Author: Reiss, Alvin H.

Publication Year: 1971

Media Type: Report

Summary:

In this provocative new book Alvin H. Reiss analyzes the activities of business and arts groups during a decade of social upheaval: a period in which they became less private and increasingly subject to the pressures and criticisms of the larger and more demanding audiences they served. In describing the steps leading toward an improbable yet necessary alliance, the author probes the significance of such key developments as: arts power; commercial business-arts partnerships; cultural tokenism; stockholder influence on corporate social activity; business exploitation; the fragile arts economy; new arts programming, and the influence of government, labor and minority groups.

Abstract:

In this provocative new book Alvin H. Reiss analyzes the activities of business and arts groups during a decade of social upheaval: a period in which they became less private and increasingly subject to the pressures and criticisms of the larger and more demanding audiences they served. In describing the steps leading toward an improbable yet necessary alliance, the author probes the significance of such key developments as: arts power; commercial business-arts partnerships; cultural tokenism; stockholder influence on corporate social activity; business exploitation; the fragile arts economy; new arts programming, and the influence of government, labor and minority groups. His carefully drawn blueprint for the future is set within the framework of shattering and inevitable social change. If business and arts touch man first, he argues, they then can begin to touch each other.

This is not a gentle book, and it certainly is not a reverent one as it explodes the carefully contstructed stereotypes built around corporations and cultural organizations over the years. But for anyone concerned with business, the arts, and the survival of society, this is a book not to be missed.

CONTENTS
Preface by Alvin Toffler.

  1. A dialogue.
  2. Assault on the corporation.
  3. The arts are in the ball game.
  4. The pragmatic years.
  5. The enlightened years.
  6. The critical years.
  7. Government and other influences.
  8. An economic view of the arts.
  9. A new look.
10. Arts power.
11. The scale of business exploitation.
12. Culture: The soul food of the seventies.
13. The societal era: The beginning.

Notes [bibliography].
Index.

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Private Sector