Leave it to the Washington Post in its so far relentless quest to uphold the nightmarish status quo of the 2000's by launching a lengthy attack on the idea of including arts money in the stimulus. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/12/AR2009031202765.html?hpid=opinionsbox1 So far the commenters have ranged from the helpful (hire artists to offer arts programs to kids after the school day but before the parents get off work) to the loony (Stalinism! Cuba! Obama wants a Soviet USA!). Here's hoping people get a grip -- the art funding is going out very soon, courtesy of an expedited (some would say amphetamined) granting process, it's going all over the country to all disciplines, and it's a grand total of .00625% of the stimulus package.
I'm waiting for the neurologists to identify that sector of the brain which causes 40% of Americans to foam at the mouth when the words art, money and government appear in the same context.
Here's the link:
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Economics vs culture: 21st c. boxing match.
We had a rousing good discussion in cultural policy class last night on the issue of globalization as it affects the arts. It's a tangled web of economic and governmental interests versus a variety of artists, local and small-country governments, and nonprofit arts advocates and managers, trying to negotiate terrain that gets more complicated every day as the digital capabilities of the world increase.
It comes down to money versus culture. Two interests speaking different languages. At present, there is no authority who decides. The World Trade Organization versus UNESCO. Just as the "culture wars" of the 80s and 90s were so much about women, sex, the gay movement, and religion under the guise of arguments about art, the "trade wars" of the 2010s might well be about big money vs little (and individual culture), under the guise of "free trade" versus "protectionism." There's a lot of work to be done -- advocacy, education, scholarship, negotiation, just plain thinking. Keep the artists at the center and much will be gained, not so much lost.
It comes down to money versus culture. Two interests speaking different languages. At present, there is no authority who decides. The World Trade Organization versus UNESCO. Just as the "culture wars" of the 80s and 90s were so much about women, sex, the gay movement, and religion under the guise of arguments about art, the "trade wars" of the 2010s might well be about big money vs little (and individual culture), under the guise of "free trade" versus "protectionism." There's a lot of work to be done -- advocacy, education, scholarship, negotiation, just plain thinking. Keep the artists at the center and much will be gained, not so much lost.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
We need new arguments
The elimination of the arts from the stimulus bill -- and the chorus of "who needs the arts" that followed even on liberal sites like Huffington Post and Daily Kos, suggests that we have so spectacularly failed to make our case that the arts are important. The popular imagination doesn't buy the "arts create jobs" concept, even though it's true. People generally understand roads, rails and buildings as ways to employ people. They support (sort of) education, especially when the President talks about crumbling school buildings and the need for science labs.
One of my students last night rather brilliantly linked the beleageured cause of the arts to the sciences, which, under the previous administration and in the chorus of global warming-deniers, has become a somewhat partisan cause. Who knew that the search for objective truth would become a liberal cause, when even many if not most scientists aren't liberals?
Artists, academics, humanists, scientists -- we're all in the same boat, drifting further and further from the mainstream's perception. Obama's election helped, but we have to row this boat on our own, not wait for his administration's solutions. How shall we speak up for the arts?
One of my students last night rather brilliantly linked the beleageured cause of the arts to the sciences, which, under the previous administration and in the chorus of global warming-deniers, has become a somewhat partisan cause. Who knew that the search for objective truth would become a liberal cause, when even many if not most scientists aren't liberals?
Artists, academics, humanists, scientists -- we're all in the same boat, drifting further and further from the mainstream's perception. Obama's election helped, but we have to row this boat on our own, not wait for his administration's solutions. How shall we speak up for the arts?
Monday, February 9, 2009
Are these the Democrats we were voting for?
Apparently these are not. At least in the U.S. Senate. Last Friday (Feb 6), the Senate vote 73-24 to ban arts, recreation, or any other kind of leisure oriented funding from the Stimulus bill by passing an amendment offered by Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma. Like the author of the expensive and relatively un-stimulative credit for homebuyers (and real estate speculators), Johnny Isakson, R-Georgia, Coburn has no intention of voting for the stimulus bill, only of damaging it.
The $50 million boost the House provided will not put the National Endowment for the Arts back to where its funding level was prior to the mid-nineties Culture Wars. But it's a start, and you can bet that money given to arts organizations prevents layoffs and hired artists, techs, and publicists -- stimulus. The anti-culture posturing in the name of "saving money" is irrational and ill-placed. Let's hope the House restores sanity to the stimulus bill.
Every executive, whether of a small dance company or a Fortune 500 conglomerate knows that sometimes you try to achieve consensus ("Bipartisanship") and sometimes you just have to do what's right and wait for your critics to get on board.
The $50 million boost the House provided will not put the National Endowment for the Arts back to where its funding level was prior to the mid-nineties Culture Wars. But it's a start, and you can bet that money given to arts organizations prevents layoffs and hired artists, techs, and publicists -- stimulus. The anti-culture posturing in the name of "saving money" is irrational and ill-placed. Let's hope the House restores sanity to the stimulus bill.
Every executive, whether of a small dance company or a Fortune 500 conglomerate knows that sometimes you try to achieve consensus ("Bipartisanship") and sometimes you just have to do what's right and wait for your critics to get on board.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
More on the Rose: "Disaster Capitalism?"
When the Rose Museum closing was announced, I suspected that we would see evidence that Brandeis, in this era of economic downturn, was uniquely broke. Perhaps its endowment had been eaten by Bernie Madoff, or had done markedly worse than everyone else's. But it turns out that the Chronicle for Higher Education's survey of university endowments indicates that Brandeis has lost 22.9% of its original $700 million, right at, even slightly under, the average loss of 25%. Therefore, Brandeis is declaring a calamity in order to seize the cash it could generate from the art. My guess is that at least some board members and administrators have been eyeing that art for a long time. Naomi Klein calls this phenomenon of doing bold, bad things (like the bank bailout last October) "Disaster Capitalism," and it turns out that the arts aren't immune to it.
Monday, February 2, 2009
A crazy idea to save the banks and ourselves
What if, instead of sending cash to the banks and hoping they use it in ways that will help the people of the USA, why not pass a "bailout bill" for credit card debt? We could use government funds to go directly to cutting all credit card balances in half. Oh, I know, the cuts would only help people who've been irresponsible, sick, unlucky, overly optimistic about the future, etc. But so many of us have credit card debt, and even though the banks now borrow money from the Fed at 0% interest rates, few have seen cuts in credit card and consumer rates.
So along with the tightening of credit standards and credit lines, which was probably long overdue, we could maintain those standards while helping both the banks (at-risk balances reduced) and consumers (their own daunting high interest balances reduced), knowing that federal money would actually accomplish something.
And if ordinary people's debt loads and monthly payments decreased, wouldn't they have more money every month to create the economic activity we're trying to "stimulate"?
Along with debt load reduction, government could also mandate a decrease in credit card interest rates, returning to the caps of olden days, at say, 15%. That, too, would reduce debt, increase spending, and, as long as lending and credit guidelines remain tight, should not lead to an expansion of irresponsibility and all the alleged evils that saddled us all with so much of a problem.
A modest post from outside the beltway (well, I'm half a mile outside...)
So along with the tightening of credit standards and credit lines, which was probably long overdue, we could maintain those standards while helping both the banks (at-risk balances reduced) and consumers (their own daunting high interest balances reduced), knowing that federal money would actually accomplish something.
And if ordinary people's debt loads and monthly payments decreased, wouldn't they have more money every month to create the economic activity we're trying to "stimulate"?
Along with debt load reduction, government could also mandate a decrease in credit card interest rates, returning to the caps of olden days, at say, 15%. That, too, would reduce debt, increase spending, and, as long as lending and credit guidelines remain tight, should not lead to an expansion of irresponsibility and all the alleged evils that saddled us all with so much of a problem.
A modest post from outside the beltway (well, I'm half a mile outside...)
The Rose Museum controversy proves two things
If you haven't been following this particular strand of the apocalypse, the Rose Museum at Brandeis University has been ordered closed by the Brandeis Board of Trustees, and the art collection, valued at half a billion dollars, is to be sold off to finance Brandeis's operations.
Like most universities, companies, nonprofits, and people, Brandeis is having a hard time right now financially. Selling off the art collection is extreme, even shocking, coming from an intellectual powerhouse of a college. But it's evidence that 1), the arts just aren't very important to a lot of people, and 2), that the historic link of an important art collection to a university as a key teaching tool is dead, a relic not so different from the amusing turn-of-the-century biology specimen collections that used to adorn every life sciences department at every college.
Regardless of whether the Rose survives, and it still might, what needs fundamental work from the artistic standpoint is to rebuild that critical link of art and university, and most significantly to raise the value and nature of the arts in the public's consciousness. These are long-term struggles, but necessary ones. Meanwhile, one can find save-the-Rose groups on Facebook and other networthy sites.
Like most universities, companies, nonprofits, and people, Brandeis is having a hard time right now financially. Selling off the art collection is extreme, even shocking, coming from an intellectual powerhouse of a college. But it's evidence that 1), the arts just aren't very important to a lot of people, and 2), that the historic link of an important art collection to a university as a key teaching tool is dead, a relic not so different from the amusing turn-of-the-century biology specimen collections that used to adorn every life sciences department at every college.
Regardless of whether the Rose survives, and it still might, what needs fundamental work from the artistic standpoint is to rebuild that critical link of art and university, and most significantly to raise the value and nature of the arts in the public's consciousness. These are long-term struggles, but necessary ones. Meanwhile, one can find save-the-Rose groups on Facebook and other networthy sites.
Monday, January 26, 2009
You can Promote the National Summit for the Arts
The National Summit for the Arts idea has become a Facebook cause! If you'd like to join, go to: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/join/202708/42790651?m=ac75a943. Spread the word! Thanks for the suggestions to coordinate with such events as the Community Arts and Grantmakers in the Arts conferences - both good ideas. I was also thinking that the Americans for the Arts convention might be a good tie-in. It's in Philadelphia this June, I think.
Joiners welcome! Skeptics, too.
Joiners welcome! Skeptics, too.
We haven't made the case!
My last post calling for a National Summit elicited a mini-torrent of attack on DailyKos, where I cross posted it. Surprisingly, even in a liberal group blog like Kos, it's clear that a lot of people don't have a sense that the arts are important and that they need help from the government. The hard part about getting government support is that artists, arts organizations, and indeed the whole cultural sector is completely misunderstood by the public. We have to come together, find common arguments and unified ideas about why others should care about us. Until we do, we'll remain in the relative wilderness.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Let's have a national arts summit in summer 2009
Petitions and ideas are flying through the internets -- Arlene Goldbard has issued a call for a new WPA for artists; President Obama himself called for an "Artists Corps" in the schools, modeled on Teach for America, during his campaign; fragments of information suggest that some substantial millions, if not even a billion, will be appropriated to bodies like the NEA, the Smithsonian, and the IMLS when the stimulus package passes.
And most dramatic of all is the Quincy Jones petition that would create a cabinet-level "culture czar" or ministry of culture.
All these ideas paint a wildly optimistic future for the arts after years in the fiscal wilderness. We've been sustained by an economic boom that has enabled our private donors, foundations, and corporate sponsors to be unusually generous. But even during a two-decade mostly-boom period, the arts have neither flourished financially nor been able to save for the rainy day that's now monsooning all of us.
So maybe it's time we gathered all the artists and arts leaders and theorists and public policy experts together with key Congressional and administration leaders -- hello, Obama arts transition team? -- in one huge conference, in Washington, DC, where the public funding decisions will be made. May or June sounds good to me. Let the new Obama administration get its stimulus bill passed and its economic and national security/diplomacy efforts rolling. But then let's take a global look at every aspect of the arts support system that's been created, or that's grown at random, over the last few decades. And let's make recommendations for something new, something optimal for this new century. Spread the word: arts summit now.
And most dramatic of all is the Quincy Jones petition that would create a cabinet-level "culture czar" or ministry of culture.
All these ideas paint a wildly optimistic future for the arts after years in the fiscal wilderness. We've been sustained by an economic boom that has enabled our private donors, foundations, and corporate sponsors to be unusually generous. But even during a two-decade mostly-boom period, the arts have neither flourished financially nor been able to save for the rainy day that's now monsooning all of us.
So maybe it's time we gathered all the artists and arts leaders and theorists and public policy experts together with key Congressional and administration leaders -- hello, Obama arts transition team? -- in one huge conference, in Washington, DC, where the public funding decisions will be made. May or June sounds good to me. Let the new Obama administration get its stimulus bill passed and its economic and national security/diplomacy efforts rolling. But then let's take a global look at every aspect of the arts support system that's been created, or that's grown at random, over the last few decades. And let's make recommendations for something new, something optimal for this new century. Spread the word: arts summit now.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
happy new year! leave your cliches at the door.
Hello
The blog went dormant as I lost my way from the arts to obsessing on the election. Not wanting to be one more of the several million election bloggers, I decided to wait until now. New year, new president, new economic reality. This is a blog about the convergence of art, politics, money and memory.
Everyone is saying that we are in an unprecedented economic reality, that "everything has changed," and that we are in "uncharted waters." At this point, they're way ahead of themselves. We are in a recession; the wall street ponzi scheme has collapsed, for now; a major sector of the economy (or two) is reorganizing; we don't know how long this recession will last or how deep it will be.
What we do know is that the vulnerable get hurt first. That's true with individuals - this will be our country's first test of "welfare reform," which works well when the economy's humming, but now?
In the arts, underfunded organizations are going down. Museums are selling off collections and performing groups are cutting back on seasons. This happens every recession. The question is, will this recession cause us to revisit good ideas like --
real government funding of the arts; substantial support for individual artists; a resurrection of WPA/CETA concepts that would employ artists to document and describe this sprawling society; and new forms of funding for arts organizations.
The Panglossian approach ("the hybrid model of funding with waning government support is great") will have to sharpen their arguments which sounded good when the society was awash in cash..
This spring, I'll be teaching cultural policy and financial management. One is a theory course, the other a how-to. Both will have a tinge of crisis about them that wasn't there a year ago, when we addressed the arts going broke as a theoretical possibiity, not as today's news.
Happy new year. May the recession be brief but good lessons be learned!
The blog went dormant as I lost my way from the arts to obsessing on the election. Not wanting to be one more of the several million election bloggers, I decided to wait until now. New year, new president, new economic reality. This is a blog about the convergence of art, politics, money and memory.
Everyone is saying that we are in an unprecedented economic reality, that "everything has changed," and that we are in "uncharted waters." At this point, they're way ahead of themselves. We are in a recession; the wall street ponzi scheme has collapsed, for now; a major sector of the economy (or two) is reorganizing; we don't know how long this recession will last or how deep it will be.
What we do know is that the vulnerable get hurt first. That's true with individuals - this will be our country's first test of "welfare reform," which works well when the economy's humming, but now?
In the arts, underfunded organizations are going down. Museums are selling off collections and performing groups are cutting back on seasons. This happens every recession. The question is, will this recession cause us to revisit good ideas like --
real government funding of the arts; substantial support for individual artists; a resurrection of WPA/CETA concepts that would employ artists to document and describe this sprawling society; and new forms of funding for arts organizations.
The Panglossian approach ("the hybrid model of funding with waning government support is great") will have to sharpen their arguments which sounded good when the society was awash in cash..
This spring, I'll be teaching cultural policy and financial management. One is a theory course, the other a how-to. Both will have a tinge of crisis about them that wasn't there a year ago, when we addressed the arts going broke as a theoretical possibiity, not as today's news.
Happy new year. May the recession be brief but good lessons be learned!
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