We are thrilled to honor these innovators and risk-takers who embody the spirit of entrepreneurship and bring the same extraordinary creativity to the office as they do to the studio. By experimenting and challenging conventional wisdom, these four winners have developed new approaches to age-old challenges in the arts field that can serve as models and inspiration for artists everywhere.

How Virtual Reality Could Solve the Arts’ Distribution Problem These are bleak times for America’s arts institutions. Lockouts and labor strife have become standard operating procedure, and that’s for the lucky ones. Those with shakier balance sheets are being felled by bankruptcy, many never to return.

(Cross-posted at Huffington Post) A couple of weeks ago, a federal appeals court invalidated the Federal Communications Commission network neutrality or open internet rules. The rules prevented internet service providers from prioritizing certain applications or content, or blocking access to others. Though the court affirmed the FCC’s ability to regulate internet service providers and its option to redo the rules, the decision currently leaves both consumers and creators with no real regulatory protections.

In 2001, under the guise of the Artists Affordable Healthcare Initiative, Fractured Atlas began offering health insurance to a long underserved population of artists. For decades, non-traditional employment models had put our community at a severe disadvantage in the US health insurance marketplace. With its ambitious promise of a slightly more level playing field, our health insurance program quickly became Fractured Atlas’s most visible and popular service. Over 3,000 artists enrolled in our plans, often getting better coverage for less money than would otherwise have been possible.

Peter Singer is picking on the arts. In his recent NY Times Op Ed, he discusses the (still?) emerging practice of applying rigorous analysis to compare the effectiveness of different charities. His somewhat contrived, straw man example pits an organization seeking to prevent blindness in the developing world against an art museum raising money for a new wing:

Tyler Cowan has an interesting post (referencing a Financial Times article) on corporate investment. He quotes from the original piece:

Last week, Barry Hessenius interviewed Jamie Bennett, chief of staff and director of public affairs at the NEA, about his thoughts on the arts and culture landscape as Rocco Landesman’s chairmanship comes to a close. When asked about the most critical issues facing the field in the near-to-mid term future, Jamie responded with some thoughts on preference discovery engines:

Over the summer, Michael Kaiser published a series of posts complaining about a lack of specificity in the ongoing chatter about a need for “new models” in the arts. I responded on this blog, both times, with my own thoughts on the subject. Last week, Kaiser published another post in which the critics are once again faulted for a lack of specifics:

This is perhaps a little old, but it’s thought-provoking enough that I had to share it: Colby Cosh on artisan chocolate and social revolution. Cosh’s blog post/essay muses on some very big ideas about the future of labor and society: