In my professional life, I direct a suburban arts commission and present performing arts events. As you might expect, I tend to follow discussions about arts policy, funding and marketing.
Seattle’s NPR station recently ran a series on the role of public funding in the arts. In the third report, KUOW’s Marcie Sillman explores both money (or, more accurately, the shortage of it) and where traditional arts fit within a society that has more and more access to arts and entertainment at the click of a mouse or touch of a screen. The full transcript is at http://kuow.org/program.php?id=22340
I am very interested in, although not completely sold on, the idea of audience development through curatorial involvement. I have mixed feelings similar to those expressed by Choreographer and Spectrum Dance Theater Artist Director, Donald Byrd. I think the vote-for-your-favorite model (à la American Idol) generally nudges the product more toward entertainment than art, especially in the long run. My hunch is that this strategy might work better for what I would consider “niche” organizations like On The Boards that have a relatively narrow audience. (The staff at OTB might argue with me about that assumption, but my point is, everyone who goes to OTB has at least a cursory interest in contemporary performance art and that, as anyone who does arts work in the ‘burbs knows, is a highly narrow interest.) So, inviting audiences to have some curatorial power within that niche might make some sense. I definitely see the value in getting audiences personally invested. However, I don’t see how it would work for me, as a municipal arts presenter. My mandate is to serve a broad range of people. Allowing my series patrons more curatorial power would likely result in future seasons that are increasingly focused on only the genres for which we already have established audiences. But can we, as a City agency, feel good about focusing only on folk music, for example? I don’t think so.
The combination of marketing challenges, decreasing government funding and the uncertainty of the recession has definitely created a precarious environment for arts organizations. We are all doing a lot of serious thinking about ways to evolve. What I don’t buy into is a one-size-fits-all approach. Ideas that work for smaller, younger organizations may not be the same ideas that work for larger organizations or government agencies. Strategies that are successful in urban areas might fail in suburban and rural settings. Everybody has to balance their unique combination of environment, resources, political realities, constituents and, ultimately, art.
Lately, I’ve noticed “arts insiders” (whatever that means) making comments that are, quite frankly, not helpful in this challenging time of dwindling resources, increased competition and uncertainty. I recently talked to a colleague who does advocacy work in Washington D.C. and a similar dynamic is at work there. We expected Tea Partiers to attempt drastic cuts, but little did we know President Obama would be the first to suggest a cut to the National Endowment for the Arts. The situation becomes even more challenging when national scale “arts insiders” add to the problem, like NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman suggesting there are too many arts organizations, and the Kennedy Center’s Michael Kaiser jumping in to say not only are there too many, but they aren’t of good quality. Is this an intelligentsia of the art world? Some sort of cool kids club of skeptical, naysayers?
Why are the larger, more institutionalized arts organizations getting criticism for trying to reach out to younger audiences? Just because there aren’t legions of young people scrambling to get tickets to the Seattle Symphony doesn’t mean that classical music has lost all value or that there aren’t plenty of young people who would identify with those “same old products” if they only had the opportunity to be exposed to them. Maybe it isn’t that the large organizations are necessarily doing something “wrong” (i.e. they’re established and big and mainstream and they have to pay the bills), but that, between our education system and modern entertainment options, young people aren’t even getting a chance to experience what they do.
My friend and colleague Jim Kelly (Director of King County’s arts agency, 4Culture) tells a wonderful story about his son. For years, he tried to get his son involved in various sports, but nothing clicked. When Seattle’s Benaroya Hall opened, Jim brought his son along to one of the opening events where the Northwest Boy Choir happened to be singing in the lobby. His son was transfixed watching the group and immediately wanted to get involved. Jim says that experience changed his son’s life, “He heard this great choir and said ‘I want to do that.’” Jim’s son went on to study music and is now preparing to graduate from college and embark on a career in the music industry. His inspiration didn’t happen because he chose to go to an event that he thought was cool or because he was involved in creating the art or selecting the artist, it was a random exposure to something put on by one of those big, antiquated organizations that created a spark for him.
I’m not sure how effective this idea of thoroughly involving audiences, from making curatorial decisions to determining marketing plans, is anyway. I mean, it’s a good concept, but who, as an audience member, has time for that? I don’t buy albums any more either, but I don’t have time to do Lane Czaplinski’s (On The Boards Artistic Director) work for him. I just want to go out and see a great performance. Besides, I don’t think he needs me to do it for him – he’s obviously an expert on contemporary performance.
Artists and organizations – even younger, leaner ones – have always needed money to create and disseminate their work. Suggestions that public funding isn’t necessary or important to the arts are disturbing to me. Do we want to go back to the days when artists depended on rich, private citizens to make their art? Who has the curatorial power then?
It’s true – artists are driven to make art and find each other and connect with audiences who want to experience art, but we WILL lose something if public support for the arts is lost. We already have lost something in the way of arts education and it is showing. How many young people will we lose – both as future audience members and as productive members of society – if they never have the chance to be exposed to the arts? Many kids aren’t going to know how to, or that they even want to, seek out the arts unless they are given chances to experience it in their schools, parks and town squares. Of course there will be a few who struggle through to find, enjoy and make art, but is a few enough? I don’t think it is. It takes public funding to infuse our communities with arts experiences and to reach more than a few.
I don’t think another round of funding cuts will “destroy” art in America, but it will very likely change art in America and I’m not sure those changes will be good. Yes, artists will always exist and they will always make art and there will probably always be people that seek it out. But does that mean we don’t need to worry about funding for arts? That’s like saying, “There will always be poverty and hunger and disease, but there will also always be kind people who find ways to help, so we don’t need to worry about funding for services or research.”
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