Artistic Paradox

This is a thread from Mission Paradox - here's the gist: as we struggle to create and sustain our audiences, what purpose does the art play in the event? Is the art a means to end, or an end in itself? The conversation is certainly larger than it gets here and ranges pretty widely in the philosophical-anthropological realm.

We keep talking about finding ways for people to connect with our particular art form.

But people don't want to connect to art . . . they want to connect to other people.

So instead of a theatre company seeing their performance on stage that night as the point of the evening, perhaps they should just see themselves as the hub . . . as the thing that connects all the people in the audience to each other.

Now I know many artists would hate to see it that way. I mean the arts are about the artists right? People pay good money to see directors and musicians and dancers!

Right?

I'm not so sure any more.

I think what people are willing to pay for is to be connected to other people.

Mission Paradox also has an excellent blog on mission statement basics. The following comment from the post quoted above gave me some real pause in terms of what it is we're trying to do in the performing arts these days:

...connecting people in a renewing environment is our mission, actually. Indeed, the specific play that we're doing at any given time is secondary to the culture that we're creating in the world of the play.

I'm sorry - but what?!

If the mission of arts organizations is not to create art, then it begs the question: isn't there some better way to "connect people in a renewing environment?" Couldn't you easily succeed at that mission by offering classes on boat building, or starting a folf league? When push comes to shove, with no artists, there is no art. If your arts organization puts the needs of the community above the needs of the artist, you will turn your product into lukewarm porridge, lightly salted to taste.

This is an oldie-but-a-goodie that I cherry picked off Mission Paradox in yet another post:

Courtesy of Michael Kaiser from the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.
1. Create Great Art
2. Market Like Hell
3. Build the Board
4. Ask for Money

I will assert that it is an absolute truth that the art comes first, and anyone who thinks otherwise does so at the peril of their organization and their community. I will concede that the spiritual-anthropological desire to create and share art comes from a desire to connect and transform your fellow beings - and that this arises from the same urge that herds us together in the first place as a gregarious species.

I just can't get around how much history and culture gets tossed out the window when you switch your focus from creating a great play with great artists to having a flock of cultural "consumers" write about what they thought afterward in the lobby while the artists shuffle out the side door.