Fresh Angle - White marble metamorphosis

DEBORAH SOLOMON: Hello. Thank you all for being here. Can you hear me? Clearly not. LEHMAN: It's perfect! SOLOMON: We've been warned that the hour after lunch is the sleepiest time of day, so please poke the person next to you and make sure they're awake and paying attention. We will try to do our best to be interesting and not soporific. The video that you just saw, that mass of images, represents arts institutions -- who knew? -- many of which are now, as you guys are well aware, trying to find ways to revive, rehabilitate themselves in the age of all things virtual, and the people we will be talking to today, our distinguished panelists, except for Peter Gelb from the opera, who's not here yet and we're wondering -- CLIVE GILLINSON: Do you want me to answer for him? [Laughter] SOLOMON: No, they're having real problems with the opera. Should we call him? [Laughter] I mean, we're talking today to arts leaders who have found novel ways to bring in new audiences. And I quickly want to say as a kind of preface that I think there are really two basic ways of bringing new audiences to the arts, which of course Rocco Landesman just denied exist at all. But I think you can bring people to the arts through an art experience, or you can bring people to the arts through a non-art experience. My own feeling is that in the time of rampant consumerism, when there's so much fakery out there, everything from fake lips, fake ***, fake news, fake premium jeans, art really does offer an escape from the world of fakeness and it offers us contact with all that is authentic in the culture, in artists, in ourselves, and we turn to art for that experience of non-fakery. So let me start by turning to Arnold Lehman, the Director of the Brooklyn Museum, as you all know, because you it seems to me have relied on certain non-art experiences in order to expand your audience. I'm referring to -- Oh, Peter, so nice of you to show up! [Laughter] PETER GELB: Sorry to be late. GILLINSON: It's called an entrance. [Laughter] GELB: I just came from the Met. We were having the final dress rehearsal of an opera, so I had to wait 'til it ended. LEHMAN: This is a dress rehearsal, also. [Laughter] SOLOMON: I was going to start with Arnold because he has used non-art strategies to bring people to the museum, meaning, for instance, the well-known First Saturday Night to the Brooklyn Museum, involved dancing and drinking and experiences that you hope will encourage people to linger in the galleries and look at work. So my question is, how do we know if the disco experience is translating into an art experience? And how many of those visitors do you think actually are gaining an understanding of the art? ARNOLD LEHMAN: First of all, Deborah, we don't think of them as non-art experiences. We think of them as ways to bring people into the museum. If you gauge by the numbers we had last summer and in the fall, we had as many in a five-hour period of 24,000 people visiting the museum. And what's fascinating is now, ten years later, when we started we had a couple thousand people. They spent most of their time in the social activities, whether it was dancing or drinking or eating. Now we have tens of thousands of people who fill the galleries. We have so many people there for curator lectures or tours that they have to repeat it over and over again or do podcasts. So the essential idea was asking our community to make a choice: Are they making a choice to go to the movies on a Saturday night? Are they making a choice to go to clubs, restaurants? Or are they making a choice to come to the museum? SOLOMON: Right, but what's the- LEHMAN: And that was the choice that they made, and it's just gotten to be in a sense more committed every single year. SOLOMON: Right, but committed to what? For instance, if you wanted to get attendance up, you could let's say on a Friday night you could give all visitors a $100 bill. If everyone came, got $100, that would increase attendance. But aside from being financially unadvisable, it would also kind of defeat the purpose of going to an art museum, which is supposedly to accrue spiritual riches as opposed to material riches. So Clive, let me turn to you -- Clive Gillinson everybody knows I'm sure, the distinguished leader of Carnegie Hall, who I know has also looked for ways to bring in new audiences, but it seems to me has keep to a more traditional framework -- you might not like that word -- in the sense that you're putting music into the community and bringing people to Carnegie Hall through music alone, as opposed to other events, or am I wrong? GILLINSON: Well, I think every organization has to know what it exists for. And I mean, the fact is, Carnegie Hall is primarily about bringing the greatest musicians to Carnegie Hall and bringing music and musicians. But essentially our mission isn't to bring audiences to Carnegie Hall. Our mission is to serve people through music. I mean, our view is that what we exist to do is bring the extraordinary experience of the greatest music and musicians in different ways to people's lives. I mean, we feel, you know, so many things have been explored through the day about the value to education, the value in so many different ways. We're innovative in terms of new music, challenge, exploration. We created festivals where we work with all the greatest institutions across the city to create journeys of exploration. Everything is driven, though, not by what's good for Carnegie Hall, or how do we bring audiences to Carnegie Hall, but how can Carnegie Hall contribute to the lives of people not only just in the city of New York, but nationally and internationally. So we've got programs where we're hoping to support 30 orchestras around the country and so on. SOLOMON: Right, but- GILLINSON: So in other words, it's like a lot of things in life. If you ask the wrong question, you get the wrong answer. And it's not -- [Laughter] You know, so- SOLOMON: Yeah. GILLINSON: So this is not about Carnegie Hall and developing audience. This is about what Carnegie Hall contributes to society through music. And there's a huge number of programs that are about that. I mean, in a way, Carnegie Hall is different I'd say from any other music performing venue now in terms of the breadth of its programs, the reach, the support we're giving to people all around the country in terms of music. SOLOMON: Yeah. GILLINSON: Everything is driven that way around. And it is now you know, traveling internationally, as well. I mean, we've got groups working all around the world helping and supporting and working together in bringing music around the world, too. SOLOMON: What about the balance between classical music and pop music? I know you just had the James Taylor- GILLINSON: James Taylor, yeah. SOLOMON: -there, amid great publicity and fanfare. GILLINSON: Mm-hm. SOLOMON: Has that balance changed at all over the years? GILLINSON: Well, it's always -- everything changes over the years. I mean, but the reality is we've always been about the best of all music, and James Taylor fits into that. And we'll always look at the greatest pop music. I mean, ironically we have less opportunities in that way. I mean, the Beatles, everybody played there throughout history. SOLOMON: Yeah. But are you saying then that you don't look at attendance figures? GILLINSON: Of course we look at attendance figures, but what our view is, is that if you contribute in the right way to the contribution you make to people's lives through music, and of course you've got to be rigorous about how you market, how you use social media, how you use every tool that exists, you know, whether it's broadcasting, television, radio, of course one does all of that. SOLOMON: Right. GILLINSON: But at the end of the day, it's what do you exist for, and you exist to support and nurture the greatest music of every kind in the States and all around the world, and to try and make sure that can be part of everybody's life. And I think the challenge for lots of us is that in today's world, I think these great institutions have probably never been better in history. You know, they represent the pinnacle of achievement. But the irony- SOLOMON: That's just boosterism. GILLINSON: No, but the irony is that it's -- you know, what it means is that for the -- we're more inaccessible, or perceived to be more inaccessible- SOLOMON: Perceived to be more inaccessible? GILLINSON: Yes. I think many, many more people throughout society feel the arts in the great institutions aren't for them, and they can be threatening, it can be -- you know, there's lots of reasons. SOLOMON: You're thinking of England. GILLINSON: No, I'm thinking of here. If you ask -- all of audience research you do here, there are loads of people who don't come to any of these institutions- SOLOMON: Well, part of it is that it's -- I think pricing- GILLINSON: -are intimidated. SOLOMON: Pricing- GILLINSON: No. SOLOMON: -really is much more key than people acknowledge. And that came out at lunch in a very interesting way, I though. For instance, I know that you were saying you get many people on Saturday nights, for Saturday nights precisely because it's free, to come into the museum, yes? LEHMAN: But we're in a sense always free because it's suggested admission. SOLOMON: That's true, right. Right. I think that's so wonderful to have that option of suggested admission, as opposed to the $20 admission at MoMA, which for me was a real turning point. In 2004 when they raised their admission to $20 I felt like they were really gearing themselves towards tourists and one-time visitors as opposed to those of us who like to stop in on our lunch break and don't necessarily want to be members. Peter, you've gotten -- you all know Peter Gelb, I'm sure, the head of the Metropolitan Opera and the man who introduced HD transmissions of opera into New York and elsewhere all around the world, really. Do you -- are you conscious of the number of people coming to your institution and are you trying to -- is that a valid goal, to try to bring more people in? GELB: Well, I think it's -- I respect and agree with what Clive was saying about the mission of Carnegie Hall and certainly the Met shares in its way for opera a similar mission. But I also am very mindful as a producer of the public and attendance. So obviously we are an art form, opera is an art form that relies upon the public to exist, and we have to have the public. So I'm very, very aware of how many people attend every performance every day, and our goal is to have every seat in the opera house filled for every performance, which is not always the case. But certainly that is what is driving all of the decision-making when it comes to how we -- not necessarily how we program operas, because we provide a wide range of operatic repertoire that varies in popularity. But certainly with each piece that we program, we try to make it as artistically interesting through the casting of it, through the productions of it, through the presentation, through marketing, through every aspect of the art -- of artistic and public presentation so that we can maximize the audience for it, whether it's a revival of Ariadne Auf Naxos, which I just came from the dress rehearsal from, to a new production of Traviata. And certainly part of the goals that we have set forth for the Met since I've been there has been to continue to fight this what I consider to be an uphill battle for the classical performing arts in terms of keeping them in front of the public so that there is a public for them. And that involves education, it involves sending our performances into movie theaters around the world in the live transmission program you mentioned. It involves all the activities that we have done, both artistically and in terms of public presentation. SOLOMON: Do you care if -- whether your audience is made up of young people or not? Because I was at the opera on Saturday, and the audience was very elderly. And to me, that's fine. I mean, you know, old people are entitled to have fun, too. [Laughter] GELB: We like to make sure they're alive. [Laughter] SOLOMON: No. It's so boring to have everything geared towards youth. Why shouldn't culture be geared towards people who have the time and money to support it, meaning retirees. Are you very conscious of bringing in younger viewers? The question is to all of you. Elsie, we'll get to you in a minute because- GELB: I'll just answer briefly. The answer is of course yes. I mean, we have to regenerate our audience. When I arrived at the Met, the average age of our audience was a few years older than it is now, so we have been somewhat successful. SOLOMON: And what is that age? GELB: Now it's 62 or -3 years old. But it was older before. And we have certainly been successful in increasing attendance by six or seven percentage points over the last five or six years, and we have been successful in getting more new audiences into the Met. But it is -- and it is essential because if you -- the greatest danger in supervising an art form that's been around for hundreds of years is to be complacent and to think that just because it's existed for so many years that it will continue to exist. If you take that approach or have that attitude, you are dooming it potentially and I -- so it is essential in our activities at the Met to be as proactive as possible artistically, and that's why we're bringing all these great new directors and productions to the Met, or attempting to do that. And we want to bring -- I mean, just theatrically, the sensibility in which we are approaching new productions is geared towards an audience that is both young and old, in the same way great new theater productions of Broadway or the West End are, or, you know, we treat opera as it should be treated, which is as a fantastic combination of all the performing arts and visual arts, and try to have the greatest servants of the art form working on it so that it can appeal to a younger audience, as well as an older one. Because without a younger audience and without educating a new audience, there is no hope. SOLOMON: And Elsie McCabe Thompson, the Director of the Museum of African Art, is just in the process of opening a building on Fifth Avenue for her museum, where everybody else seems to be -- everyone else tries to be reaching towards community and away from the image of museums as an elite Fifth Avenue temple. And yet you are embracing that image, the museum as temple on Fifth Avenue, Museum Mile. Tell us, why did you decide to move there of all the places in the world? ELSIE McCABE THOMPSON: Well, this is not that Fifth Avenue. [Laughter/Applause] SOLOMON: Okay. THOMPSON: We made a very conscious decision. This is Fifth Avenue meets Harlem. We actually lost and said goodbye to two trustees when we announced -- when I announced that we were moving to what they saw as Harlem. It wasn't racism; it was more elitism. And our only direction to Bob Stern, our architect, because I've never built anything before, was that we wanted -- I knew what I didn't want our institution to look like. You know, the Metropolitan Museum is an amazing institution with world class collections. But I didn't want to look like that because that's not our culture. I didn't want to look, you know, sort of like the citadel. And we wanted to look and be accessible. So we're not that Fifth Avenue. We're- SOLOMON: But what does it look like? THOMPSON: -Museum Mile meets Harlem. What it looks like is, you'll notice -- we'll give you a tour, of course. SOLOMON: Everyone else, too. THOMPSON: Absolutely. You know, we wanted to make sure that our culture, our identity as we defined it, was institutionalized. So for instance, there's no education entrance. We front on four different avenues. Many institutions, you know, cultural institutions even in this city have separate education entrances, indeed even separate education buildings. SOLOMON: That's funny. The back door. THOMPSON: Yes. And we wanted our experience to be different. We wanted to be very glass, you know, very permeable feeling, feeling accessible. And we wanted to make sure that every child who came to the museum didn't feel second class in any way, particularly since we knew we would be reaching out to a number of populations of color. Whether they're children or adults, we wanted them walking in the front door, feeling a sense of ownership, of entitlement. They deserve to be there. This is their institution. So for instance, the first major corporate grant we solicited was from JP Morgan Chase, and we asked to be able to waive -- because we're not a city-owned museum. So we asked to be able to waive admission for the community board 10 and 11 residents, which are our immediate neighbors, so that they could come in for free, at least during the first year. We're going to be soliciting more corporate grants to be able to continue that, but we wanted to because that's our culture, those are our values. Because we don't want to be that kind of Fifth Avenue. We want to be our kind of Fifth Avenue. SOLOMON: Mm-hm. Have any of you ever done anything that you regret in the pursuit for new audiences? [Laughter] Peter, you look guilty. GELB: That's just my state of being that I exist in. [Laughter] SOLOMON: Is there such a thing as going too far? GELB: I don't personally regret anything I can think of at this moment in the pursuit of new audiences because I think that we should try -- you know, I was very impressed by what you were talking about, describing in terms of the Saturday night. If there's a way of getting audiences into a theater -- SOLOMON: Into the building. GELB: -I think it's a good thing. I think that obviously every institution has to decide what is the best tactic. I mean, I have been very determined from the moment I set foot in the Met to make opera as accessible as I possibly could without in any way compromising the artistic standards. So we have tried on the one hand to, even though the Met was famous for its great casting, to make the casting as strong as ever, and in fact all of the public activities that we have initiated have helped us in our casting. The fact that we can offer opera singers a stage which reaches a global audience in 46 countries when we transmit in high definition helps our casting. SOLOMON: Clive, how come you're not having Carnegie Hall broadcast in movie theaters? Is that in the works? GILLINSON: No. I mean, there's a huge difference between audio-theatric experience, audiovisual experiences. Opera is theater. Concerts are basically not theater. So with every organization, I mean, it's part of the answer to a lot of your questions. I mean that, you know, you asked are there things you've regretted to do with what you've done to get audiences or anything. Every single question you ask yourself, you have to answer on the basis of total integrity to your art form and understanding your art form and doing something that's totally meaningful in your art form and in the way it addresses people's lives and engages people's lives. And I think the danger is if people chase money and actually do what a donor asks them to do and actually doesn't -- you know, distorts their own vision for that. I think the answer in a way to all of these sort of questions is you've got to have a total understanding of your own beliefs, your own vision, total understanding of your own values, and those have to be represented in the way you address every single thing you do. SOLOMON: Well, that's all -- that is a wonderful statement, but I think in terms of operating in the real world, sometimes one's ideals can become a bit frayed. You're having to, I mean- GILLINSON: I mean, funny enough, I really genuinely don't think so. We all reach the points where there's temptation. Every -- there is -- you never- SOLOMON: Give me an example. When were you tempted? [Laughter] GILLINSON: Now you're talking about Carnegie Hall, not -- But I mean, the answer is you will always get somebody offering you money and saying, "But can you do this?" SOLOMON: Do what, though? GILLINSON: Well, it may be something, playing a particular piece they want, you know. It's a little bit like you buy the best car in the world, and then you start telling the maker what steering wheel you want, what wheels you want, and you actually want them to trans- -- you shouldn't be buying the car if that's not what you believe in. And I think in a way all of us, if one behaves with integrity, it's very interesting. If you succumb to either people offering you money to distort what you do or to chase audiences or to do any of these things, you will always have to succumb thereafter. The interesting thing is if you stay true to your vision and you always say to people, "Don't back us unless you believe in our vision. Don't back us in order to change us. Back us because you believe in us. If you don't believe in us, don't back us." And that's really the answer to so many dimensions of that question. SOLOMON: Arnold, would you agree with that? Because I know the museum changed its mission -- LEHMAN: Exactly. SOLOMON: -ten years ago to suit audiences. Your first priority is serving the audience as opposed to protecting the objects in your collection. Isn't that so? LEHMAN: I wouldn't go that far, Deborah. But there was a fundamental, and in the museum world, a fairly cataclysmic change from missions that were to collect, preserve, and exhibit the word "visitor", the word "people", was never incorporated in those missions. And it's amazing how many institutions, my colleagues, continue to operate on that mission. I'm not saying it's bad. But what we did ten years ago was to reconsider where we were. These great collections, an incredible history, but we were looking at a different audience. We were looking at an audience that through immigration over the years was really an enormous mixed salad in Brooklyn. And we determined- SOLOMON: Well, this is New York City. LEHMAN: -to serve- SOLOMON: We also have a mixed audience here. LEHMAN: Understood. SOLOMON: Yeah. Manhattan. LEHMAN: But we were determined to serve that audience and not to seek audiences that would sustain a more traditional program. SOLOMON: You make it sound as if you're located in Harlem. I mean, you're located in Brooklyn, where every person under the age -- THOMPSON: You say that like it's a bad thing. SOLOMON: No! No! [Laughter] No. No. But I mean, I was going to -- no. He makes it sound as if it's a completely ethnic neighborhood. You also have every yuppie under the age of 40 is living in Brooklyn. The art world is now based in Brooklyn. LEHMAN: But Deborah, that's a new thing, the last few years. SOLOMON: I mean, Brooklyn has... LEHMAN: If you go back ten years ago, even ten years ago -- SOLOMON: It was more- LEHMAN: -when museums had an audience of people of color that varied between 1 and 2 percent, we were already at 20 percent. We're in Prospect Heights, Crown Heights, that's the neighborhood that we exist in. And that's the neighborhood we determined to embrace, to use our great treasures to work a kind of wonder with new audiences. And I think that's really why we changed our mission. We changed the mission to embrace the visitor. And that has really been our touchstone for the past ten years. GILLINSON: But it was remaining true to your values, though, wasn't it? LEHMAN: Yes. GILLINSON: It wasn't chasing other things. [Crosstalk] LEHMAN: Well, we changed, we added a core value, and that core value was the visitor. And that has been a very important part of every decision we make that's made fundamentally on the basis of the collection and our commitment to art, the visual arts, but the visitor always comes in to that equation. SOLOMON: Well, what if the visitor wants to bring a drink into the galleries? LEHMAN: Unless it's you [Laughter] followed by four or five guards. SOLOMON: I mean, because I keep hearing about parties in the Beaux Art Court of the Brooklyn Museum. LEHMAN: Right. SOLOMON: And I think you mentioned to me you were so impressed that no one spilled soda on a Degas recently, a sign of -- did you tell me that? LEHMAN: What I said is that [Laughter] -- this is an interpretive event, and Deborah and I are good friends for a very long time. What I said was in ten years of having tens of thousands of people within an area of the museum where we show part of our Old Master painting collection, we have never had an incident, we have never had a problem, we have never had- SOLOMON: You say an incident, you mean food- LEHMAN: Any kind of an incident involving art. We serve drinks. We serve food. And we have an amazing collection surrounding this group of visitors. And the respect that's shown to that collection is I think one of the most fundamental issues that we have observed over these ten years. SOLOMON: Well, there's a story about -- oh, okay, one minute -- a story about the caterer at the Brooklyn Museum said he didn't want any -- a catering company -- he didn't want any Christian paintings or paintings with nudity on view in the court, and they had to be taken down? [Solomon laughs] Okay. I think we're going to move to Q&A. [Laughter] It seems like a good time. GILLINSON: Sorry I interrupted. LEHMAN: Oh, no, no, no. SOLOMON: Unless, Elsie, you wanted to say something. THOMPSON: I was actually- SOLOMON: You had your hand up. THOMPSON: -just going to underscore Clive's point. GILLINSON: In that case, I shouldn't have interrupted you. [Laughter] THOMPSON: No. [Background Conversation] THELMA GOLDEN: Hi. Is this on? I am Thelma Golden, the Director of the Studio Museum, located [Cheering/Applause] in Harlem. And as much as I want to respond to that, I'm not going to. SOLOMON: Please do. Please do. GOLDEN: Okay? I'm not going to respond to that. But what I'm going to say in response to Clive saying that you sort of have to ask the right question. It seems to me that all of you have been very positively and productively involved in transforming your institutions. And you've done it in ways that in some cases are radical and in many cases misunderstood. It seems to me, though, at the heart of this is the idea of not just increasing audience, which always seems to be the dialectic in which this is spoken about, but really about creating audiences, creating new audiences, creating different audiences. And I'm wondering if you all could talk specifically about that: the desire to and even the method towards creating new audiences for the art that your institutions represent. SOLOMON: You all have much more experience with this than I do, but I want to quickly say that I think arts education is so key, and when I see my children going shopping with their friends as a leisure activity, I think, you know, the schools need to step in and continually reacquaint them with our great cultural institutions in this city, for starters. Go ahead. GILLINSON: Can I just say, coming out of the word "questions" is curiosity. And to me, that's probably the most important word in the world. I mean, you know, there's never -- you never see a child that isn't curious, and yet so many adults are not. When one actually looks at the broader issue of the role of the arts in society, I mean, it's why I suppose I'm never thinking about audiences. What I'm thinking about is how do we serve people through the arts. You know, that's why I don't use the word "audiences" in that way. I mean, everybody is a potential audience, but it we can actually engage somebody with music and they go to the Met or they go somewhere else, we've still succeeded. We haven't failed. It's not about bringing them to Carnegie Hall. It's about making -- giving them the opportunity for that to be part of their life. And so I think the whole thing to me is actually everybody's got an artist in them. I mean, you know, I think what's been interesting in our conversation today, a lot of people have been talking about the contribution artists make to society in different ways. I mean, my own view is people in millions of jobs who are not artists and living different lives are just as much artists as the people who are artists. SOLOMON: But that doesn't mean you want them at Carnegie Hall... GILLINSON: No. What I'm talking about is I want them to engage -- have the opportunity to engage with the arts. I want their life to be a continual exploration, not that they just get stuck and they know what they like, and they like what they know, and they just continue to live in a comfort zone. I think the arts have to be part not only of education for kids, it's part, you know, how do all of us live lives where we continue to grow and to challenge and explore throughout our lives. I think it's just a myth, much bigger picture, and we very often lose sight when we talk about things like developing audiences for our institution or raising money or whatever those -- all those things, of course we do all those things. Of course we want full halls. And of course we're working towards that, and we largely do have full halls. But I think ultimately we will matter if we matter to society, and that's really what this comes down to. FORD FOUNDATION PRESIDENT LUIS UBINAS: I thought I'd ask a question, but before I ask a question, I just want to thank the four of you. I am so proud of what you have each done in terms of opening your institutions to people, and that's just magic. I'll never forget the night my son, 15, came home from a performance of Tosca, his eyes burning. He'd actually taken a date there. That boy that night became a fan, a lover of opera for the rest of his life, and some day he'll be 45 or 50, and he'll go to that opera because it's alive, because Peter, you made it alive again. And I think we have to thank these folks for what they've done. [Applause] But I refuse to let Thelma off the hook. I want her to talk to us and to this panel about the audience for the arts in Harlem, their power, their beauty, their interest, and the energy they've given to a slew of institutions that have been radically under-invested in for decades. So Thelma, I just can't let you just sit down. Talk to us. [Applause] GOLDEN: Thank you. Yes, so briefly, quite simply, I think it really just speaks to the issues that my colleagues here are working with, that we all believe about this idea that the arts should be for everyone. We all believe that our communities should have institutions. What we have suffered from, however, is the under-investment that has made our institutions struggle and sometimes get caught in saving institutions and not being able to serve audiences or serve artists. I think the challenge, however, is how we all work together. And we are thankful for some of our colleagues who have resources, who can make the broad gestures that support those of us working deeply to create new worlds, new possibilities for arts and artists. Thank you. SOLOMON: Okay. Do you -- I'm wondering in light of the previous talk and certain comments about declining audiences, if you feel that the future for your institutions depends a lot on the NEA and government funding, or more on private funding. LEHMAN: Can I address the first part of the declining audiences? SOLOMON: Declining audiences. LEHMAN: Because I think we spend too much time talking about the numbers and not enough time talking about who's attending and the quality of that experience. And I think that's really important. [Applause] I'm not suggesting for a moment that we at the Brooklyn Museum wouldn't like to have thousands of people knocking at our doors every single day. But I think what's really important is to look at the new audiences that have been created, reaching communities of color that have never set foot -- This is a conversation about "White Marble Metamorphosis" and one of those meta-morpho-sizing scenes [Laughter] is to change audience, to help change audience. We've got in this city alone an enormous number of tax-paying, disenfranchised people who need to have an experience in one of these institutions or one of the institutions out there or throughout the city. And we need to do everything we can to do something about that. That rolls into your next comment. We do. We need federal support, state support, city support, corporate, private, foundation support because without that we -- I'm just coming back to ourselves -- can't sustain the kind of open-door policy that we have. And that I think is crucial, going back to our first comment about new audiences and audiences who have new experiences. SOLOMON: At a time when the line separating high and low culture seems not to exist anymore, I'm wondering how each of you would define art. Should we try it? Peter, do you want to start, one sentence or less? GELB: Well, I think I would take -- SOLOMON: Oh right - are there more questions? I'm sorry. Go ahead. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. I just wanted to address something that's been on my mind the whole day, and it's a worry about my favorite part about art, both as an artist and as an arts manager who works to foster the processes of artists, is the fact that it encourages critical thinking, and the kind of critical thinking that can trigger social change. And we're here with the Ford Foundation at the front lines of social change, I think is the slogan for it. And I worry to hear so much the corporate logic about, as you were saying numbers, but also money and metrics of success in financial terms, et cetera. And although I do agree with Ed this morning that there is a time and place to do that, to argue for the arts in that way, I do worry that the process of the artist that will lead -- and the spaces for that process to occur in if completely forgotten is something that would not be successful in a way to the country as a whole. Because arts has been involved in amazing social movements towards people of color, women, civil rights, East and West Coast, both civil rights movements. And I do take great comfort in what Reggie Watts was saying this morning that you fund us or not, we will exist. But at the same time, you know, and also we were having a great conversation about the internet and about the access of that. But I worry that if the corporate logic takes over, maybe not even the internet will be a space of access anymore. And so I just wanted to kind of bring it back to the process of the artist, the greater purpose I guess to some arts or to some parts of the arts towards that social change. And I was just wondering your takes on that, but really kind of all of your takes on that as a whole. THOMPSON: If I may, addressing your point and going back to Clive, I think the solution to funding is integrity. If you truly believe, I mean, take a huge swig of the Kool-Aid, in what you're doing, passion is fundable. And if it seeps through your pores and you consistently go back to what you're doing, then money flows. Maybe it's divine, but sooner or later it comes to you. GILLINSON: Can I just say, I mean, I think what you've raised -- to be honest, I don't think any of us have been talking corporately. But, you know -- because I think we've been talking a lot about the mission and the purpose and so on. But to me, I mean, I come back to the thing of questions. So many people think what matters in life is answers, and in fact they're completely wrong. It's actually the people I want working for me, the people I -- and what artists are so crucial in doing is getting people to ask questions. I mean, you know, we live in education systems where there's one answer. All the issues about right brain, left brain, where left brain is linear, and that's so much what our education system works on. Really the ones who are far more interesting are the ones who come up with multiple answers and ask a ton more questions. I mean, they're the ones who will come up with the interesting things. That all feeds into things like social change and meaningful change. But it's not that we're political organizations. I think what we're about is enabling human beings to help to fulfill their potential. You know, everything we can do that does that and plays a part in that is the most important thing. I mean, you will not see an unhappy world when people are fulfilling their potential, because they're giving the most back to society then, as well. And I think the arts are absolutely fundamental to that. SOLOMON: Do you think -- sorry. Are there more questions from the audience? AUDIENCE MEMBER: I agree with Luis. This is such a distinguished gathering of innovative leaders in major cultural institutions. Something I must ask you, and you don't have to comment on your own institution, but just on your fields in general, on performing arts or on museums and so on. If you were to look at major arts organizations and small arts organizations over an arc of say 30 or 35 or 40 years, one of the few really significant changes in say the flow chart would be that you'd have either a development office there for the first time, or one that is much expanded from what it might have been 25, 30, or 40 years ago. Do you feel in your different fields of work that development has a place at the table that gives it today too much influence over artistic direction or over curatorial concerns? If you had your druthers, not necessarily for your institutions, for your fields, would you push that development, those sets of concerns a little bit further back into the corner than where they reside right now? GELB: I can speak on behalf of my institution in saying that it is absolutely essential that we have a Development Office that raises a lot of money, which we need, because of the economics of the Metropolitan Opera are the world's worst business model. [Laughter] But the answer to your question is I've found that by pursuing a policy of artistic independence in terms of the influence of our board and certainly the development office has absolutely no say whatsoever in anything that we pursue artistically at the Met, we have actually raised far more money than we've ever raised before because the effectiveness of a vital artistic program is what ultimately drives donations, which are essential because the ticket sales, unless we were to triple our ticket prices, which are already far too expensive, we could not possibly -- and people wouldn't buy tickets if they were that expensive -- we couldn't possibly make ends meet without raising a significant amount of money every year. So the answer is, and I think it goes back to what my colleagues have been saying, as well, is that if you are -- if you have a mission in your head that you have the -- and that the people around you buy into it, and that includes the board and your colleagues who work with you and the artistic community which you're serving and the public, then it is possible to move forward independently of influence that shouldn't be there. LEHMAN: I would just add that Development certainly needs to have a seat at the table, an important seat, so that at least in our institution, and I think in most of my colleague institutions in the museum community, so that that person understands what our aspirations are, where we want to go with the creative needs of the institution, and so that person or persons are fully aware of what the determined mission is. They leave, they come back hopefully with a lot of money. [Laughter] But the decisions as to what we pursue artistically are not theirs. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm Karen Brooks Hopkins, President of -- GILLINSON: I'm sorry. Could I just have a quick word, only because I've come from two funding systems. SOLOMON: Please. GILLINSON: I mean, as Rocco said, I come from Britain, which is the worst funded of the European model, but the thing that I've found really interesting coming here is when you have people who give their own individual money and make the decisions themselves about how money's going to be spent, here nobody's interested in a good idea. It has to be an amazing idea. And that is a monumental strength to this system. You may think it's tough, and it is tough. In Britain people are only just now in relation to the recession, the Arts Council cuts will happen next year. I mean, at Carnegie Hall of course we had to do it immediately. So one's having to respond in a totally different way. It's a very bare, unprotected environment which is very -- can be very hostile in certain ways. On the other hand, to have people who you have to excite, you know, it's got to be extraordinary. That does tend not to happen in a public funding system, where public funding bodies very often are quite worried about risk because they don't want to put their neck on the line for something that might not succeed. They'd rather just be sure they're backing something that succeeds. So that's one of the challenges of the public funding model. It's not that I don't want to see a hell of a lot more money going to the NEA, but it's very different here in those terms when you actually are having to excite people about everything you do. GELB: I think there's also the risk in publicly funded institutions is the danger that with public funds, you can become out of touch with your audience, and you can also feel that you can pursue an artistic agenda that really does not attract the public, which is a very difficult line that I find myself walking because the -- You know, we exist because of the public, including not only the ticket-buying public, but the donation-giving public. On the other hand, we don't want to pander to the public. We don't want to -- and that has failed from Hollywood to I think everywhere. When you try to give the public what you think they want because of past successes, you end up usually with some watered down, second-rate products. So, you know, what we're trying to do and I think all of us try to do is to aspire to new ideas that will lead the public some place that they hadn't imagined they might want to go, but when they find out about it are happy to have been taken there. And that is something that happens less frequently I think in Europe, where companies are completely funded through government sources. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thanks. I'm Karen Brooks Hopkins, President of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and I just want to follow on this question by saying, you know, I think that fundraising is the lord's work [Laughter] and that the reason -- as a synthesis of what you just said -- that the reason is because in our system, why do we love fundraising despite the misery of it all, and the reason is because it forces us as organizations to be the very best that we can be, to engage our audiences, every one of them, in a deep and personal and connected and vital way. And I think that this makes American institutions amazingly energetic and exciting because of that dynamic relationship with the audience that is often just driven by the need for funds. It's a very kind of capitalistic thing, but in fact I think it's true. [Applause] AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello. How are you? My name is Dexter Wimberly. I work with the Museum of African Art, but I'm actually here representing Brooklyn. [Laughter] I actually wanted to just, you know, sort of commend the job that Arnold Lehman has done with the Brooklyn Museum, particularly as someone who's grown up in Brooklyn, who sort of understands the importance of young people having options to what to do with their time and with their day. I cannot tell you how great the psychological divide still is in terms of going across the bridge. It goes both ways. For you Manhattanites who don't come to Brooklyn, that psychological barrier exists on the other side, as well. And oftentimes particularly young parents who have a Saturday or a Sunday and they want to do something sort of fulfilling and enriching for their children don't either have the time or the resources to even take a train ride with two or three kids into Manhattan to then be faced with a mandatory fee for a museum. So having the Brooklyn Museum walking distance in the heart of Brooklyn for millions of people and having quality programming, quality and relevant programming, has been for me something I'm very proud of, as a Brooklynite. I think that oftentimes there's been this tradeoff in terms of, I'd use the word "quality" again, in terms of what you experience when you do, you know, go to an arts institution in Brooklyn or in one of these sort of non-Manhattan sites in the general metropolitan area. And, you know, I just want to say I'm very happy to have a world class art museum in the 'hood. [Cheers/Applause] SOLOMON: Hire that man. Hire that man. LEHMAN: You want to stay at home rather than take that commute? [Laughter] AUDIENCE MEMBER: Tim McHenry, Rubin Museum of art. I'd like to pay another tribute to the Brooklyn Museum because you have a reputation -- [Laughter] SOLOMON: Oh, Arnold, the second- AUDIENCE MEMBER: -of having led the field to some degree in mobilizing the social media. And what I'd like to know from the panelists is how much money and how many staff members do you actually allocated to the galvanizing of the social media in order to cultivate your new audiences? Because that's -- we haven't actually discussed that part of the equation. LEHMAN: Well, we have- THOMPSON: Oh, I was going to say one and a half for us, until, of course, Arnold steals my one and brings in the ... [Laughter] LEHMAN: Well, we have- GILLINSON: Sorry, go on. LEHMAN: We have three teenagers. I call them teenagers because that's the way they think. They believe in the Internet, they believe in the power of the web, they have mixed beliefs these days in social media, but they're so committed to using the power of all of those powers to reach beyond the museum. We did a project a couple of years ago in which we communicated throughout the world about a certain artist. And we had a million responses from everywhere that wasn't just a -- you know, they just didn't tweet. They presented us with full-blown drawings about the work that we were doing in the galleries. A million people from all over the world took the time to use their opportunity to connect with the Brooklyn Museum to do that. That's astounding. And I'm too old to be able to think that way, but when you have the kind of commitment and feeling that the world can be yours if you use the media correctly is what we depend upon in our three-person department. SOLOMON: Do you think that art can make better use of the internet than for instance, the performing arts since it is entirely visual and lends itself to being reproduced online? GELB: I think it might be interesting just to explain what we're doing at the Met, which is not so much -- our social media commitment certainly -- we have one person also who is handling social media for us. But the use of technology is a very important priority for the Met, and this season, for example, 12 times during the course of the season we took one of our Saturday matinees, last Saturday's performance of Il Trovatore, and transmitted it into those movie theaters around the world. And there were 250,000 people sitting in countries, as I mentioned, 46 countries in 1500 theaters, who comprised literally a real global opera community that was totally plugged into the Metropolitan Opera on that Saturday. And we're doing the same the week -- two weeks from now when we have our final performance of the season of Die Walkure. And the social media activity that accompanies these transmissions is huge because we have many thousands of Facebook friends, and they communicate with each other from country to country, and it's all -- it's a way in which we are developing new audiences and creating in a global kind of community and environment for the opera and opening up new doors at the same time. So it's essential to our success going forward to have this. SOLOMON: Mm-hm. Well, I think we should wrap up now and say that everybody here is very committed to quality based on your comments, but yet there certainly is room for disagreement, and I think art will always remain a catalyst for disagreement. And since disagreement is a catalyst for change, here's to more disagreement and more art. [Laughter] Thank you all for coming. [Applause]