While I appreciate your detailed reply, I personally feel that governments should not be in the business of funding artists…institutions, yes, but not individual artists. I understand the effort involved in applying for grants, but governments have many more urgent needs on which to spend scarce taxpayer money, and, to me, artists are not an urgent need. Yes, some good may come out of their work that enlightens a few in the population, but that, to me, is insufficient reason. There are private foundations—±Ford, Rockefeller, et al—endowed by private persons, artists can apply for grants. Leave the taxpayers' money for grants that could enhance the lives of the many as opposed to the few.
I wrote grants for about 10 years, mostly in the field of art and education, and eventually concluded that the whole funding system is corrupt but that govt funding is less so than philanthropy (although I admit I came to that conclusion before Trump). Not that individuals are personally corrupt, but that philanthropy in particular depends on the whims of rich people. Foundations can change their concept of their mission on a dime and suddenly support you've relied on for years vanishes. They often want to fund glamorous projects but not the general operating support for the administrative costs that underlie those projects, leaving small nonprofits like the one I mostly worked for scrambling.
Government grants, at least at state and federal levels, depend on review by panels of artist peers and these people change every year so if you're rejected you might have a better chance next year. It seemed to me this was a more democratic system. BTW, I once gave a talk at a conference about women and art in Montreal and noticed a single man wandering around. He turned out to be the rep from the Canada Council, which had funded the conference. I said to him is was nice to see, in contrast with whatever was going on in the U.S. at the time, a govt agency funding this very leftist, feminist conference. He told me there were conservative forces in Canada too opposing funding for events like this.
I don't have an answer for the govt v philanthropy question. It's hard to choose since we don't know what the future will bring. Given the Trump admin's attitude toward the NEA etc., foundations look much better to me than they used to.
That's very interesting. I know from experience that the main prerequisite for joining a nonprofit board is not experience in the board's particular focus, it's the ability to fundraise, as in who you know in the community that you might get to contribute. I think that helps explain why philanthropic boards shift their positions so quickly and so often. I wonder how that works on government funded boards. I have no experience with those. Are the board members required to have experience in the board's area?
It's certainly true that nonprofits and smaller foundations need board members who can raise money in the community. But large foundations exist to dole out the funds donated by their founders and manage the money so it continues to grow. So there is programmatic expertise inside the foundation, in the form of program officers. I don't actually know about the expertise on those foundations' boards. I think it varies depending on the type of foundation. There are family foundations with no staff except one lawyer in his office, and the family members choose what they want to fund based on what they like or is important to them.
The director of the nonprofit I worked for was an amateur artist and she got to know a man in one of her classes whose easel was next to hers. He turned out to be on the board of a large, rich private foundation and was so impressed by her work that he made the executive director of his foundation give us money. She was furious but he had the right to direct how this "discretionary funding" was used. It broke one of their rules, which was not to fund any org with a budget of less than $500K. However this one-shot turned into a long-term funding relationship, which was great for the nonprofit. But it's also an example of the whims of rich people I mentioned and the role of sheer chance, not the best way to run an organization with a budget and staff.
My director was on NEA grant peer panels, and she was chosen(by NEA staff) because she was a pioneer in her field. All the government peer panel reviewers are experts. But there was no board involved there.
Have to admit, I don't have any experience with large foundations. Interesting, though, that your organization got funding through a personal contact, so in that regard, it's still kind of the same. It's a lot about relationships.
As an outsider I'd propose the govt with private sponsors funding programs which may lead to more safe art, rather than provocative, but it keeps the cultural wheels ticking over. Our era is not one for daring and shock, sadly, and not for much that is really challenging: more product is the motto of the arts' factories.
In future it's probable that funding will be more pinched, not just for political reasons, but also the demographic changes coming, with many more over 65s, and the shortfall of the under 24 age group. The unfunded obligations of circa $100trillion and other looming economic forces suggest funding by the government is not likely to keep pace with some expectations.
You mentioned a couple of economic drivers that aren't often taken into account. Our aging population will affect everything from Social Security to the arts because as more people retire and are not replaced by younger ones, there just won't be as much money as there used to be going into the system. And that older population typically becomes more conservative – they want to protect the property and the values from their generation. When you factor those things it's easier to see why we have the government we do, and why they want to cut funding for the arts.
I believe arts need funding. I am not familiar with the US funding formula for artists but I know here in Canada we have a few avenues available, such as the Canada Council for the Arts and through each of our provinces and territories as well as each city.
Whenever any government is forced to cut their budgets, they tend to look at the arts as being a likely target but time and again, it has been proven that investing in the arts helps generate spending in the economy.
For example, by supporting the symphony or dance company, it brings people downtown who will go out for dinner before the show or for drinks afterwards, create work for the taxis and ride share drivers, give the local brewery or wine makers an opportunity to showcase and sell their drinks at intermission, the dress shops and hair dressers more business, the woman at the tickets counter, the tech crew who work in the theatre, etc. It snowballs. The alternative is, they cut the funding and the symphony collapses and people stay home, all that potential spending is lost and watch they sit on the couch watching some stupid piece of trash on Netflix.
For writers, our books inspire people to want to travel to the places we write about, we help keep bookstores afloat, provide work for our printing presses, graphic artists, editors, publicists, publishers, etc, creating jobs.
Without government support, being able to completely immerse yourself in the arts becomes a luxury that either requires a huge sacrifice resulting in it being dominated by those with rich parents, a supportive spouse or other financial support.
.
Supporting the arts is something that has been done throughout the ages, such as musicians, writers and visual artists who had rich patrons. They would have to churn out stuff to satisfy their agreements but would be left with enough free time to work on their craft as well.
Trying to find a patron these days is not easy and that's why we need government support.
You make a really strong argument, Glenna. And it's one that I don't understand why people like the writer from the Cato Institute don't get. They seem to be all about economic benefit, so why can't they see how the arts connect to that? Perhaps it goes back to the hidden agenda I mentioned.
Another thoughtful essay, Joe. Generally, I view NEA funding as something that few enjoy (a tax on all to benefit the few), and when a fraction of that few are pushing agendas that spells trouble; someone else deciding what everyone else should benefit from.
Private funding can do what it wants, and has done so throughout history; that's its prerogative. People pay for what they want, and Taylor Swift will always draw more attendance than "Piss Christ," and those who pay money to see TS are willing to pay for it, whereas very few would be willing to pay to see PC. Some will, of course, but the cost of that gallery opening would be affordable.
The argument for NEA to support libraries is getting weaker, as the internet can do much the same in terms of basic services (one reason libraries are changing--enhanced high-tech, free classes, or as Library Journal noted in a June 21, 2021 article, they are changing into "full-service community centers"--all in an effort to make themselves relevant; they know who butters their bread.
The ubiquitous internet and smartphone make accessibility fairly easy. You can watch Shakespeare plays on YouTube, listen to symphonies on Spotify. Few attend these in person, relative to ball games or Taylor Swift concerts.
The NEA was established in 1965. What artists will do if there's no NEA is what they did before that date. Joyce's Ulysses was banned in 1921, then became legal in 1933 (twelve years). The NEA had little to do with it. Great works of art tend to surface. Solzhenitsyn's first work published outside the USSR was in 1968; he had to smuggle them out. Art and risk go together.
"when a fraction of that few are pushing agendas that spells trouble." That seems to be the aspect of this that is the most problematic. Government, to me, is supposed to be the great leveler. Its role, aside from national defense and infrastructure, should be to decrease the inequalities among the population. But everyone has an agenda, and they push it. And when those people infiltrate government, the inequalities grow instead of shrink, and we begin to wonder what the government's role should be. And this carries over to the arts.
Just continuing this thread, a little bit more. Perhaps the underlying issue is that role of government. I think government is supposed to be the great leveler, but I'm sure there are quite a few people (the ones with a lot of money) that believe government should be the great protector, even to the point where government should protect them from fellow citizens.
I recently read an article I wrote after the 2009 F. Scott Fitzgerald Festival at Montgomery Community College in Rockville, MD. One of the keynote speakers was Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran.
Her speech was deeply insightful - I offer her closing observations:
Writing is about the stranger within you – within all of us. Nafisi is concerned about the shallowness of modern American culture where imagination has become insignificant. She spoke against categorizing writers in "little boxes" such as "Cuban American" or "Dominican" – she said these categories marginalize writers who speak universally. The individualism of great writers is the loneliness of outsiders who connect to the world through their visions.
She was dismayed by the closing of libraries and bookstores, the Congressman who required the Nat Endowment for the Arts to "Justify itself," as though if the value of art and literature could not be quantified, they wouldn't actually have any.
"If not us, who will bail out imagination and thought?" she challenged. "Readers of the world unite!"
If we consider the NEA solely as a resource for grants to individual artists, we have overlooked its larger impact: support for art institutions: schools, museums, libraries, and other public spaces where people have opportunities to encounter works of art. To me, art is that magic moment in creation when one's efforts suddenly reveal a direction, a resolution, a situation unplanned and unforeseen - that "Oh yes, that's it!" spark. And to be able to make that visible/ legible in one's craft, is to be an artist.
As the US settles into autocracy, inevitably its sanctioned "art" will follow. I've been reading Soviet writers most of my life, and admire the cleverness and satiric edge that kept many of them ahead of the censors - Vladimir Voinovich's The Fur Hat is a wonderful short novel about how writers fare in that system. And Lyudmila Ulitskaya's The Big Green Tent opens on the day of Stalin's death, making clear that the systems and apparatchiks he put in place, carried on without him - Perestroika took decades to show up.
The NEA's support for art institutions: schools, museums, libraries, and other public spaces is definitely a justifiable cause IMHO. I would be interested to know if its original purpose included funding individual writers and artists. Based on the list of writers who received NEA grants, I would have to assume that it was. But I'll do a little research to be sure.
Interesting that you mentioned Soviet writers. The way things are going here in the US. I often think of them as an example of how writers an artists will have to survive soon. As someone who occasionally writes satire, I think it will be very interesting. Autocrats and their minions rarely get satire.
Good, provocative essay, Joe. IMHO governments should never be allowed to interfere in individual grants. Programs here in Canada have broad institutional goals, but granting happens by juries of fellow artists, those people trained to know the difference between, say, porn and art. I’m all for philanthropy but only when done at arm’s length. If we can agree that artistic goals are not the same as commercial goals, it’s the only way. Countries all over the world have programs to nurture their artists. How else to create and foster a national identity? Not to say that committees of artists are perfect, but a government strongarm will never lead to artistic excellence.
As I mentioned in my reply to Eric, above, perhaps the best question to ask is, what would our society look like if government didn't fund the arts? I agree that the decisions about funding are best handled by artists, as long as the panel making the decisions is as diverse as the population it is supposed to serve.
Another great and timely piece, Joe. Personally, I am against any form of governmental interference...unless it can be proved that the intended recipients benefit more than the cost to the rest of society in terms of their tax dollars. For example, while not Christian, I find a crucifix in a jar of urine highly offensive, and, if I could, withhold my taxes if that were funded. Art in all its forms is highly personal—to the artist. Why should the public, through its taxes, pay for the personal expression of the artist? Also, there are many entities involved who are in it for their own profit, including art dealers and the staff who run the funded organizations.
It's a complex issue with no clear solution. Who's to say that what a funded organization or person produces/exhibits is in the public's best interest? If funding if left to the private sector, then really only those who can afford to fund will have a disproportionate say in what is funded.
In the past, all artists/writers were self-funded, in that they produced when they didn't work to support themselves. What's changed? If you want/need to write/paint, you can when not earning a living, and even when you are, you can dream/fantasize and then after your dinner, write/paint.
Thanks, Eric. As I tried to express there are pros and cons to each side of the issue. Should government fund the arts? Should government fund things like libraries? Certainly libraries have a specific benefit to the population. With literary and visual art it's not quite so clear. What is the benefit to the public? Maybe the best question to ask is what would our society be like if government didn't fund the arts? That might be a better starting point.
By the way, Christine is right, in the past artists, especially the artists we remember today, were funded by institutions and patrons.
Your point about self-funding isn’t accurate, Eric. Artists were not all self-funded historically, though some were. Please see churches, kings and other institutional funding for art. Some of the great art in Europe is in churches! The king WAS the gov’t, and the same could be argued about the church. What one person finds offensive isn’t a good metric. Art must be allowed to offend if it’s doing its job.
Artists tell stories through different mediums. If you listen to music, read books, watch TV, you’re engaging with an artist’s work. Story is how we deal with the streaming chaos that is life. Making those stories requires thousands of hours of dedicated work. It’s hard to see if you’re not doing it, but anyone who gets a grant has done at least ten thousand hours of unpaid labour to get to that point of mastery.
Not every story is for every person, but the kinds of work that receive arts funding tends to be work that inspires other artists. And for the record, arts funding isn’t anything close to a living wage. Almost all artists have other jobs to pay the rent.
Sometimes we forget that even the crap we watch on TV is a form of art. If it wasn't for those "lesser" forms, perhaps some artists wouldn't be inspired to do something better.
TV can be an art form (The Wire, Breaking Bad) but average TV is entertainment, imho. Nothing wrong with that! But a team of writers made that, and they were likely inspired by other art.
Whether art in all its forms has value is quite subjective. Should public money be used to fund specific art? Libraries are not specific but universal and, as such, serve a useful service to society, for example. It is questionable whether an individual—-artist or writer—-actually serves a useful service to society; that’s a subjective issue. And, as a subjective issue, governments should be careful about funding, because others would say, Why not me?
While I appreciate your detailed reply, I personally feel that governments should not be in the business of funding artists…institutions, yes, but not individual artists. I understand the effort involved in applying for grants, but governments have many more urgent needs on which to spend scarce taxpayer money, and, to me, artists are not an urgent need. Yes, some good may come out of their work that enlightens a few in the population, but that, to me, is insufficient reason. There are private foundations—±Ford, Rockefeller, et al—endowed by private persons, artists can apply for grants. Leave the taxpayers' money for grants that could enhance the lives of the many as opposed to the few.
I wrote grants for about 10 years, mostly in the field of art and education, and eventually concluded that the whole funding system is corrupt but that govt funding is less so than philanthropy (although I admit I came to that conclusion before Trump). Not that individuals are personally corrupt, but that philanthropy in particular depends on the whims of rich people. Foundations can change their concept of their mission on a dime and suddenly support you've relied on for years vanishes. They often want to fund glamorous projects but not the general operating support for the administrative costs that underlie those projects, leaving small nonprofits like the one I mostly worked for scrambling.
Government grants, at least at state and federal levels, depend on review by panels of artist peers and these people change every year so if you're rejected you might have a better chance next year. It seemed to me this was a more democratic system. BTW, I once gave a talk at a conference about women and art in Montreal and noticed a single man wandering around. He turned out to be the rep from the Canada Council, which had funded the conference. I said to him is was nice to see, in contrast with whatever was going on in the U.S. at the time, a govt agency funding this very leftist, feminist conference. He told me there were conservative forces in Canada too opposing funding for events like this.
I don't have an answer for the govt v philanthropy question. It's hard to choose since we don't know what the future will bring. Given the Trump admin's attitude toward the NEA etc., foundations look much better to me than they used to.
That's very interesting. I know from experience that the main prerequisite for joining a nonprofit board is not experience in the board's particular focus, it's the ability to fundraise, as in who you know in the community that you might get to contribute. I think that helps explain why philanthropic boards shift their positions so quickly and so often. I wonder how that works on government funded boards. I have no experience with those. Are the board members required to have experience in the board's area?
It's certainly true that nonprofits and smaller foundations need board members who can raise money in the community. But large foundations exist to dole out the funds donated by their founders and manage the money so it continues to grow. So there is programmatic expertise inside the foundation, in the form of program officers. I don't actually know about the expertise on those foundations' boards. I think it varies depending on the type of foundation. There are family foundations with no staff except one lawyer in his office, and the family members choose what they want to fund based on what they like or is important to them.
The director of the nonprofit I worked for was an amateur artist and she got to know a man in one of her classes whose easel was next to hers. He turned out to be on the board of a large, rich private foundation and was so impressed by her work that he made the executive director of his foundation give us money. She was furious but he had the right to direct how this "discretionary funding" was used. It broke one of their rules, which was not to fund any org with a budget of less than $500K. However this one-shot turned into a long-term funding relationship, which was great for the nonprofit. But it's also an example of the whims of rich people I mentioned and the role of sheer chance, not the best way to run an organization with a budget and staff.
My director was on NEA grant peer panels, and she was chosen(by NEA staff) because she was a pioneer in her field. All the government peer panel reviewers are experts. But there was no board involved there.
Have to admit, I don't have any experience with large foundations. Interesting, though, that your organization got funding through a personal contact, so in that regard, it's still kind of the same. It's a lot about relationships.
As an outsider I'd propose the govt with private sponsors funding programs which may lead to more safe art, rather than provocative, but it keeps the cultural wheels ticking over. Our era is not one for daring and shock, sadly, and not for much that is really challenging: more product is the motto of the arts' factories.
In future it's probable that funding will be more pinched, not just for political reasons, but also the demographic changes coming, with many more over 65s, and the shortfall of the under 24 age group. The unfunded obligations of circa $100trillion and other looming economic forces suggest funding by the government is not likely to keep pace with some expectations.
Well, economics always was the dismal science.
You mentioned a couple of economic drivers that aren't often taken into account. Our aging population will affect everything from Social Security to the arts because as more people retire and are not replaced by younger ones, there just won't be as much money as there used to be going into the system. And that older population typically becomes more conservative – they want to protect the property and the values from their generation. When you factor those things it's easier to see why we have the government we do, and why they want to cut funding for the arts.
I believe arts need funding. I am not familiar with the US funding formula for artists but I know here in Canada we have a few avenues available, such as the Canada Council for the Arts and through each of our provinces and territories as well as each city.
Whenever any government is forced to cut their budgets, they tend to look at the arts as being a likely target but time and again, it has been proven that investing in the arts helps generate spending in the economy.
For example, by supporting the symphony or dance company, it brings people downtown who will go out for dinner before the show or for drinks afterwards, create work for the taxis and ride share drivers, give the local brewery or wine makers an opportunity to showcase and sell their drinks at intermission, the dress shops and hair dressers more business, the woman at the tickets counter, the tech crew who work in the theatre, etc. It snowballs. The alternative is, they cut the funding and the symphony collapses and people stay home, all that potential spending is lost and watch they sit on the couch watching some stupid piece of trash on Netflix.
For writers, our books inspire people to want to travel to the places we write about, we help keep bookstores afloat, provide work for our printing presses, graphic artists, editors, publicists, publishers, etc, creating jobs.
Without government support, being able to completely immerse yourself in the arts becomes a luxury that either requires a huge sacrifice resulting in it being dominated by those with rich parents, a supportive spouse or other financial support.
.
Supporting the arts is something that has been done throughout the ages, such as musicians, writers and visual artists who had rich patrons. They would have to churn out stuff to satisfy their agreements but would be left with enough free time to work on their craft as well.
Trying to find a patron these days is not easy and that's why we need government support.
You make a really strong argument, Glenna. And it's one that I don't understand why people like the writer from the Cato Institute don't get. They seem to be all about economic benefit, so why can't they see how the arts connect to that? Perhaps it goes back to the hidden agenda I mentioned.
Another thoughtful essay, Joe. Generally, I view NEA funding as something that few enjoy (a tax on all to benefit the few), and when a fraction of that few are pushing agendas that spells trouble; someone else deciding what everyone else should benefit from.
Private funding can do what it wants, and has done so throughout history; that's its prerogative. People pay for what they want, and Taylor Swift will always draw more attendance than "Piss Christ," and those who pay money to see TS are willing to pay for it, whereas very few would be willing to pay to see PC. Some will, of course, but the cost of that gallery opening would be affordable.
The argument for NEA to support libraries is getting weaker, as the internet can do much the same in terms of basic services (one reason libraries are changing--enhanced high-tech, free classes, or as Library Journal noted in a June 21, 2021 article, they are changing into "full-service community centers"--all in an effort to make themselves relevant; they know who butters their bread.
The ubiquitous internet and smartphone make accessibility fairly easy. You can watch Shakespeare plays on YouTube, listen to symphonies on Spotify. Few attend these in person, relative to ball games or Taylor Swift concerts.
The NEA was established in 1965. What artists will do if there's no NEA is what they did before that date. Joyce's Ulysses was banned in 1921, then became legal in 1933 (twelve years). The NEA had little to do with it. Great works of art tend to surface. Solzhenitsyn's first work published outside the USSR was in 1968; he had to smuggle them out. Art and risk go together.
"when a fraction of that few are pushing agendas that spells trouble." That seems to be the aspect of this that is the most problematic. Government, to me, is supposed to be the great leveler. Its role, aside from national defense and infrastructure, should be to decrease the inequalities among the population. But everyone has an agenda, and they push it. And when those people infiltrate government, the inequalities grow instead of shrink, and we begin to wonder what the government's role should be. And this carries over to the arts.
Just continuing this thread, a little bit more. Perhaps the underlying issue is that role of government. I think government is supposed to be the great leveler, but I'm sure there are quite a few people (the ones with a lot of money) that believe government should be the great protector, even to the point where government should protect them from fellow citizens.
“Art and risk go together.” YES
Everyone here will recognize the name Carl Djerassi and recall the generosity that had been extended to poets and writers via the Djerassi Foundation.
Michael Bloomberg's non-profit has funneled $$ to art museums and numerous cultural outlets here in NYC.
Arms-length philanthropy + institutional support are necessary.
And our donations (however modest) matter, too.
I recently read an article I wrote after the 2009 F. Scott Fitzgerald Festival at Montgomery Community College in Rockville, MD. One of the keynote speakers was Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran.
Her speech was deeply insightful - I offer her closing observations:
Writing is about the stranger within you – within all of us. Nafisi is concerned about the shallowness of modern American culture where imagination has become insignificant. She spoke against categorizing writers in "little boxes" such as "Cuban American" or "Dominican" – she said these categories marginalize writers who speak universally. The individualism of great writers is the loneliness of outsiders who connect to the world through their visions.
She was dismayed by the closing of libraries and bookstores, the Congressman who required the Nat Endowment for the Arts to "Justify itself," as though if the value of art and literature could not be quantified, they wouldn't actually have any.
"If not us, who will bail out imagination and thought?" she challenged. "Readers of the world unite!"
If we consider the NEA solely as a resource for grants to individual artists, we have overlooked its larger impact: support for art institutions: schools, museums, libraries, and other public spaces where people have opportunities to encounter works of art. To me, art is that magic moment in creation when one's efforts suddenly reveal a direction, a resolution, a situation unplanned and unforeseen - that "Oh yes, that's it!" spark. And to be able to make that visible/ legible in one's craft, is to be an artist.
As the US settles into autocracy, inevitably its sanctioned "art" will follow. I've been reading Soviet writers most of my life, and admire the cleverness and satiric edge that kept many of them ahead of the censors - Vladimir Voinovich's The Fur Hat is a wonderful short novel about how writers fare in that system. And Lyudmila Ulitskaya's The Big Green Tent opens on the day of Stalin's death, making clear that the systems and apparatchiks he put in place, carried on without him - Perestroika took decades to show up.
The NEA's support for art institutions: schools, museums, libraries, and other public spaces is definitely a justifiable cause IMHO. I would be interested to know if its original purpose included funding individual writers and artists. Based on the list of writers who received NEA grants, I would have to assume that it was. But I'll do a little research to be sure.
Interesting that you mentioned Soviet writers. The way things are going here in the US. I often think of them as an example of how writers an artists will have to survive soon. As someone who occasionally writes satire, I think it will be very interesting. Autocrats and their minions rarely get satire.
Good, provocative essay, Joe. IMHO governments should never be allowed to interfere in individual grants. Programs here in Canada have broad institutional goals, but granting happens by juries of fellow artists, those people trained to know the difference between, say, porn and art. I’m all for philanthropy but only when done at arm’s length. If we can agree that artistic goals are not the same as commercial goals, it’s the only way. Countries all over the world have programs to nurture their artists. How else to create and foster a national identity? Not to say that committees of artists are perfect, but a government strongarm will never lead to artistic excellence.
As I mentioned in my reply to Eric, above, perhaps the best question to ask is, what would our society look like if government didn't fund the arts? I agree that the decisions about funding are best handled by artists, as long as the panel making the decisions is as diverse as the population it is supposed to serve.
Another great and timely piece, Joe. Personally, I am against any form of governmental interference...unless it can be proved that the intended recipients benefit more than the cost to the rest of society in terms of their tax dollars. For example, while not Christian, I find a crucifix in a jar of urine highly offensive, and, if I could, withhold my taxes if that were funded. Art in all its forms is highly personal—to the artist. Why should the public, through its taxes, pay for the personal expression of the artist? Also, there are many entities involved who are in it for their own profit, including art dealers and the staff who run the funded organizations.
It's a complex issue with no clear solution. Who's to say that what a funded organization or person produces/exhibits is in the public's best interest? If funding if left to the private sector, then really only those who can afford to fund will have a disproportionate say in what is funded.
In the past, all artists/writers were self-funded, in that they produced when they didn't work to support themselves. What's changed? If you want/need to write/paint, you can when not earning a living, and even when you are, you can dream/fantasize and then after your dinner, write/paint.
Many thanks...once more.
Eric
Thanks, Eric. As I tried to express there are pros and cons to each side of the issue. Should government fund the arts? Should government fund things like libraries? Certainly libraries have a specific benefit to the population. With literary and visual art it's not quite so clear. What is the benefit to the public? Maybe the best question to ask is what would our society be like if government didn't fund the arts? That might be a better starting point.
By the way, Christine is right, in the past artists, especially the artists we remember today, were funded by institutions and patrons.
Your point about self-funding isn’t accurate, Eric. Artists were not all self-funded historically, though some were. Please see churches, kings and other institutional funding for art. Some of the great art in Europe is in churches! The king WAS the gov’t, and the same could be argued about the church. What one person finds offensive isn’t a good metric. Art must be allowed to offend if it’s doing its job.
And just what is art’s “job”? If I am paying for it through my taxes, I want something in return.
Artists tell stories through different mediums. If you listen to music, read books, watch TV, you’re engaging with an artist’s work. Story is how we deal with the streaming chaos that is life. Making those stories requires thousands of hours of dedicated work. It’s hard to see if you’re not doing it, but anyone who gets a grant has done at least ten thousand hours of unpaid labour to get to that point of mastery.
Not every story is for every person, but the kinds of work that receive arts funding tends to be work that inspires other artists. And for the record, arts funding isn’t anything close to a living wage. Almost all artists have other jobs to pay the rent.
Sometimes we forget that even the crap we watch on TV is a form of art. If it wasn't for those "lesser" forms, perhaps some artists wouldn't be inspired to do something better.
TV can be an art form (The Wire, Breaking Bad) but average TV is entertainment, imho. Nothing wrong with that! But a team of writers made that, and they were likely inspired by other art.
Whether art in all its forms has value is quite subjective. Should public money be used to fund specific art? Libraries are not specific but universal and, as such, serve a useful service to society, for example. It is questionable whether an individual—-artist or writer—-actually serves a useful service to society; that’s a subjective issue. And, as a subjective issue, governments should be careful about funding, because others would say, Why not me?