Business Finance Media Technology Policy Wealth Insights Interviews

Art Art Fairs Art Market Art Reviews Auctions Galleries Museums Interviews

Lifestyle Nightlife & Dining Style Travel Interviews

Power Lists Nightlife & Dining Art A.I. PR

About About Observer Advertise With Us Reprints

How Can Philanthropy Help the Arts? By Fully Supporting Innovators

As cultural organizations across the country face a deepening financial crisis, Remuseum founding director Stephen Reily and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation president and CEO Samsher (Sam) Singh Gill believe foundations and funders need to actively back not just new ideas but also the innovators brave enough to see them through.

Arts organizations across the country are facing a genuine crisis, one that has been growing for decades. Attendance has declined while costs have risen. At the same time, shifts in politics and in philanthropy now threaten to deprive organizations of essential revenue. One of us was a board member and donor turned museum director, and the other leads a longtime funder of performing artists and presenting institutions. We came to the arts in different ways and have very different perspectives on the sector. While we are both passionately committed to the power of the arts and recognize the importance of arts funders, we have begun to wonder whether they have failed to keep up with a changing world.

Sign Up For Our Daily Newsletter

Thank you for signing up!

By clicking submit, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge we may use your information to send you emails, product samples, and promotions on this website and other properties. You can opt out anytime.

While it’s clear that approaches to cultural production, audience tastes and methods of engagement are in the throes of ongoing evolution, the reality is that most of us continue to support and present arts and culture in ways that have remained largely static for over a century. For visual art and other museums, the dominant approach to presentation has been a large and ever-growing “box.” Inside this box is typically a significant and ongoing investment in the acquisition, storage and maintenance of a permanent collection as well as a set of business and curatorial practices that are sometimes more focused on objects than on the public.

In the performing arts, the story is largely the same. A big “box”—this one with a stage—is focused on filling out a season, often according to dated standards and under the guidance of an artistic........

© Observer