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All thoughts and opinions presented here are from me - Sarah Green.
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You’ve heard it before.
My tax dollars are paying for what now?
It’s said about a wide range of public programs, but you’ve probably heard it at least once
about art.
It may have been photographs of unclothed men.
Graphic performance art.
An image of a crucifix submerged in urine.
You probably haven’t heard complaints about art therapy for veterans, the honoring of
jazz legends, after school theater programs in underserved communities, mural projects
on the Cheyenne River Lakota Reservation in South Dakota, or the show that wouldn’t
have traveled to your town otherwise.
In the United States, the issue of whether art should be publicly funded tends to come
up only when there’s a controversy, or when a new budget proposal is released.
Defenders tend to focus on the relatively miniscule amount of spending it takes to run
these programs in the US.
And it’s true, in 2018 funding the National Endowment for the Arts constituted .004 percent
of the federal budget.
But I’d like to take a look at what this kind of funding actually accomplishes, how
other countries support the arts, and how this kind of spending affects your life in
ways you may not be aware of.
In 1965, US President Lyndon Johnson signed a Congressional act that declares that the
arts and the humanities: “...belong to all the people of the United States,” and that
they “reflect the high place accorded by the American people to the nation's rich cultural
heritage and to the fostering of mutual respect for the diverse beliefs and values of all
persons and groups.”
The act established the National Endowments for the Arts and for the Humanities as independent
agencies of the federal government, both of which have been in operation since, despite
routine threats to defund them.
Since its inception, the NEA has awarded more than 145,000 grants, totaling more than $5
billion dollars, either directly, through state and regional agencies, or in partnership
with other organizations.
Its first grant went to the American Ballet Theatre, and it has since contributed to a
huge range of exhibitions, performances, residencies, festivals, competitions, radio programs and
podcasts, and education initiatives all over the country.
Yes, even in Guam.
Its mission is “to strengthen the creative capacity of our communities by providing all
Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation.”
And they take this charge seriously.
Here’s a map that shows you how widely NEA grants were distributed in a given year, reaching
every single US Congressional District.
Public funding for the arts in the US has given many prized cultural leaders their start.
NEA grants funded the original production of The Great White Hope in 1967, starring
young actors James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander.
Alice Walker received the NEA discovery award in 1970.
The NEA was a partner in the creation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
And it has engaged in numerous efforts to preserve history, while also encouraging growth
and innovation in the arts.
It has brought treasures to the US from all over the world.
And likewise helped bring the work of American artists to the rest of the world.
Now of course the United States did not invent this idea.
England created the Committee for Encouragement of Music and the Arts in 1940, which morphed
over time into the Arts Council England that exists today.
A Royal Charter from 1946 established its aim to “develop and improve the knowledge,
understanding and practice of the arts” and “increase accessibility of the arts
to the public in England.”
It also aims to provide arts education and maintain and operate museums and libraries.
The Arts Council England will distribute more than 577 million pounds--or 750 million dollars--this
year, using a combination of funding from the government and the National Lottery.
The French Ministry of Culture was established in 1959, but you can certainly trace its lineage
of arts funding back much further than that.
Before it was a democracy or republic, France supported the arts through its monarchy, of
course.
Louis XIV was an unparalleled patron of the arts.
And before that was François I, who supported a number of artists and brought Leonardo da
Vinci to his royal court during the Italian Renaissance.
Art has long been a way for rulers to establish their legitimacy and demonstrate their power.
As far back as 4000 years ago, Gudea, the ruler of Lagash in Mesopotamia, commissioned
a series of statues that served as a kind of stand in for himself, displayed in temples
to demonstrate his piety to the gods, as well as his wealth and power to everyone who visited.
And art has long been a way for nations to visualize and solidify their common ideals,
venerating shared symbols, occupying communal spaces, understanding their histories, and
imagining their futures.
But back to France.
Current French president Emmanuel Macron followed up on a campaign promise to improve youth
access to the arts, by working with the Ministry of Culture to release a mobile app called
Culture Pass.
Described by The Guardian as “like Tinder for the arts,” it shows you cultural offerings
in your area, and makes it easy to get the details, reserve tickets, and so forth.
And if it’s the year of your 18th birthday, it comes preloaded with 500 euros of “culture
credit” to spend.
It’s one of many programs supported by the Ministry of Culture, whose funding budget
for this year is a whopping of 3.63 billion euros, the equivalent of more than 4 billion
dollars.
The German Cultural Council, founded in 1981, oversees 258 federal cultural associations,
and in 2018 announced a large increase in budget to nearly $2 billion overall.
This includes the kind of arts funding you might expect, as well as kinds you maybe wouldn’t,
like an annual computer game prize.
Germany also makes available a social insurance system for self-employed artists, paying for
about half of their health insurance and pension fees.
Mexico has had a program since 1957 that gives artists the opportunity to pay their federal
income taxes with their own art, as long as it meets quality standards decided by a committee
of artists and curators.
These artworks become part of a national collection, some of which is on permanent display in Mexico
City, and some of which is loaned to public institutions across the country and around
the world.
There are many different models for arts councils and ministries of culture around the world,
that allocate funding that ranges from very modest to, well, France.
The NEA’s appropriation for 2018 came to $152.8 million dollars, or around 3% of France’s
arts budget.
The bulk of arts funding in the US comes from the private sector, and NEA grants are usually
complements to that private funding, many of the gant even requiring that recipients
match the amount awarded with other contributions.
But we also know that NEA funding tends to attract that private support, with every $1
of NEA funding in 2016, leveraging $9 in outside funding.
This functions similarly in other parts of the world, where state funding for the arts
is seen as the principal driver of philanthropic support.
For example, 80% of the funding for that French Culture Pass app came from the private sector
and from partnerships with tech companies.
Many argue that if federal support is withdrawn, then private funders will sweep in to the
rescue.
However, we know that these philanthropists tend to follow the leadership of federal arts
agencies.
And, unsurprisingly, when public support to a given institution declines, often does that
of the private sector.
Furthermore, the wealthiest Americans live in the biggest cities, and their philanthropic
efforts predominantly go to the arts institutions near where they live.
So you can see public funding efforts as helping to channel philanthropy out of say, the Capitol
of Panem, and toward the cultivation and growth of culture in, say District 12.
40% of NEA-supported activities take place in high-poverty neighborhoods.
If public funding for the arts goes away, rich people will still have access to art.
It’s just going to be a lot harder for everyone else.
MoMA would continue to be MoMA, but without public funding, how do we ensure that voices
are represented other than those of the rich, or those anointed by the rich?
A critical function of public funding of the arts is the spotlight it shines on lesser-heard
and minority voices, as well as its assistance in the preservation of indigenous cultures.
For instance, a portion of the Australia Council for the Arts’s funding is focused specifically
on opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists.
We used to think that the impact of the arts was something too difficult to quantify.
How, after all, can you put numbers behind something as nebulous as inspiration?
But there is a way.
And the NEA works hard to evaluate the impact of their efforts, finding that: Disadvantaged
8-12th graders who received arts education were 3x more likely to earn a bachelor’s
degree than those who lacked those experiences
And also that at-risk young people who have access to the arts are more likely to have
higher STEM scores, set higher career goals, and volunteer more.
They’ve also discovered that art education is associated with better problem solving,
creative thinking, and civic engagement.
Data released in 2018 by the NEA and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis revealed that
4.9 million Americans work in the arts and cultural industries,
with earnings of more than $370 billion.
It also showed us that the arts contribute more than $760 billion dollars to the U.S.
economy.
When you think about the $152.8 million appropriated to the NEA last year, that spending suddenly
doesn’t seem so wasteful, or tangential to other government concerns, like economic
stability and growth.
Also, the American rich are disproportionately male and white, and so are those who benefit
from the art market.
If we leave our cultural future in the hands of the wealthy, we’ll no doubt have a cultural
future shaped and determined by their interests.
Art created by market forces ultimately tends to serve those forces, and not the public.
The market values of artworks made by women, people of color, and minorities are improving,
but don’t come close to representing the diversity of the American people.
Do we really believe that “the arts and the humanities belong to all the people of
the United States”?
And if so, how much is it worth to try to keep it that way?
There’s this quote floating around about Winston Churchill’s response to the proposed
cutting of arts funding in the UK during the second world war.
Supposedly he said: “Then what are we fighting for?”
It’s a wonderful sentiment, although like many of the quotes attributed to Churchill,
it doesn’t look like he ever said it.
But there’s something to it, regardless.
To the idea that, at any given time, we’re not just fighting for safety and security.
We’re fighting for the things that make life worth living.
And sometimes we don’t know what those things are until an artist shows us.
Once we’ve seen it, we know that the world is so much better for having had it, whether
it’s The Color Purple, the only arts organization in your community, Hamilton, or yes even images
that might offend you.
The exhibitions, performances, workshops, and events that are supported by government
funds, are places and moments where we come together to think about what, as a community,
we value and what we don't.
Not where we come together as consumers, although you can usually exit through the gift shop,
but where we intersect as thinking, feeling, sensing beings, with contrasting understandings
of history, beliefs in our present, and hopes for our future.
We don’t all agree on the appropriate scope of our government.
But most of us do agree that art is a key part of the education of our children.
When does that fall away?
When do the arts stop being a critical part of our lives, and start belonging only to
the privileged?
If you'd like to learn more about the history of how the US government got into the game
of funding art, you should check out my friend Danielle Bainbridge's excellent video on the
topic over at her channel Origin of Everything.
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