It has always been an important cultural endeavor. Endeavors is the online magazine of research and creative activity at UNC-Chapel Hill. Right now, 42% have voted No to taxpayer funding for the arts.

Sign up for membership to become a founding member and help shape HuffPost's next chapter, Register to vote and apply for an absentee ballot today. Before the creation of the NEA, art was extremely elitist.

If so, the cities and towns should decide that they will pay for it. For example, listener donations to WUNC radio increased when its funds were cut. What artist wouldn't want to live there?

“Urban Chapel,” Art Professor Jim Hirschfield’s sculptural installation within a moving van, would not have been possible without public arts funding. Money for the arts benefits a variety of businesses. Public funding doesn’t reduce ticket prices; it doesn’t affect them at all. Artists who consciously try to win public funding are selling out to the forces of political faddism. It would be a tragedy to lose them.

This is elitist; it suggests that if you’re not wealthy you don’t value the art experience. Many critics of federal arts funding have high regard for art and artists, but they understand the economics of subsidies and believe artistic patronage should be voluntary.

The issue that is being disputed is whether the arts should be …

Photo by Jim Ball. It’s an overly used example, but Van Gogh sold few paintings in his lifetime, and now his paintings are so valuable even museums can’t buy them anymore. Even if we could rely on the corporations, their money has strings attached; it can’t provide artists the freedom that the NEA or state art councils can offer.

If the benefits are going to the downtown developers and restaurants, then these entities should be willing to pay for the subsidies. Despite current economic hardships, it is imperative that school funds be divided equally between the arts and the athletic programs. We made it easy for you to exercise your right to vote! Public arts funding is not a waste of tax dollars. So, arts lovers: go ahead and write your letters to Congress asking for level funding, that 6% increase, or whatever you want. It is unclear why fans of Adele and “The Dark Knight Rises” should have to pay for my enjoyment of Italian opera. I am absolutely confident that I don’t know (and today’s “juries” don’t know) what that great art will be. Following federal government cuts of 100% in 2010, staff at Sarajevo's National Museum have gone unpaid for seven months! Budgets for social programs are also being cut, and corporations are tending to give more to socially geared charitable organizations. Ticket prices are calculated to maximize the revenues of the organization. Dutch cuts of 25% last year resulted in a dramatic reshaping of the national cultural landscape that particularly affected smaller and grassroots institutions. For as much room as the United States has to step up its commitment to the arts in the form of public dollars, we are not likely to see the federal government become the primary source of support for the arts in this country in our lifetimes, or those of our children or children's children for that matter. Click to read photo caption. Suppose that it is true that without public funding many arts organizations might cease to exist. Should the government fund the arts? The problem with the arts is that a small group of wealthy, educated people want the rest of the public to pay for their enjoyment.

Designed for civic leaders and cultural advocates, Why Should Government Support the Arts? Middle-class people don’t value the opera, and cannot attend anyway because the ticket prices are too high. Wealthy people pay a lot of taxes, and they wield a lot of political power. ©2013 Endeavors magazine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. research and creative activity at UNC-Chapel Hill, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research. Great art of the late 20th century is the art that will make people laugh, cry, or get mad 50 or 100 years from now.

Who benefits from public arts support? Pete makes a strong argument against taxpayer subsidies for the arts, arguing that they should be opposed not because of the cost, but because of the harmful impact of government money on the arts themselves: The unspoken question throughout Mr Davey's piece is who defines what art is.
no, govt should not fund the arts any more than it should fund any other career field that one enters voluntarily. But according to a 2006 analysis by Charities Aid Foundation, the USA's charitable giving is more than seven times that of Germany's as a percentage of GDP - and no other country in the sample comes even as close as half. But critics are notorious in their inability to recognize “great” art. This year, Americans for the Arts (our field's chief advocacy group) is asking for $155 million for the NEA, a 6% increase over last year's enacted level, and $12.5 million below the agency's appropriation in FY2010.

Tap here to turn on desktop notifications to get the news sent straight to you. Use of trade names implies no endorsement by UNC-Chapel Hill. Most programs don’t cost much on their own.

If you have comments or a request for permission to reprint material, contact us here. It's all well and good to point to the Europeans as a model; just don't be surprised if they're the ones mimicking us in the end. No portion of this site may be reproduced without written permission. No, the vast majority of arts funding in the United States comes from the private sector: either earned revenue from ticket sales or other services, or donations from foundations, corporations and individuals. I support the NEA and will fight any and all efforts by either party to drive its already "pathetic" budget even further into fiscal oblivion.

Since the work existed within a tractor trailer, I was able to move the art to other sites in and around Seattle.

It is a relatively small investment with a consistently high return. ©2020 Verizon Media.

Politics 10 Practical Reasons Why We Need to Fund—and Defend—the National Endowment for the Arts.

A bad model, says Pete: To appreciate the arts does not require us to be able to tell a Monet from a Manet.

No, says Pete Spence, the newest addition to the Adam Smith Institute team at The Economist's debate site. If the benefits are for the poor, we are better off giving the money, not the art, to those in poverty. dramatic reshaping of the national cultural landscape, that country's culture minister cutting a "racist cake". The artwork brought a few moments of quiet contemplation to those who entered the installation. invites conversation about the value of the arts to American communities.

Just because art isn’t subsidized doesn’t mean that it lacks support. Richer people are more likely to go to the sort of “elite” arts that are funded by the government. Hirschfield: Public funding gives artists access to the marketplace; it says to them, “it doesn’t matter who you are or whom you know, your product is what’s important.” It gives artists a chance to set aside time to create work and then go to a publisher, museum, or art gallery with an endorsed product. The Huffington Post doesn't ask us whether the federal government should support the arts, it asks whether federal government money is the best way to support the arts -- a key distinction. In other words, if people don't like Tibetan nose flute orchestras enough to pay themselves, they will be forced to do so by their betters at the Arts Council. I believe that the federal and state governments have a stake in funding the arts, just as they have a stake in funding education and exploration, social justice, and protecting citizens.

Government spending should be focused on objectively beneficial policies that benefits all not on policies which only provides a mere past time to a minority of people. A survey of arts groups in the UK found that more than a ninth of those who lost their funding in a round of government cuts intend to close up shop, and another 22% considered themselves at risk of failure. Assuming that the percentage of money given to the arts is comparable between countries, we can figure that German arts organizations receive something on the order of $250 million per year in private funding, compared to $13.3 billion on our side of the pond. The same can be said of government funding for the arts. The Office of Technology Development (OTD) is the only UNC office authorized to execute license agreements with companies. “Urban Chapel” existed for two months, and more than 5,000 people experienced the piece at no cost to them. But that's not the question at hand.

Here in the US, we fight hard every year for the NEA to survive, and we should - but there is nevertheless some comfort in knowing that if it goes away, the arts won't be dragged down the drain with it. Art is not a frill.

All government programs have achievements and failures. Public funding, by its very nature, creates new art that is either inert and lifeless, or shocking, but superficial. Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Furthermore, a company’s decision to fund an arts organization will often hinge on endorsements from regional, state, and federal donors.
Which highlights another downside of a government-dominant system: any shock to public revenue streams could be life or death to grant recipients, rather than just another challenge to overcome. Unfortunately, neither the market nor the public can ensure “great” art. It is up to individuals to decide whether their lives are more enriched by watching a Hollywood film than by attending the opera. Indeed, I believe that government has an important role to play in distributing and equalizing opportunities for making and experiencing art, especially geographically and across class divisions.

Why can’t the private sector pick up the costs? If you want to say critics have more taste about what is “good” art, I may agree with you.

It should be organic, its ability to change through time to reflect the zeitgeist of the time being one of its defining features.

And frankly, that's probably for the best.

Public arts funding is not a waste of tax dollars. The Huffington Post doesn't ask us whether the federal government should support the arts, it asks whether federal government money is the best way to support the arts -- a key distinction.

In 1990, for example, I received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts … That would surely be sad. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. These pressures see funds directed towards the mediocre and the predictable. Where does the rest of the money come from?

Public funding does affect the viability of dance, opera, or theater companies and spaces for exhibitions. I believe that there’s great art, literature, and poetry out there that is extremely valuable but that won’t ever get a chance in the marketplace.

With a small amount of money, I reached a wide and varied audience. I know that popular art will take care of itself, because that is how you make money. The argument is sometimes made that “cultural” funding is good for cities and towns.

For information on licensing, reporting inventions, and technology transfer at UNC, contact OTD at 919-966-3929.

Public funding has placed art in public buildings, parks, and schools so that anyone, at no cost, can experience art. In 1990, for example, I received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The subsidies offered out of the public purse are classic political transfers from the middle class to the wealthy.

That investment of over $20 per German citizen absolutely dwarfs the 41 cents per red-blooded American provided by the NEA. The basic conservative principle is that benefits and funding should be as closely matched as possible, provided that those receiving the benefits have the financial wherewithal to pay.