Teaching Arts Management: Where Did We Lose the Core Ideas?

In light of the need to start clearing the methodological confusion in the field of arts management, this article provides a critical overview of the teaching curricula in the field. Distinction is made between programs that copy directly from business management; programs that focus on the technological process of producing an artwork (usually run by practitioners); those that interlink cultural management and cultural policy (highlighting the role of public governance as a higher principle); and programs that focus on an entrepreneurial approach to arts management, connecting it to issues of creativity and innovation. The author calls for clear goals to educate administrators and arts or cultural managers. The suggestion is made to follow what I call the Janus syndrome: looking toward managerial and economic realities but primarily focusing on the arts—the aesthetic and the social aspects of the field. A question is raised about the position of art in arts management curricula, as well as the organization of undergraduate and postgraduate studies in the field.