Arts Consolidated Works, in Quotes
Consolidated Works, an omelet flung out of its pan by its board more than a year ago—the board, after firing the founder, then scrambled around picking up chunks of eggs, chunks of cheese, weird ingredients out of the back of the fridge, all the while insisting, “We can make an omelet! How hard can it be to make an omelet?!”—is at a very awkward point in its life story.
What’s happening at the multidisciplinary arts space is difficult to write about. The story is just very gooey and floppy and has lost all inertia. Everyone you ask has a wildly different take on what’s going on. Is this the end? Is this a new beginning? Is it from now on going to “live conceptually online”? Brendan Kiley, never one to walk away from a challenge, captures the status of ConWorks in a column this week made up entirely of quotes. If you care at all about ConWorks, you should read it.
Matthew Richter WAS Conworks. Of course it was doomed to fail after the Board of Directors STOLE it from him. Conworks was highjacked from its founder and they underestimated the value he brought to the organization. They thought they could do better than he, that his expertise, energy, determination and intense involvement were replaceable. By not just coming out and saying WHY they ejected him, the Board created a drama around his ousting that soured and doomed the organization and everything they touched. They were dilettantes and thieves, and now they're closing a fabulous facility that is irreplaceable.
They should all be ashamed of themselves.