Artist Subsidies: The Cost of Culture?

I hang out with a lot of arty-types and lately there's been a huge movement to “save PA arts” by continuing to fund Pennsylvania art programs. This includes a lot grant programs, art organizations, and maybe some post-secondary (non-college) education, etc. The people making a big deal about it were of course the artists whose livelihood is based on these grants and such programs that pay them for making art.

I have to say this behavior really pisses me off. Yes, I'd like to defund most programs the government has, however if you'll allow me to put my pragmatist hat on for a second, I have to ask the simple question of ROI: return on investment. Really, in this case it can be considered a Keynesian multiplier – meaning for X dollars put into a program it generates Y dollars for the economy. Some government spending has a positive multiplier effect such as building roads and tax cuts, however I have to say that arts programs probably don't have these effects and are a net loss of value.

This is very controversial – especially to anyone who likes art. I can hear them now saying, “How dare you say art doesn't have any value! Art is culture, and that's very important!” Let me put a disclaimer on this and say that I love art and pften enjoy going to museums, crawls, etc. With this said, I don't think the ROI for art, even taking into account the cultural benefit thereof, is at all in the black.

Let me also say that culture definitely has value. Culture is some condensed form of the spirit of humanity, and that is very important for social cohesion, quality of life, etc. I'm not questioning that, I'm questioning whether funded art in aggregate adds more cultural value than it would otherwise.

There's another question to be asked also: Are the modern arts relevant? Artists reading this are probably getting pissed at me by now. To continue, if I ask Joe SixPack what he likes about art he'll invariably say “things that look good” or “things I can identify with”. The problem is that many of the modern arts have largely rejected the concept of natural beauty. In doing so, they've become mostly irrelevant to the majority. Heck, the majority of people will never set foot in an art museum, gallery, etc. in their adult lives to admire the masters - let alone the modern stuff. That's the truth.

Let me also clarify that by “art” I mean objects that are made only for form – not function. Design is a completely different thing – hence why designers can get paid pretty easily without any government subsidies. Average Joe loves design because it makes things look cool (Ferrari) or function better (iPhone). Design is highly marketable; art on-the-other-hand largely isn't.

I wish I could be paid to build race cars all day. The government could buy them and display them on a pedestal. Heck, I'd even let people drive them. However, the point is that it's silly to subsidize me building unmarketable cars just because some people get to enjoy them. I see no difference between that and art programs. You may cry “Culture!” , but I'll tell you: Our culture prefers car shows / races over art any day – not that I'm proud of that fact, but it's just the truth.

Comments welcome!

Comments

[Mark Stroup]

Nick, thanks for bringing this to my attention.

I agree with you in some ways. Artists should realize they're playing by the rules of Keynes or Ricardo, and they should take their ball and go home. No one understands what they do anyway. Cutting arts means more money for asphalt or for just spending it on what you want. Then the artists can get jobs on a gravel truck or as a flag man or woman. Designing highways we understand. Cash in the hand we understand. Art, well . . .

Then again, if we didn't have artists, how would we measure our own manly and commonsense virtues? How will we show off our fripperies, when all of us are too butch to frip. If the artists go all John Galt on us, not just because they're not given money by the government, but because someone lets the cat out of the bag, and says that all Joe Sixpack wants is something good or something that he identifies with, then let the panderers take care of that. Perhaps we too often confuse "artist" with "massage artist".

We know, of course, that Gov. Rendell's favorite artist is "sandwich artist". But cutting arts out of the budget won't turn artists into "starvation artists". They will adapt. In many cases, they will move, all because we will begrudge them the cost of a few thousand orange pylons.

Either way, the artists will prevail. They always do.

[Nick Pinkston]

Thanks for the comment, Mark. I also agree that artists will prevail. I think this is largely why they don't need funded. Art is something that comes from inner desire and passion, that's hard to suppress - even with budget cuts. I'm saying that I think plenty of art would be made without any subsidies.

We don't have any programs that give grants to garage bands - at least no garage bands I know of have applied for them. This is because most of them play for fun - not money. Only a select few people who play music ever make money off of it - yet a massive amount of people have music as a hobby.

I see art as the same way. I'm sure many (most?) people applying for these art grants would still be making art otherwise - perhaps at night or on weekends. Also, they wouldn't have to contend with being influenced by a "call-for-artists" spec sheet.

I'm also ignoring the local government sponsorships for public art - some of which probably do have high ROI - such as murals, installations, etc. Also, we're ignoring private funds for art which would still be funding.

Artists moving away doesn't seem to really matter. Out of state artists apply for state, local and private art grants all the time. I hear plenty of people in Pittsburgh complaining at how biased the locals are toward NYC artists. We'd still be getting the art, the benefits, but without the need for subsidies. I see that as a win - win.

[James]

The only case for artist subsidies that I can see is as a competitive advantage versus other cities. There seems to be a good amount of evidence that the presence of artists in a community can increase property value, if nothing else. McKinsey calls it the bohemian-gay index: http://whatmatters.mckinseydigital.com/innovation/a-new-kind-of-economic-indicator

[Nick Pinkston]

Yea, at the local / city level I think it makes a lot more sense. This index and others like such as Richard Florida's "creativity index" talk about what happens when the artists are already there. I'm wondering though if subsidies really attract artists and persuade them to stay in the long term though.

I know of an artist who was recently in New England on an art residency and was also offered the same in France. She didn't plan on staying at either location permanently though. While there would be a conversion rate of these residencies into transplanting artists, I'd bet that it's not as influential as other variables.

The issue is one similar to Silicon Valley. Cities like Pittsburgh want to be more like the Valley, and so they put in place a lot of government programs that give out money. The issue is that while this probably has some type of conversion rate, I'm betting that other issues are really what make people stay.

For instance, I bet if Minot, ND offered the same amount of subsidies we did they'd still never retain as many startups because of the weather. Also, there are further / more important issues like the city's culture itself. This is something that doesn't change very easily over time.

I'm betting a similar analogy to Brooklyn can be made as well. The vast majority of the artists living there didn't come there because of subsidies, but because it's in NYC.

Bottom line is: I'm not sure how to retain artists in the long term, and no one else does either. It's definitely more of a mix of initial city culture, amenities, geography & weather than it is the amount of artist subsidies.

[Derek Burgess]

Nick.. I hate TypePads comment system.. or maybe it's just me. Anyways...

As a Designer first but followed closely by Artist second, I agree with the need to cut art related subsidies. The majority of Artist can easily push themselves into the Designer crowd, just by learning the software, and that can save them from "building bridges" to get by.

Just a few days ago at the monthly Pittsburgh Photographers meet-up, we were all having a discussion on pricing. Many of them have this romantic view of being Fine Art Photographers, which is great, but don't complain about being broke, or starving. There is plenty of opportunity to sell your work in the private market.

I always tell my "starving artist" friends to quit bitching and work harder at selling yourself. I myself have made money from Art and Design, and I know plenty of well off Painters/Sculptures/Illustrators, who don't have a problem either, and don't live off subsidies either.

[Nick Pinkston]

Yea, I'm with you Derek. It seems like no one wants to sell things anymore - as if that's beneath them. I'm not sure why either - if you have all this passion for something that you've done you should want to show people how cool it is. You can be for damn sure that the designers at Apple brag about all the cool stuff they make and why it's better and more functional, etc.

This brings me back to the utility function of art over science. Art is completely subjective and is probably are to personally sell. Design on the other hand has pragmatic things associated that people buy into. If you're not willing to create or show your utility you don't deserve any money for it.