Grantmakers in the Arts

by Steve

From The New York Times Art Beat blog:

The American version of London’s annual Frieze Art Fair, which makes its debut in New York in May, wants to be more than just another place to see and buy contemporary art. Using its unusual and remote location – the 256-acre Randall’s Island, in the East River between East Harlem, the South Bronx and Astoria, Queens – it has commissioned eight artists to construct what is calls “a temporary pop-up village.”

by Tommer

Arts Journal has launched a discussion on leadership featuring a number of familiar and new voices.

by Steve

The Media Arts funding area of the National Endowment for the Arts continues to evolve in tandem with the dynamic nature of the media arts field. Public feedback on our approach to this funding category will be taken and discussed during a webinar on Thursday, January 26. You’ll be able to hear directly from NEA staff and members of the Arts in Media panels and text to us your questions and comments.

by Steve

Filmmaker David Hoffman set up his dream studio on a hilltop in the Monterrey Bay area of California, complete with his archive of almost 200 films, his equipment, and other collections, including his father's photography. As he was completing his fifth film his studio burned down. Only a week after the fire he spoke at a TED talk about his very bad week. Another film maker, John Vincent Barrett, created this hour-long video that portrays an artist coping with the aftermath of the loss of a life's work.

by Steve

The online documentary Here Comes the Neighborhood is a seven-part series that examines Wynwood Walls, a mural and graffiti project in Miami, Florida. The project was designed in 2009 to revitalize a warehouse district and began with the idea that “Wynwood's large stock of warehouse buildings, all with no windows, would be my giant canvases to bring to them the greatest street art ever seen in one place,” according to Tony Goldman, the project creator. Murals by renowned street artists have covered the walls of the Wynwood Walls complex since 2009, and to create more canvases and bring more artists to the project, Goldman opened the Wynwood Doors in 2010 with 176 feet of roll-up storefront gates. The painted exteriors and interiors of the doors reveal a portrait gallery.

by Abigail

On his blog, The Artful Manager, Andrew Taylor reflects on a recurring theme of the recent Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference in New York: boundary crossing, the unexpected unions between arts organizations and a variety of non-art planning and service organizations. Rather than discussing these unions as silo breakers, he coins a new term, "edge-perts," to describe the individuals who are successfully fostering and navigating these collaborations.

by Steve

From Chris Jones at The Chicago Tribune:

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn was feted in Washington, D.C., Thursday morning for his support of the arts by Americans for the Arts, a nonprofit arts-advocacy group.

by Steve

From illustrator and author Margaret Chodos-Irvine, in her blog Pebbles in the Jar:

If you are traveling in the realm of arts education today, you will likely hear reference to Habits of Mind. This is a good term to familiarize yourself with if you are interested in advocating for the arts in education.