"If you are one of the many (facebook) friends of Doug McDonald, you already know how pleased he is with the recent BIG days at the Cincinnati Museum Center where he is President."
(If you aren't on
Facebook yet, I'd recommend it to you. A latecomer to the social networking site myself - I'm growing to enjoy it as a simple and unobtrusive way to update friends with work and leisure stuff, as well as get and share info about events, interesting news articles, etc. BTW, Doug was the first person ever to friend me - after the young people in my DC office had signed me up, but before I'd ever even looked at "my" page.)
If you haven't heard from Doug, then you'll be glad to know that despite the horrid news reported recently about the impact of the economy on nonprofits across the country, the
Cincinnati Museum Center's Omnimax had it's biggest week of the last five years over the recent holiday. The staff there believes this success is due in part to the very popular film they're currently showing, Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk. (The film is heading into its final weeks - last presentation is Feb. 12 - and people are still lining up to catch it before it's gone.)
Plus, nearly 4,700 people bought a membership to the Museum Center in the month of December - surpassing the staff's expectations and the previous December's record too.
Still, Museum Center leaders are not assuming that this kind of performance can continue in our current economy. But, it's awfully nice to have such good news to report.
It's quite likely that in these days of stress, Cincinnati-area residents are seeking the value of a shared experience provided by art and culture. Fortunately for all of us, we have lots to choose from in this area because we've made these organizations part of our public life, investing over time in ways that will benefit us all for "the long time."
In the New York Times Arts section on Sunday (January 11), reporter Holland Cotter wrote on a related topic in
Museums Look Inward for Their Own Bailouts.
Cotter offers a fresh lens on the ubiquitous story of economic impact on the arts. Cotter chose to focus less on the major donor role, and more on the expansion of an idea he dubs the "people's museum."
'Several of our veteran museums are doing by undoing: loosening up the rigid values and temple-of-art models that shaped them, and replacing these with a new "people's museum" model, unsacred in atmosphere, fluid in values, with complicated answers to the question of what museums are.'
He seems somewhat skeptical of those who worry that the impact of these changes will affect quality, and more interested in whether they broaden participation and support. Moreover, he's applauding risk-taking and argues there is no reason more access necessarily leads to lower quality.
Like Doug McDonald's facebook update, Cotter's article is quite refreshing news.