20UNDER40 & the Future of the Arts

New Book & Arts Movement 20UNDER40 Brings Tangible Ideas to a Field in Need of Change.

By Ciara Pressler

I spend a lot of time thinking and talking about sustainability in the arts.  Why is the model for most arts projects, productions, organizations, broken?  How can we fix it?  Is anyone willing to do that work when their ingenuity seems much better rewarded elsewhere?

As with all things artistic, ideas are most exciting when they become tangible game plans.  Solutions.  Which brings us to a kindred project known as 20UNDER40.

The first project of its kind, arts champion Edward P. Clapp sought to give emerging arts leaders a platform, and created an open call for chapter proposals from arts professionals under 40 years old.  To quote the foreword by Eric Booth: “we talk a good game about collaboration and openness to new ideas in the arts, but the input from our younger professionals is neither sought nor honored as a regular practice.”

This month marks the release of the anthology that does just that: 20UNDER40: Re-Inventing the Arts and Arts Education for the 21st Century, packed with 20 incredibly smart essays about what could, and should, be next in our field.  The ideas are as diverse as the arts themselves, including digital trends, art criticism, philanthropy through crowdsourcing, creative rights in the internet age, arts orgs with an expiration date, arts administration, the anatomy of choreography, and how art can empower science.

Everyone who cares about the arts should own this book, and I’m not just saying that because (full disclosure!) I’ve had the wonderful privilege of promoting it - its concepts have implications for all of us, from performers to educators to administrators… to marketers.  Accordingly, here are a few highlights from my favorite chapters that have implications for arts marketing and audience development.

Chapter 5: Please, Don’t Start a Theater Company!: Next Generation Arts Institutions and Alternative Career Paths

Rebecca Novick: My chapter highlights several organizations where audience development is integrated into the way the company engages its community, creating built-in audiences rather than an ever-growing list of marketing to-do’s.  I also suggest that an essential and growing segment of the arts audience are people engaged in making the art.  Established organizations could encourage artists at all stages of development to participate in art-making as part of their programming, without getting so hung on delineating the outmoded differences between professionals and amateurs.

Chapter 1: Inventing the Future of the Arts: Seven Digital Trends that Present Challenges and Opportunities for Success in the Cultural Sector

Brian Newman: Audiences today want, and expect, a sense of being part of an ongoing conversation where their input is valued. The old ways of just marketing yourself, constantly, are antithetical to this new way of thinking. My chapter speaks explicitly to the need for arts organizations to engage these participatory audiences, to build real communities and to have a real conversation.

Chapter 20: Handprint Turkeys and the Cotton Ball Snowman: Is There Hope for an Artful America?

Bridget Matros: Every child is born an artist (read: future audience member, supporter, and participant). Something goes terribly wrong between that glorious time and adulthood, and you are left toiling to “develop” in a receptive minority what was there in every persontwenty years before you got to them. (Fantastic ads on the subway, ICA! Finally, a hot black male artist you can pin up beside the artwork to draw in that young urban potential museum-goer. It’s a shame that 75% of the riders on the train don’t give a damn about some dude’s paint-splatters; you are vying for the participation of that 25% that somehow averted having the art sucked out of their being already.) Audience development that turns a blind eye to early childhood education (where I argue the scarring-for-life/cause for creative deficiency occur) is like trampling thousands of seeds underfoot while you tediously, devotedly search the vine. Your audience is developed. An investment in saving them may be a hell of a lot more lucrative than focusing on resuscitation down the line.

Amen, Bridget. Now go get your copy, dive into these ideas and discuss - but not at the expense of turning best intentions into tangible actions.

[get involved]
Get the anthology at www.20UNDER40.org or your e-tailer of choice.

[open-invite events] 
Boston 12/10 - Official Launch Event with Edward Clapp and the 20UNDER40 Authors, including Kick-Off Colloquium and Party of the Future.

NYC 12/13 - Launch Networking Party with co-hosts Fractured Atlas, Emerging Leaders of New York Arts (ELNYA), and Young Educators in the Arts (YEA)

[beyond]
Join the Facebook Group for notification on future events and developments