GIA Blog

(12-6-2010)  After the news coming out of the National Portrait Gallery this past week, a few quotes come to mind: “This is like deja vu all over again” (Yogi Berra) and “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (an oft misquoted quote from George Santayana.)

(12-6-10) Last week, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced $3.8 million in gifts to twenty-seven 2010 Knight Arts Challenge Miami winners. “Anyone can apply to the Knight Arts Challenge. The only requirement is that they have a great idea. [The] winners show South Florida has an abundance of them,” said Dennis Scholl, Knight Foundation’s vice president/arts. Over the past three years, the foundation has invested a total of $17.5 million in Miami-area Arts Challenge projects.

(12-6-10) Last week, Smithsonian Institution officials in Washington removed an artwork from an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. The critically acclaimed show's subject is a century of gay identity in art. The decision to remove the work caused an uproar.

(12-3-10) This National Study of Artist-Endowed Foundations, conducted for Aspen Institute's Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation and authored by Christine J. Vincent, is the first effort to define and describe the artist-endowed foundation field in the US. Though a small portion of all private foundations, these distinctively endowed entities are growing in number and, as such, represent a potential force shaping cultural philanthropy and stewarding this country's postwar and contemporary art patrimony.

(12-3-10) The International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA) this week announced preliminary plans to work with a range of partners to develop an international database of cultural policies. The announcement was made in Paris to the Intergovernmental Committee of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

(12-2-10) The first Regional Issues Forum of 2011 will be held on Thursday, January 27. The one-day seminar, sponsored by the MetLife Foundation, is open to all funders and will focus on creative arts and aging. It is a collaboration between Grantmakers in Aging, Grantmakers in the Arts, and The National Center for Creative Aging. Co-sponsors include the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, the Arizona Community Foundation and the Arizona Grantmakers Forum.

(12-2-10) The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF) has appointed Barron M. Tenny to its board of directors. Tenny is executive vice president, secretary and general counsel of the Ford Foundation. He joined the Foundation in 1983 as special assistant to the president and was made vice president, secretary and general counsel in 1984. Prior to joining the Foundation, Tenny spent nine years at the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation.

(12-2-10) In an unusual move that may alter the contemporary dance landscape in New York, the boards of Dance Theater Workshop and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company voted unanimously Wednesday to merge their organizations, forming a combination producing and presenting entity to be called New York Live Arts.

(12-2-10) Today, the National Endowment for the Art announces the new Media Arts Director Alyce Myatt. Myatt will lead the NEA's Media Arts office, both as a leading voice for the media arts field and as manager of NEA grantmaking in film, video, audio, web-based, and other electronic media. She begins her tenure on January 3, 2011.

Read the complete announcement here.

(12-1-10) Today is World AIDS Day and the 22nd annual Day Without Art. Since 1989, on December 1 organizations and individuals in arts communities have staged HIV/AIDS-related exhibitions and events, sometimes closing arts spaces in an effort to illustrate, literally, the loss of artists to AIDS. While these activities have slowed in recent years, some organizations, such as the J. Paul Getty Museum, continue to produce events that raise awareness of the ongoing health crisis.