Art Management: An Informative Prospective

Abstract

The opening paragraph on ‘art administration (art management)’ in the international Encyclopedia of Public Policy and Administration (1998) is an instructive place to start our exploration of the origin of art management:The application of the five traditional management functions - planning, organizing, staffing, supervising, and controlling - to the facilitation of the production of the performing or visual arts and the presentation of the artists’ work to audiences. The administration and facilitation of the creative process and its communication to an audience is common to both public, non-profit arts organizations (e.g. non-profit theaters, symphony orchestras, opera companies, dance companies, museums, public broadcasting, and performing arts centers) and private, commercial, for-profit artistic entities (e.g. commercial theater, ‘popular’ music, private galleries, film, television, and video). (Martin 1998: 128).