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RE: Arts, Culture, and Philanthropy: The Robbed and the Robbers
Very interesting example to explore and learn from. I wonder how museums today would respond to your charge that they tend toward "providing access" more than "promoting education."
And I wonder: if that apparent bias toward the object is indeed true is that rooted in the inherent (and maybe overly dominant) artifact-orientation of museums as a genre of institution.
What I actually meant to say was that many modern museums and other cultural institutions aren't aspiring to anything beyond access and education. While that was an innovative and crazy goal in 1892, over one hundred years later, treating the symptom without addressing the cause is shortsighted and not always in the best interest of an organization's constituency.
One reason I like the example of the East Side Art Exhibition is that it was the product of a joint effort between an arts organization and a social service organization. It wasn't perfect or sustainable in many respects, and there is a paternalistic undercurrent that slightly skeeves me out. But it was creative and it (along with other, similar efforts) succeeded in changing the contemporary conversation, and I think that is something to learn from.
Agreed. It's a fine example.
It would be interesting to look at the mission statements of several museums and see if and how that say they want to go beyond access and education. Looking at the the Philadelphia Museum of Art, they "seek to preserve, enhance, interpret, and extend the reach" of their collections "to an increasing and increasingly diverse audience as a source of delight, illumination and lifelong learning."
Hmmm... What can we say about that?