Author: Hodsoll, Frank

Publication Year: 2002

Media Type: Periodical (article)

Summary:

In this article I describe in broad outline the nature of the transactions that define the arts sector and relationships between the for-profit and not-forprofit parts of it. I base the article on a component of a 2000 report to the Irvine Foundation, which itself was an outgrowth of the 1998 American Assembly entitled “Deals and Ideals: For-Profit and Not-for-Profit Arts Connections.”

Abstract:

In this article I describe in broad outline the nature of the transactions that define the arts sector and relationships between the for-profit and not-forprofit parts of it. I base the article on a component of a 2000 report to the Irvine Foundation, which itself was an outgrowth of the 1998 American Assembly entitled “Deals and Ideals: For-Profit and Not-for-Profit Arts Connections.”

To ascertain whether changing circumstances in the worlds of art and culture might yield new products, new enterprise models, and new sources of capital—the objective of the Irvine Foundation study—one needs some sense of what is happening in the field. I undertook a set of fifty-two interviews of for-profit and not-for-profit cultural leaders conducted over the four-year period 1997–2000. Since completion of the interviews, Richard E. Caves, Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University, has published Creative Industries (2000), analyzing the extraordinary range of contracts between art and commerce. In this essay, I combine the results of my interviews with a number of important facts and findings contained in the Caves book, as well as additional information gathered in 2002. A list of those interviewed appears in the appendix.

It is important to note that the world has not stood still since December 2000. Changes in the economy, technology, and rules governing intellectual property continue to affect the arts sector and the transactions that describe it. For example, the bloom has come off the Internet initial public offering craze that permeated the first half of 2000. And as the American Assembly’s 2002 report Art, Technology, and Intellectual Property demonstrates, this area continues to evolve as well. I have adjusted some of the conclusions derived from the earlier interviews to take into account new and current realities.

This article comprises an overview of the relationships, investors, tensions, and prospects for cultural ransactions that mix art and commerce; summary discipline–specific sections (contracted from a longer piece); findings; and recommendations intended to address the public interest in cultural transactions. In this context, I define the public interest as making a greater variety of high-quality art that is more broadly accessible. [p.104-105]

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Technology and Innovation, Private Sector, Intellectual Property, Financial Management