The Real Reason to Keep Financing the Arts

These are troubling times for advocates of government support for the arts. Over the past year,

42 states have either cut their arts financing or proposed doing so. If all the cuts under consideration are made, a total of $100-million in state spending would be eliminated. Leading the pack are Missouri, which is seeking a 75-percent cut, Massachusetts (62 percent), Michigan (50 percent), and Virginia (45 percent). Alaska, Colorado, Missouri, and New Jersey are considering eliminating arts spending altogether.

Arts advocates traditionally give two reasons for continued and increasing governmental contributions to the arts. Arts leaders are often quick to charge that the federal government’s support for the arts lags behind that of Canada and much of Europe, even though that is not necessarily the case.

They also often argue that money funneled to the arts by government has a “multiplier effect,” helping the rest of the economy. But that has not been proven to be true.

A closer look at the rationales advanced by arts lobbyists shows why fresh thinking is needed on this topic, and why old arguments should be discarded.

Comparing the United States with Europe. Certainly, the United States ranks behind Canada and much of Europe in terms of the amount that governments spend per person on the arts. Some nations spend 30 to 50 times more per person than the United States does.

However, Europe generally has ministries of culture that provide financial support to a wide range of activities, such as arts in the public schools, as well as the maintenance of historic homes and monuments, libraries, and national archives, while the United States’ National Endowment for the Arts assists nothing but arts institutions. In some nations, tourism promotion and recreational facilities receive financing through the cultural ministry. The Swedish Culture Ministry provides subsidies for the news media.

Looking at direct government support for arts institutions, the United States does not fare as badly, so it doesn’t make sense for arts advocates to keep using this comparison to make their case

While government support for major art institutions in the United States amounts to between 10 and 15 percent of those groups’ overall operating budgets, the French culture ministry, whose budget is (on a per-capita basis) five times the size of the National Endowment for the Arts’, subsidizes between 70 and 90 percent of the total costs of the institutions it supports. The U.S. government (and most private foundations in the United States) supports the arts by encouraging private donations to arts organizations and institutions through the use of matching grants.

Canadians and Europeans, on the other hand, are far less generous, on average, than citizens of the United States — even though most of these countries have similar incentives for charitable giving in their tax laws — and expect their governments to pay more or all of the costs of operating arts institutions.

Certainly, regular and sizable support of the European variety is a stabilizing element for an organization. But requiring that a significant share of arts spending come from private contributions relieves government of the responsibility of being the sole arbiter of artistic merit, thereby lessening the possibility of political manipulation. Audiences vote on the quality of an arts institution’s offerings with their feet and wallets.

Without the incentive of the market to help support a federal agency’s choices, a government may find itself in the position of the Dutch, running out of storage room and looking to get rid of hundreds of thousands of works of art that it bought from artists as part of its cultural support program.

The multiplier effect. Numerous studies have come to the same conclusion: The arts aid the economy in terms of tourism, helping to fill hotels and restaurants, and creating jobs. These studies are intended to persuade legislators that they should allocate more money to nonprofit arts groups by appealing to a government’s self-interest: increased tax revenue.

Statistics seem to back those assertions up. But are the statistics true? It is probably impossible to evaluate how important small performing companies, museums, and arts-management groups are to the tourist industry, especially in cities that offer plenty of other opportunities for culture lovers.

Take New York City. Are nonprofit arts groups really of paramount importance in drawing in tourist dollars, or is it ancillary to commercial organizations, such as the Broadway theaters, major dance companies, and art galleries? Does each dollar donated to a nonprofit arts group multiply into many dollars for the rest of the economy, or does the success of commercial arts groups give the nonprofit groups a visibility and legitimacy they might otherwise not have? Will a major exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City draw in tourists to the city if nothing on Broadway has received favorable reviews? If Bloomingdale’s shut its doors for good, would the same number of people want to come to Manhattan to see the Metropolitan Opera? The lack of answers to these questions is the multiplier argument’s largest drawback.

Most people go to New York City to experience New York City, which includes commercial theater, bookshops, art galleries, clothing stores and other boutiques, cafes, restaurants, and much more that is certainly not nonprofit. Most visitors make a day of it, or a weekend, or longer. We would look in amazement at someone who went to Manhattan from out of town just to see a performance of, say, the New York Philharmonic orchestra and then went straight home.

Studies that purport to show the multiplier effect might be more convincing if they focused on cities with only one cultural attraction available.

An example might be Merion, Pa., home of the Barnes Foundation, with its fabulous art collection. How many people travel to Merion, find accommodations there, eat at a local restaurant, attend a movie, or find other leisure activities that produce income from local businesses? Undoubtedly, very little of the money spent by visitors to the Barnes Foundation is multiplied in the Merion area, precisely because Philadelphia is so nearby with its far more numerous cultural attractions.

It is true that the creation of a new cultural facility may help to rejuvenate a city or neighborhood, with an investment of governmental dollars opening the door to private efforts.

But all this begs the real question: Do Americans support the arts in order to clean up a neighborhood or to provide jobs at hotels and restaurants?

No. We support nonprofit arts groups because the arts are good for society, and it is good for every American to have a chance to experience art.

People can argue over what types of art are good and what makes them good, but nobody needs statistics about financial benefits or comparative global spending to prove the benefits of the arts. Learning about art is learning about ourselves, our culture, our values, our goals. Art is not escapism but a discovery, and its abundance and accessibility is a determining factor in our quality of life. It is to maintain and enhance the quality of life that governments are created, and on this basis that governments are judged. That is the argument arts groups should be making in these budget-cutting times.

Daniel Grant is author of

The Business of Being an Artist and The Fine Artist’s Career Guide (Allworth Press).