Blog neighbour Doug McLennan reviews the recent Congressional Arts Report Card produced by the Americans for the Arts Action Fund PAC. He notes that there isn’t really a lot of material on which to base a report card – indeed, there were no recorded floor votes that were solely concerned with the arts. And so in reckoning how to distribute their modest funds to assist pro-arts candidates, they looked to past votes, and to whether the member of Congress had taken part in any activities that showed at least an interest in the arts. Putting aside the question of whether “Action Fund PACs” are a good thing for American democracy (“ah, but our money in politics is a good thing; it’s those other people who put money in politics who do so much harm”), he writes:
Of course there are many important issues before Congress, and Republicans were determined in this session not to move legislation forward. But are there really no arts or cultural issues or policies important to supporters of the arts that could have got a voice in the 114th Congress besides arts education and NEA/NEH budgets?
Behind most political lobbying efforts is usually some bigger vision. Political lobbyists work on accomplishing that vision on many fronts as they build constituencies. The arts are supposed to be big on vision. Unfortunately that vision didn’t appear in the official records of the 114th. Perhaps erosion of the NEA/NEH budgets is because arguing for funding for the arts has been our main issue rather than a consequence of a bigger, more urgent and inspiring vision. According to the Arts Report Card, the arts are a bipartisan issue at a time when division is the culture. If the arts are ever going to mean more to more people this seems like an opportunity to me.
But I am going to urge caution on the vision thing. Because aside from “art is good”, reasonable people can differ on what that vision ought to be. A much bigger role for the NEA? OK, but what would that do to support for state and local arts councils, or to philanthropic support? More funding for arts education? Maybe, but what do we mean by “arts education”, and what is it that would be sacrificed in otherwise highly pressed public schools to facilitate it? Copyright reform? Well, would that be to increase access to works, or to increase protections and compensation for copyright holders?
What problem do we want to solve that a larger vision would be of value?
Have you seen some of the decisions made in Congress over the past few years? Do you want it to take a bigger role in proclaiming a vision for the arts?
Arts policy in the US is pretty much a matter of “muddling through“. I’m not convinced that this is the worst thing in the world, in a big diverse country with a great variety of ideas for what to support in the arts. Let cities and states experiment with different initiatives in the arts and arts education, learn from what seems to have worked, and let the NEA try a few new things too (with some rigorous policy evaluation to check on the performance of the new programs). This isn’t a place where we need grand visions for the arts.
The $140 million NEA appropriation is 0.0000368% of the Federal government’s $3.8 trillion budget. That’s 2.7 millionth of the budget. So concerns about grand arts visions might be a bit premature even if the arts are permeated by perverts, communists, homosexuals, feminists, and atheists…..
Bravo, Mr. Rushton. Or to go full Maoist, let an thousand flowers bloom.
Seriously, what specific local knowledge will a bureaucrat (used descriptively, not pejoratively) in Washington DC have to make decisions that mean funding of Theatre A or Symphony B or Museum C (etc.). On the other hand, regardless of one’s opinion of the bureaucrats in Chicago, I’m fairly certain that they would be able to make those decisions than that of Washington DC.
The result may be funding more provocative art in cities that would appreciate it (coastal, “university towns”) than with funding come out of Washington DC. (And yes, the opposite may be true in “flyover country”). And to Mr. Osborne’s point, there are probably more than a couple cities in the US where local funding could be supported by the electoral majority (or at least a plurality) of “perverts, communists, homosexuals, feminists, and atheists”
Indeed, culture is by nature local, and that is how the Europeans fund it with their generous public funding systems. The relative lack of municipal and state arts funding is one more factor that leads me to question our political system itself. Such a narrow political spectrum cannot be healthy for a country. Anyway, local funding would also prevent people like former NC Senator Jesse Helms from breaking into fits of demented yodeling about Yankee queers taking over the country…
Some potential projects can be done best on the Federal level. Arts infrastrucure, such as databases of resouces (I’ve suggested to appropriate NEA officers creation of a database of jazz non-profit prsenters — which I’d be glad to see extended to for-profit operations, too), legislation instituting micro-payments for consumers of internet-originating content, perhaps some program to serve as a safety net for artists whose careers did not earn them adequate social security benefits, a common occurence. Those state and municipal arts agencies I’ve engaged with in Nay and Chicago specifically seem to be seriously strapped for funding, and have very different missions which, due to unrelated political issues and office-holder turnover, receive only intermittent support.
provocative. But perhaps ‘art is good’ is more visionary than is given credit for here.
Government money = government “art.”
Indeed. Like the Vienna State Opera, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Concertgebauw, the Louvre, La Scala, the British Museum, and Covent Garden. Oh the horror…
I researched NEA grants in the ’80s to jazz musicians and was impressed that the projects funded were mostly those of artists who have excelled since that time. There were few “government” compositions produced, though there may have been more conceptual efforts than usual when a band has a gig at a club. Since Congress has banned the NEA from giving direct grants to artists, the government could help support artistic fields with useful if not crucial information gathering that artists and/or arts organizations/individual presenters could use themselves. This could boost arts activities without touching on content, provide audiences (citizens, constituents) with more options, give artists more tools with which to pursue their careers. Or we could just let commercialism reign.
A few responses:
Mr Osborne – I suspect even Senator Helms’ ghost would not have lit out after the NEA for the list of august institutions you named (if they were in the US, etc.). But these orchestras (I’m guessing) play a heavy dose of music from 1700ish-1900ish. And I would also guess that the Louvre is drawing crowds in large part to see works created before 1900ish. Preservation is too strong a word for the work and creativity it takes to bring a symphony written prior to 1900 to life in 2016…but there is an element of preserving what is generally recognized as beautiful and good in the list. Karen Finley (for example) circa 1980 I suspect resonates differently than Mahler et. al.
Mr Brennan – I concur. Perhaps funding for infrastructure (as Mr. Mandel states) is useful…and perhaps for preservation (see above). But I question the role of federal government picking artistic viewpoints at the cutting edge, both from a competency standpoint and fulfilling a representative role.
Mr. Mandel – Understand that most localities do not have an overflowing source of funding. My point being that the original article by Mr. McLennan equated federal non-action as a societal issue, which I think is overly blunt. Instead, my question would be if a locale (let’s say San Francisco or New York) is relatively arts-friendly, they should be stepping up at a greater level with that support. Think global, act local! (All that said, I think some of your specific prescriptions from a infrastructure standpoint do bring merit).
Yes, in rejection of Mapplethorpe and others, our august Congress destroyed funding for even traditional art forms that form the core of Western culture. Hence my comment about blanket rejections of arts funding and how stupid that is.