Is Programming Better When Artists Curate?

Performing arts institutions are recognizing they need vision to make it in an increasingly tough market. And artists have vision. But just going out and hiring artists is no replacement for the kind of institutional mission that makes vision work. And putting artists in these positions without thinking through their role in the larger organization risks undermining all their efforts and, in some cases, ghettoizing contemporary music still further as something that lies outside the organization’s main mission.