The art scene in Columbus contains a diverse landscape of large and small organizations with a variety of purposes and missions. In 2009, we continued to see a surge of support behind some of our smaller groups, as evidenced by the organization voted up to the number one spot in our reader’s poll: The Couchfire Collective. Between large-scale group efforts like Agora and Independents’ Day, and the smaller individual shows and events, the ever-changing lineup of Couchfire members can provide any arts enthusiast with a busy calendar of must-see exhibitions.
The Top 10 Arts & Culture Organizations of 2009:


#6 + #7 are arts organizations???
Kudos to Couchfire for another sucessful year of great shows and support of the local scene.
While not specifically arts organizations, they are cultural organizations who are strong proponents of the arts in our city. The FPC has done an amazing job of integrating art into their facility, and the SNBA is responsibly for many of the city’s best cultural and arts events.
Awesome – thanks, CU! We’re honored to be on the list with so many great organizations!
@walker- good points and I agree on some levels. They just seem like very distant relatives of the rest of the list.
By the way after the year in falling funding it is really great to see the very kind of groups that lost funding step up and maintain and grow their integrity.
I agree with Walker’s points. FPC and SBNA are blending cultural programming with mainstream audiences in ways that are advancing the community. I say bravo.
Congrats all! It’s great to see so many new, old and diverse arts organizations working to make this city a better place to live.
Congrats to everyone on the list! Special congrats to the Columbus Music Co-op, I’ve watched them grow by leaps and bounds in the few short years they’ve been around.
Hey, where’s Wexner Center?
No disrespect to the ten listed, but the Wexner Center for the Arts is an unfortunate omission.
lizless & roy – The Wexner Center did get a lot of votes in this category, but not enough to crack the top 10. I’d have to go back and look at the numbers again, but I’m pretty sure it was maybe #11 or #12 on the list.
And while that sounds like a low amount of support for such a locally-loved org like WexArts, it’s worth noting that we had two similar arts questions back to back on our survey: “Best Arts Gallery/Venue” and “Best Arts Organization”. We’ll have the results of “Best Venue” up tomorrow, but without giving a whole lot away, I think it’s safe to say that most people showed their love for the Wex by voting for them as a venue rather than as an organization although they obviously serve both purposes.
Wow. Thanks everybody. We are honored to be on this list and we are especially grateful to all of the support we’ve gotten from the CU community in the last year…can’t wait to share our big ol’ 5th birthday with everybody this year!
love you JV family!!! congrats! and great job everyone on the list!!