Uncategorized | June 3, 2009
Time magazine features an article in its June 8 issue entitled “Culture Crunch: The Recession and the Arts.” It explores how the “Great Recession” has impacted the arts nationally.
Here’s a segment of the article.
….Endowments have shrunk everywhere, and sizable budget cuts have been the rule at museums in Atlanta, Baltimore, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Diego. In February the 35-year-old Las Vegas Art Museum simply gave up and shut its doors for good.
In the world of performing arts, the news has been just as bleak. All around the country, orchestras, opera houses, theater troupes and dance companies are cutting salaries, jobs and programs. A few have simply collapsed. The Hartford-based Connecticut Opera closed this year after 67 seasons. So did the 58-year-old Baltimore Opera Company. “Most organizations have been hurt,” says Robert Lynch, president of the advocacy group Americans for the Arts. “But arts organizations aren’t driven by profit. They’re driven by mission. And they’ll do anything to survive.”
The problem is that these groups have been hit in all three of their main revenue streams. For many of them, audiences are down sharply, because in a recession a theater ticket or concert seat can seem like an indulgence. Meanwhile, with corporate profits tanking and charitable endowments badly deflated, donations and underwriting have also been drying up. And as state and local governments contend with huge deficits, arts spending has been a major casualty. In Michigan, where the struggling Detroit Institute of Arts recently laid off 20% of its staff, the 2010 budget proposed by Governor Jennifer Granholm would cut arts funding to exactly nothing.
Read the entire article at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1901465,00.html
The Wyoming Arts Council believes that experiencing the arts should be accessible for all, including people with mental and/or physical disabilities, older adults, military/veterans, people living in institutions and those who lack access to the arts due to geographic isolation, cultural difference and economic hardship.
