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Institute of Contemporary Arts to Launch Art-Dedicated Social Media Site
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From Deborah Vankin and the Los Angeles Times:

The London-based Institute of Contemporary Arts will launch a Twitter-like social media platform on Aug. 21 dedicated entirely to art, the Guardian reported. The site, called Art Rules, aims to draw a younger, more digitally-focused audience and spark their interest in art.
One State Together in the Arts on Vimeo
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Arts Alliance Illinois and the Illinois Arts Council Agency held the 2013 One State Together in the Arts conference in late July for arts leaders, advocates and practitioners in Illinois. Video of the speakers is now available online

Tax Reform Lessons Learned From State Experiments
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From Tim Delaney and Lisa Maruyama at Huffington Post:

As Congress begins to dive deeper into comprehensive tax reform, much depends on unproven projections and economic theories. Americans would be served better if Congress instead considered the real world lessons that states have learned by experimenting with limits on charitable tax deductions: local communities lose far more than governments gain.
Getting Creative With the G.D.P.
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From Jeff Sommer, writing for The New York Times:

We have undervalued creativity and research. And despite the hoopla whenever Apple or Google releases a new product, we haven’t grasped the full significance of innovation.

That critique wouldn’t be surprising if it came from an underappreciated artist, scientist or technologist. But it’s being made in what may seem an unexpected quarter: the offices of the federal government. It’s the verdict of the experts who measure the American economy.

Obscure California Law Requires all Students be Taught Arts
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From Mary Plummer, scpr.org:

As budgets worsened over the past several years, schools throughout California cut where they could, slashing arts budgets so deeply some students have been left with no arts education at all.

Arts educator Carl Schafer of Upland, has been on a campaign to increase that instruction for a year. And in his effort, he found a line in the California education code that shocked him: the state requires arts to be taught to California students.

In Response to The Charitable-Industrial Complex
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James V. Toscano responds to the Peter Buffett editorial on the blog The Good Counsel:

Let’s establish some social wealth incubators, capitalize and staff them, open doors, do the due diligence necessary within the risk environment and welcome all comers.
The Charitable-Industrial Complex
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Peter Buffett pens this editorial for The New York Times:

I HAD spent much of my life writing music for commercials, film and television and knew little about the world of philanthropy as practiced by the very wealthy until what I call the big bang happened in 2006. That year, my father, Warren Buffett, made good on his commitment to give nearly all of his accumulated wealth back to society. In addition to making several large donations, he added generously to the three foundations that my parents had created years earlier, one for each of their children to run.
We Might Be Right: A Libertarian Voice in the Theater
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From Caleb Winebrenner, writing for Howl Round:

Augusto Boal says in The Rainbow of Desire that theater is an inherently human vocation. It’s something we all are, but something “some of us also do.” What I find so compelling about this distinction is Boal’s emphasis on what theater can make possible for an individual person. Theater is like a mirror, it’s dichotomizing. We can act as ourself, and we can see ourselves acting. We can have past, present, and even future versions of ourselves on stage—and reflect on what this means. As someone who also does theater, this also means that I’m not just focused on what theater can be for me—asserting my own individual rights, exercising my freedoms of speech and assembly—but what it can be for other people.
How Are Artists Getting Paid?
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From Alexis Clements, at Hyperallergic:

Art and labor is a big topic today, at least among artists. Specifically, it has become ever more obvious that virtually none of the money that flows into major arts institutions, companies that distribute creative content, and art markets actually reaches the artists who generate the work. And people are getting vocal about it.
Detroit’s Creditors Eye Its Art Collection
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We posted two months ago about the director of the Detroit Institute of the Arts’ response to the city's emergency manager showing interest in selling parts of the Institute’s Art collection to help get Detroit out of debt. Last week Detroit filed for bankruptcy, and the city’s art collection is squarely in the sights of creditors.

Unlike most art museums around the country, which are owned by nonprofit corporations that hold a collection in trust for citizens, the institute is owned by Detroit, as is much of its collection — which is not particularly deep but includes gems by artists like Bruegel, Caravaggio, Rembrandt and van Gogh. It is considered among the top 10 encyclopedic museums in the country.