Everywhere I turn in my Google Reader, someone is talking about core issues in the arts. (Yes, I know I said I was only going to do one post per week over the Holidays, but come on, how could I resist this?)
Certainly the Occupy movement is an explanation, as is the NCRP report on arts funding. But in the last couple of weeks, in addition to Theatre Ideas and Jumper (about which I commented over the weekend) and Engaging Matters (self-referential, I know), we have heard from Barry’s Blog, Createquity, Arlene’s Blog, New Beans, and Grantmakers in the Arts’ own blog salon, Forum on Equity in Arts Funding. And those are only the ones I can recall off the top of my head. I find this quantity of comment and response thrilling.
The discussions, especially in the comments on posts, veer from one topic to another, often according to whatever the writers foundational frame of reference is. (Mine, obviously, is the need for arts organizations to get serious about engaging with their communities.) One commenter on my last post lamented that it was difficult to keep track of what the topic was because there were so many being floated.
The central issue does appear to be equity and what that means. But that can lead to a bewildering array of related ideas. The overarching issue seems to be systemic inequity–injustice rooted in systems and institutional policies rather than in individual action (or inaction). Students of racism similarly identify the difference between systemic racism and individual prejudices and actions.
The categories of inequity are multiple: class, culture, ethnicity, gender, race, etc., etc. Awareness of and response to each varies hugely depending on which side of the have/have-not divide one finds oneself. The have-not side always has a far greater awareness and understanding of inequity than is ever possible on the have side. As an over-educated white male of a certain age, it’s astonishing that I can ever see clearly enough to get out of bed in the morning. (And for all my effort to “see,” in the few short months I’ve been blogging here, Roberto Bedoya has already had to call me out, justifiably, once here.) The have side predictably sees all the good it is doing (in its own eyes). The have-nots see much more clearly how far there is to go.
Inequity is incredibly complex. There is not nearly enough room here to fully address it or even fairly introduce it. (For a truly valuable overview of many of the issues, see Arlene Goldbard’s post Equity in Cultural Funding: Let Them Eat Pies.) I am simply presenting an explanation, from my point of view, of why the discussions are so difficult and often veer off-topic.
Going forward, as a reminder, there is a difference among private foundation funding, individual donor funding, and public funding. Each has its own rationale; “equity” in each may have slightly or substantially different meanings. There is also a related, but separate, conversation to be had about the public benefit nature of 501(c)(3) structures and what that demands of us.
Already at least two people have posed valuable questions that could guide the discussion. Holly Sidford, who wrote the NCRP report that spurred so much of this, wrote in her post on the GIA blog, What If?
What if we could start fresh and design a new system of support for arts and culture in this country, with equity as one of its fundamental tenets?
While we are not going to push the reset button on the not-for-profit arts industry in this country, discussing that question might help us imagine ways to move forward.
And, in the same GIA blog salon, William Cleveland presents Hard Questions for Hard Times:
Is cultural equity a core value that informs our work? If not, why?
If so, how specifically do we define it and hold ourselves accountable?
If we looked hard at the patterns of cultural investment by our organization and across our community, over time, what would we find?
If there were a significant “gap” between our stated values and this investment history, what would we do?
I am greatly heartened by the considerable energy the topic of equity is generating. Heartened and more than a bit surprised. Is this more than a radar blip? I’m choosing to hope that it might be. Let’s not forget this after the Holidays when we get back to our work in the New Year.
Engage!
Doug
Photo 
Some rights reserved by Jared Cherup
When I read Arlene Goldbard’s article, one central point keeps screaming out at me and that she doesn’t mention. The best way for funding organizations to engage with the various groups within a community is for the funding organization itself to be based in the community. Almost all funding (public and private) comes from remote, nationally based organizations that have little firsthand knowledge of the communities they fund.
What if funding organizations were typically based in the city (or county) they fund?
Closer contact with artists and their publics would inherently alter concepts of entrenched privilege, encoded prejudice, and risk aversion because the funders themselves would have much more direct and personal knowledge about the communities they belong too. That’s what I notice here in Europe. Communities fund their own cultural lives, not remote institutions, so there is close contact with a broad range of local constituencies. In short, Americans have a systemic problem, because our funding organizations are too centralized and thus fund only the most formalized types of art. Local funding wouldn’t solve all the problems, but it might go a long way. Local = community engagement = equity.
I wonder, William, if those funders in Europe are public or private? Based on the overall numbers, the public/private balance is the opposite of this country. Public funders have some accountability to the electorate, and requirements of transparency often keep them in the public eye. Private funders, not so much.
There are thousands of local foundations in the U.S., but proximity doesn’t automatically mean connection. In fact, local funding in the aggregate adds up to far more than the total of national funding, based on the last figures I saw. Some are family foundations that fund personal favorite institutions; some are community foundations, charged with the kind of connection you suggest—but of course, some invest in it, some achieve it, some don’t.
I, too, would like to think of decentralization as a remedy, but in fact, there’s no reason why the same attitudes and modes of operating can’t predominate at the local level. There’s nothing intrinsic to being locally based that immunizes them from the same pressures.
Is it possible that the metaphor of a pie creates misconceptions about what culture is? Is culture a round thing with all these wedges that come together to create the whole? Or is culture more like a tree which has a central trunk and branches that stem off of it? Is funding culture like caring for a tree, where one works to keep the trunk and roots strong so that the branches, stems and leaves that grow from it remain healthy? Does America have a cultural trunk? Do large museums, orchestras, and opera houses create a climate that allows more marginal art forms to better thrive? Even if the connections are not immediately apparent, are they deeper than we realize? Do big trees create forms of shade, humus, and moisture that help smaller plants? I notice that the cities that have the most big, formal institutions, also have the best underground. Why is that? (I hope no one will throw a pie at me for asking?)
No, the arts are not like a tree. The idea of a “trunk” is EXACTLY what we have now, except unlike a tree, the artistic trunks (the orgs with $5M+ budgets) don’t pass along artistic nutrition to the branches and leaves — they just keep it all for themselves.
Yes, we know that the idea of the trunk is being attacked (over the last 20 years the criticisms have even become a sort of postmodern, academic cant,) but there is still a need to substantiate and differentiate the argument, which has some merit.
Let’s look at how trunks sometimes work in a positive way. Orchestras, for example, draw the best musicians who are also used as professors in local colleges. Students from across the country travel to that city to study with them. These young musicians often stay in the city after their studies and begin to build their own sorts of alternative music. We thus see that top organizations sometimes becoming drawing points that create a locus for new types of artistic communities. This is apparent in the music world of almost all major American cities.
The question becomes not so much denying the trunks existence and its creative offshoots, but rather trying to feed more funds to the branches which are excessivley marginalized.
Another example is the Berklee music school, the largest in the USA, which teaches jazz and pop idioms – hardly the usually Eurocentric trunk. In reality, jazz and pop music derives the core of its theoretical basis from European musical traditions (harmonic theory, scale systems, instrumentation, orchestration, arranging, etc.) The rich, Eurocentric core traditions based on Boston gives the school a rich field from which to draw much of its excellent faculty.
Another interesting example is that the locus of non-Euopean musical studies still exists around universities with strong Western musical traditions. Classical Japanese instruments like the Koto and Shakuhachi, the study of Inidan musics, and gamelon orchestras are all examples. These univerisites centered in Western music thought became the seed beds of distinctly non-Western traditions.
There are many other examples, but I am a bit pressed today. The idea of a “trunk” culture needs careful examination because it presents real problems, but intelligent examination will not be achieved through postmodern cant and people merely asserting their views without providing careful analysis and factual documentation. When that happens, I think we discover that the problem is far more complex than the ideologues on both sides would have us believe. The arts across cultures are actually far more integrated and have far more symbiotic relationships than we might at first realize. Meaningful change does not derive from superficial, faddish thought.
Another interesting twist on these thoughts occurred to me that I want to quickly add. The New Mexico Symphony Orchestra recently went bankrupt and folded. The orchestra was low paying so the musicians played all kinds of music on the side to make a living. Salsa and mariachi were especially popular and had a pretty good market. Without the NMSO, many of the musicians are leaving town and the musical culture in Albuquerque is in general decline. The above bands have lost some good personnel.
Many regional orchestras face similar problems. We might find that the problem with funding isn’t only defined by Eurocentric perspectives but also where culture is located. There is a huge gap in the pay between major and regional orchestras. The Music Director of the NMSO was Hispanic. In many respects, a symphony orchestra or opera company in Albuquerque is far more marginal than most other musical forms.
This is all by way of saying that we need more differentiated and analytical thought and a little less blind ideology.
William, I’m going to ask you to dial down the rhetoric. “Postmodern cant,” “superficial, faddish thought”? I know you disagree with Scott’s objection to the trunk metaphor, but please simply present your counterarguments without the unnecessary labels. It would be possible to dismissively label your arguments as well, but that would do nothing to address the issues.
Unfortunately, I feel that postmodern thought, which initially provided truly valuable solutions has indeed fallen into cant and faddish thought. I use the words advisedly, and not as polemic.
To understand the idea, we might look at the correlations with the way serialism also became a sort of totalizing thought in much of music academia from the 50s through early 80s. A form of orthodoxy reigned. Composers who worked outside of that style faced a rather monolithic collective that strongly marginalized their work. This not only affected young composers, but even established artists like Menotti and Barber. Inside the serialist community, even the work of some of the 20th century’s major composers like Britten and Shostakovich were discounted. Serialism became the fad that ruled for a long period, and the journals that represented it became known for their academic cant.
Ironically, postmodernism began as a method of deconstructing exactly such centers of power, but now after forming the locus of academic thought for over 20 years, it has become the center of power itself. Following the usual cycles of intellectual trends that begin to assume the character of orthodoxy, much postmodern thought has devolved to cant. So I hope you understand that I use the words cant and faddish, not as polemic, but as actual descriptions of what I see happening. It is this sort of highly critical thought that will actually allow us to keep postmodern thought alive and growing.
All the same, I will try to avoid terms that seem too harsh or polemical.