walks and music festivals, has attracted growing crowds to the mall. Importantly, in addition to the artist-leased spaces, the mall has since attracted a growing number of traditional retail stores. One of New York’s leading department stores, and a major supporter of the arts some years ago, is saluting the movies this fall in a “Lights, Camera, Fashion” promotion. Along with movie studio tie-ins, window displays, film festival partnerships and movie-themed in-store promotions, the store commissioned five short films from Young Indies Films, an organization of not-yet-established writers and directors. It provided funding for the low-budget films which were shot in New York City, without any requirement to include Bloomingdale’s in them. The shorts will be shown in store viewing lounges and on bloomingdales.com. Overseas hotels have been finding ways to help artists. One of Berlin, Germany’s top hotels, the five-star Marienbad, is courting out-of-town artists with an interesting barter offer – free room and board in return for a work of art that will effect a permanent change in the hotel. Thus far artists have created installations and placed works by fellow artists and art students in a hotel room. Douglass Gordon, a Turner Prize winner from Scotland, designed a red neon sign for the hotel’s façade. The Le Meurice Hotel in Paris is sponsoring the 2nd annual Prix Meurice for Contemporary Art. The winning artist, will be selected from seven finalists whose works are being exhibited at the hotel from September 5 to October 1, when the winner will be announced in a ceremony at the hotel. Both the winner and his or her gallery each will receive 10,000 euros. In Wales, meanwhile, the financially-pressed Faenol Festival, which was forced to cancel its 2009 season, has found business backing from Universal Music Classical Management and Productions that will guarantee the program from 2010 to 2012. Founded by opera singer Bryn Terfel, the festival also has received an option from its backer for an additional two year partnership through 2014. In other business-arts developments, the BCA 10 annual awards for top contributions by business to culture, will be held at New York’s Museum of Natural History on November 19. WQXR-FM, New York City’s only radio station devoted exclusively to classical music, was sold by the New York Times Company to WNYC, the city’s leading public radio station, where it will occupy a weaker signal frequency and will be listener-supported. WNYC received a $5-million challenge grant from the Jerome L. Greene Foundation to purchase and operate WQXR. Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc, which filed for bankruptcy last fall, has put its multi-million corporate art collection up for auction. Earlier UBS, the Swiss bank, announced that it would withdraw its financial support for the UBS Verbier Orchestra in Switzerland after this year, representing a loss of million of dollars a year in sponsorship. Meanwhile, a leading museum has ventured successfully into corporate territory usually frequented by performing arts groups. This past January the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, introduced its “At Work” program, offering corporations six skill-building sessions a year led by Mariann Smith, the museum’s curator of education. The sessions, which focus on such areas as problem solving, corporate team building and innovation, alternate each month with six networking evenings. Corporate membership in the At Work Business Partnership ranges from contributions of $300 a year for companies with two to nine employees, through five different levels, all the way up to $5,000 a year for companies with 500 or more employees. The program has enrolled 25 corporations, most in the mid-level range with several in the higher range. from the September-October 2009 Issue of Arts Management |
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