The Art of Business, The Business of Art

For many, the worlds of art and business don’t always line up. After all, the organizational structures of many art institutions seem to discourage financial viability, and artists of all kinds grimace at the mere mention of finance or marketing—right? Well, not quite. As with most things, the relationship between business and the arts is a complex one, and the boundary between the two is constantly being redefined. The business world and the arts community are at a crossroads, and there is a student group at the University of Michigan that is actively working to bring the two together.

Arts Enterprise is a groundbreaking, interdisciplinary club that caters to the needs of students in the Ross School of Business, the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, as well as other students throughout the university. Founded in 2006 by Kelly Dylla, Chris Genteel, Nate Zeisler, and Professor Mark Clague, Arts Enterprise provides a forum through which students can bounce ideas off of one another. The group emphasizes creative leadership and cultural engagement, providing speaker series, collaborative events, and service opportunities for all who are interested. Kelly Dylla, MBA2 and co-president/co-founder of AE, sums up the group’s mission best: “Arts Enterprise is about breaking down stereotypes of what it means to be an artist and what it means to be a businessperson. Both can benefit from learning a little bit from each other. Musicians can learn how to enhance their careers by developing a bit of business-savvy, and business students can enhance their educations and lives by learning something about the skill-set of artists, as well as learning about the arts themselves.”

After coming to Michigan this past summer, I found out about AE through a colleague and asked myself, what does this have to do with me? In this day and age where infinite possibilities exist for students looking to get involved in extracurricular activities, groups have to convince students that their mission is one worth devoting time to. It quickly became clear to me that Arts Enterprise was more than just worth my time—it provided an outlet for entrepreneurship that otherwise was not available to students of the arts.

Arts Entrepreneurship is a burgeoning field that helps artists self-create career paths through the acquisition of entrepreneurial skills. At the University of Michigan, AE strives to provide these skills for interested artists by collaborating with business students and providing creative outlets and speaker series that address the issues that all students struggle with: how can I enrich my professional profile while enriching my life? AE provides similar opportunities for business students, sponsoring events and collaborations that help spark the artistic imaginations of future financial analysts or arts administrators.

So what’s up next? AE will continue to play a vital role in exploring the endless possibilities that collaboration and ingenuity inevitably create, not only at Michigan, but nationally. Several members of the group traveled to North Carolina this past July to present papers at the Brevard Conference on Music Entrepreneurship, putting Michigan on the Arts Entrepreneurship map. Slowly, other schools are beginning to address Arts Entrepreneurship as well, offering curricular and non-curricular activities to benefit students from all fields. This year, AE is presenting several series of workshops featuring faculty and guest speakers, pre- and post-concert events for selected University Musical Society performances, and a spring-break service trip to New Orleans. The group is also co-sponsoring a fall residency featuring world-renowned entrepreneur and artist Eric Booth.

The following reaction from the year’s first event, a workshop with hip-hop artist Toni Blackman and Ross group Net Impact, suggests good things are in store—“Immediately, barriers broke down between people. They were creating on the spot, laughing, and alive.”

Written by Michael Mauskapf, second-year musicology doctoral student and Co-President Arts Enterprise. He can be reached at mauskapf@umich.edu

*Arts Enterprise at the University of Michigan is an affiliate of Arts
Enterprise Central. (www.artsenterprise.com)*