New York Announces Projects to Strengthen Arts Groups

The city of New York announced today it was starting five projects to strengthen local arts and cultural groups, offering grants, training, and free exhibit and performance space.

The projects — part of the city’s Five Borough Economic Opportunity Plan — were announced by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg; Seth W. Pinsky, president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation; and Kate D. Levin, cultural affairs commissioner.

“Our cultural institutions and artists contribute to a creative spirit unmatched anywhere else, and we recognize how important it is to do everything we can to make sure they continue to flourish,” Mayor Bloomberg said in a statement.

The five projects are:

• Curate New York City, which will provide free exhibit space to visual artists at city-owned properties.

• New York City Performs, which will offer free outdoor space for public performances.

• JumpStart for the Arts, which will offer a five-day intensive boot camp for 50 entrepreneurial nonprofit arts and cultural professionals who have been displaced by the bad economy.

• Artists as Entrepreneurs, a pilot five-day training program to help artists develop and carry out business plans. After completing the program, they will have access to low-cost studio space at the Brooklyn Army Terminal operated by Chashama, a group that connects artists with vacant real estate at subsidized rates.

• Arts Clusters Promotion Program, which will provide $25,000 grants to two art consortiums, or “clusters,” to help them develop strategic marketing programs to draw audiences into their neighborhoods. The amount will be matched by a group of arts organizations and businesses representing the arts clusters.

(Read more about Mayor Bloomberg’s efforts to help nonprofit groups harmed by the bad economy in an article from The Chronicle’s archive.)