Thursday, January 12, 2012
News / Art-icles Are the arts forever doomed to lose the funding war?
Posted by Debbie Michaud @DebsMichaud on Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 8:00 AM
Author Douglas McLennan argues that in our financially troubled and hyper-conservative Tea Party era, the arts community does itself a disservice by putting funding at the center of the conversation because the public's more concerned with cautionary belt-tightening than investing in aesthetic risk-taking. McLennan:
I think as long as it’s about money, the arts lose. As long as the conversation starts with funding, the arts lose. Yet that’s where the arts often start; if the debate is about money, then we try to prove what a good investment the arts are. But the problem with economic impact studies is that if someone isn’t in the market to invest — no matter how good the return is — they won’t. Concurrently, the problem with arguing aesthetic value is that if the aesthetic values aren’t my aesthetic values, they don’t sound compelling to me.Conservatives have been successful not because they have a better economic case, but because they make an argument about values. In a time when people are angry over a sour economy and a lack of accountability for those they perceive got us there, they preach caution, living within our means, and trying to impose more responsible behavior. Argued in these terms, again, who wouldn’t sign on?
Last week I interviewed departing Fulton County Arts & Culture Director Michael Simanga, and he basically argued the opposite: "The arts community has to be much more active demonstrating and telling our story and why we're important to the economy and the social fabric, but we're not good at telling that story yet. Over 23 years, the National Black Arts Festival has pumped millions of dollars into the local economy and we have to make sure that the arts and arts community are communicating that."
Over the past few years, Atlantans and Georgians have seen a steady decrease in funding for the arts and often responded reactively (and sometimes proactively) in an effort to salvage any spare change. So I think McLennan has an interesting point, even if I'm not quite sure if I agree. He says the arts ARE about values, although the left doesn't seem to be able to articulate and "sell" its values as effectively as the right.
I recently started watching "Mad Men" (I'm a little behind there, I know). The series opens with ad bigwig Don Draper struggling with a campaign for Lucky Strike cigarettes. It's the early ’60s and the public now knows that cigarettes will kill you. So how to get people to invest in something they knowingly love when their more practical side is telling them to do otherwise? It's all in the messaging.
If the focus is shifted from funding to values, how can the arts community, and by default the left, be as good as selling its story as the right is these days?
Comments (1)
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Damien Hirst has something to contribute to this conversation:
"As an artist you always make work from what's around you and, you know, money was around me."
http://youtu.be/5y_8DWg5W0w
Feel like Damien Hirst is example A in support of "As long as it’s about money, the arts lose."
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