Posts Tagged ‘GenArt’

There’s a problem sweeping the nation.  To solve it, arts organizations and start-ups are thinking outside the box.  The problem boils down to the question: where have all the young people gone? Well, they’ve (or we’ve) started preferring hip-hop to Bach and graffiti to Picasso.  And while there’s nothing wrong with the cultural shift, it does create an issue for all those classical performers and painters holding onto older fine arts techniques. 

Lately, audiences have been comprised more of the hearing-aid set than the stiletto set, which is unfortunate for a number of reasons.  To be clear, the unfortunate side of this has nothing to do with the older patrons who frequent performances and museums.  They’re the lifers who, if asked, could tell you anything you need to know about Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 5.  On the other hand, when young people decide against attending something, it says little in the way of longevity for those arts. 

In the interest of showing the youth how important, interesting, and relevant classical art forms are, opera houses, ballet companies, and museums have all created young patron groups.  Members of these groups are capped at a certain age and have benefits unlike those for more traditional memberships from a less expensive annual fee to more exciting parties.  At this point, New York has been the pioneer city for these kinds of youth groups – the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, the Guggenheim, and pretty much every other top organization in New York have all become popular spots for the kids to party. 

Around the country, youth groups have put together parties to be reckoned with inside the walls of some of the country’s oldest, most beautiful buildings.  The annual fees agree with the disposable incomes of our country’s young professionals and the parties have started to include well-known DJs, they’ve upped the catering, and have adopted eccentric themes.  From Young Patrons Circle at the Houston Grand Opera to Young Patrons of the Portland Art Museum, the trend hasn’t yet gained the same kind of popularity in Los Angeles, but we have faith.  MOCA has their Contemporaries, LACMA throws parties for their youth group MUSE, and then there’s GenArt.  With a tagline that reads “access to emerging talent,” their mission is to recognize the talent (classical or not) coming from the young. 

Thinking further outside the box, there are new movements popping up like the Fourth Wall, who currently work exclusively with the Geffen Playhouse.  Then the Getty introduced summer concerts to their lineup presenting bands from across the country for free.  As organizations continue to try new ways of relating to us kids, we find more and more reason to love what we do here at Fine Arts LA.  We mentioned recently how proud we are of organizations that have shown their creative use of technology to connect to audiences and with youth groups, we’re even more proud of how they’ve learned to interact with us in person.  Our babies are growing up!