Comments on: Second (and third) thoughts about public funding for the arts

By: perplexed

perplexed — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:34:35 +0000

Interesting conversation. As a private-sector business supporting regional artists, I find a new and concerning encroachment – public funded arts organizations moving into private sector and in affect, competing against companies like mine. For example, “public art” agencies used to focus on visual arts in public buildings and open spaces only. Now to generate revenue, they are providing these services to private sector developers. In essense, they are becoming corporate art consultants. That is a for-profit service my firm provides. Yet, I can’t compete against a public funded agencies whose overhead is covered by tax payer dollars.

Is it possible that public funding for the arts will eventually put for-profit out of business? Is this what we want to see happen – that art becomes a charity only?

I think that discussing why we fund the arts and creating guidelines as the author of this site has recommended is a good idea:
“Let the public fund what benefits the public, and let private wealth make possible acts of private creation.”

By: | Butts In The Seats

| Butts In The Seats — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 05:56:48 +0000

[...] was a real busy month for me so I only had the time to bookmark The Nonprofiteer’s epiphany about the value of public funding for the arts. “Of course you’re indifferent to public [...]

By: ChrisAshworth.org » Blog Archive » Renewing Theater the Right Way

ChrisAshworth.org » Blog Archive » Renewing Theater the Right Way — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:40:45 +0000

[...] makes her case for funding culture on the tax-payer’s dime. And Arlene isn’t alone. Calls for government investment in the arts are popping up all over. Some with celebrity [...]

By: Nonprofiteer

Nonprofiteer — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:52:14 +0000

We’ve ALWAYS lived in communities where local theater, music, dance and visual arts have to rely on [private] patronage–at no time has NEA (or state or local) funding done more than offer a seal of approval and a pittance. But I wasn’t advocating zeroing out state arts agencies; I was advocating spending their money on exhibition, performance and education in the arts rather than on subsidies to individual artists. Perhaps Governor Granholm will restore arts funding when she gets enough money from the Feds to pay the state’s Medicaid bills.

By: Jennifer Hill

Jennifer Hill — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:35:12 +0000

In her proposed budget for 2010, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has zeroed out funding for operational grants for the state arts agency. The question of whether there is a consensus on the value of arts is being asked again. When it was Republican Governor John Engler who proposed ending funding, he was convinced that state revenues for the arts brought significant opportunity. The argument now is about jobs and retaining talent – do you want to live in a community where there the local theater, music, dance and visual arts have to rely on patronage?

By: A Common Misconception | Articles About Everything

A Common Misconception | Articles About Everything — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 11:33:22 +0000

[...] Over at The Nonprofiteer, onetime kellynfp has “Second (and third) thoughts most open resource of the arts.” Apparently, she spent an daytime in my older bag municipality of municipality IL watching a [...]

By: Nonprofiteer

Nonprofiteer — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 23:00:11 +0000

The debate isn’t over the amount of funding, it’s about the source and its use. Nor is anyone arguing that there’s already enough art, or that art doesn’t have value. But democracies are institutions that run on consensus, while the creation of art depends on individual whim/eccentricity/independence. If democracies are going to fund the arts they have to fund the consensus, that is, art which has already stood the test of time. New art–which, after all, might turn out to be crap–needs to find its funding elsewhere. Generous private patronage has funded the development of every art form throughout history; I hardly think–unless we persuade private donors that the government’s already taking care of it!–that a society as prosperous as ours will be the first to break that particular historical chain.

By: Ellen Wadey

Ellen Wadey — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:52:22 +0000

I worry that the public/private funding dichotomy that the Nonprofiteer has proposed will ultimately come around to bite the public in the proverbial back row. There are so few sources of funding for individual artists — 3Arts funds five artists annually (and are seen as trailblazers for doing that), the Guggenheim generally anoints the already anointed, and the Rosenwald fund is no more — that to advocate that artists developing new work be funded only from private sources is like saying, “We’ve already got enough art, we don’t need any more. Let’s just stick with the golden oldies and spread them around more.” So then as an art consumer, I get the broad choices of a hundred different productions of A Christmas Carol at the holidays — or the Nutcracker if I want to venture into dance — and the canon of literature and art and music can remain dominantly populated by dead white guys — though, of course, I can always go see Wicked in every major city in the U.S. And, if artists are left to scare up their own funding, we can count on the next wave added to the various canons to also be dead white guys because historically they have all the connections.

I get fatigued that the discussion of art can’t seem to get beyond the debate of its value. I understand that people need jobs and homes and good health care. I wouldn’t lobby against supporting any of those causes. And they are substantially more funded than the arts. When we talk about whether the arts should get public funding, it should be put in the perspective that funding for the arts in Illinois is at what $1 per person? We’re talking about less than the cost of a Diet Coke. And, only a portion of that is given to supporting artists developing new work. Should we really be debating that that’s too much public funding?

By: Tony Adams

Tony Adams — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:01:06 +0000

I think both are necessary.

By: Nonprofiteer

Nonprofiteer — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 22:47:19 +0000

Fair point: arts funding isn’t JUST about touring companies, though I doubt anyone would dispute that the opportunity to see one of the half-dozen best dance troupes in the world is 1) independently worthwhile and 2) qualitatively different from the opportunity to see/interact with/participate in local companies. Or, to borrow your analogy: it isn’t JUST Grameen Bank; it’s also the Peace Corps. But of course I acknowledge the significance of local companies; that’s the strength of the Chicago arts community as well. It just wasn’t the thought I happened to be having during a touring performance of a national company.