Art does not need government grants.
Editor’s Note: This piece is reprinted with permission from Acculturated.
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has been constantly in the headlines since President Trump’s budget proposed slashing the agency’s funding, with much digital ink spilled about the cultureless Right who cannot appreciate art. Playbill published a piece recently on the NEA’s role in creating the musical Sunday in the Park with George and the New York Times suggested that South Dakota, which voted decisively for Trump was, a “prime recipient of money from the very arts endowment that the president wants to eliminate.”
As with so many things, the Left seems to equate an appreciation or need for something with a requirement that the state fund that thing. Of course, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Throughout history, the arts have flourished under private patronage rather than government subsidies.
It would be a strange person indeed who did not consider the Renaissance to have been home to some of the most incredible art in history, and it was under private patronage that it so flourished. The Medici Family of bankers, for example, commissioned art by Michelangelo. The Borgias made possible works from Machiavelli’s The Prince to Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. In eighteenth-century Europe, Beethoven and Mozart also benefited from patronage. While patronage still exists in the modern age, artists are increasingly subsidized by the government. What does this mean for the arts?
Many artists feel that there is a direct conflict between artistic expression and government funding. I spoke to one such artist, a performer in Los Angeles, on the condition of anonymity, lest a somewhat conservative opinion mean the loss of a career.
What are your thoughts on the NEA? Is it helpful to artists? Hurtful? How or why?
The NEA has helped many arts organizations over the years, providing much needed funding for all manner of visual and fine arts, and it has indeed contributed particularly to the survival of the classical arts, such as ballet and opera. These organizations, often non-profit, are then in turn able to provide artists a fair wage for their work and in that sense it has been helpful to artists. However, it’s seldom acknowledged in the artistic community that the more the government provides for the arts, the more it can choose to exert control over the art that you make. And the more money that flows from government to the arts, the more arts organizations begin to behave more like government itself: a lumbering, wasteful bureaucracy.
What role should the government play in the arts?
I believe the government can play a greater role in the arts by reducing its own ridiculous size, lowering its operational costs; this will allow taxpayers to keep more of their own money, which they can choose to contribute to the local or national arts organizations of their choosing.
How should the arts be funded? Why?
We the people need to decide collectively that the arts are a vital and necessary part of American life, and that we don’t need government as a middle man to funnel our money to the arts on our behalf. Entire art forms have been invented by the American people, such as jazz and musical theater. If we are capable of such remarkable innovation, we are capable of exercising our freedom to decide for ourselves to donate, fund, and produce.
As an artist, are you comfortable with government funding? Why or why not?
The reason I don’t feel entirely comfortable with government funding is that none of that money is truly free. It comes from all of us, in the form of taxes. People love to throw around words like “grant” and “free” as if the money magically appears in a dusty trunk next to a leprechaun riding a unicorn, but guess what? That’s all actually money that we the people had to punch a clock and earn. I don’t want to force a fellow American to hand over part of their paycheck to the government so that the government can decide to pay me to make my art. I’d rather have a fellow American turn to me and say “Wow, your art is beautiful. I want to pay you to make more of it.”
What are other artists saying?
Most of my fellow artists strongly disagree with my stance. They feel it is government’s role to intervene in a free market that often leaves artists in the dust, because the supply of art and artists far outweighs the demand for it. They feel it is government’s responsibility to right the “wrong” that is a capitalist economy — a system that deems the arts “non-essential” and therefore worth less money than other products and services. They don’t realize that the more the private sector and capitalism thrives, the more they too will ultimately thrive.
If you open up any major opera or ballet company performance program and go to the section that thanks their largest donors, you will often see the NEA, but right alongside them you will see names like Morgan Stanley, Chase, and Goldman Sachs. The creative community often loves to vilify big financial institutions for ripping off the little guy, but they don’t realize that those very same institutions are providing tremendous opportunities for artists through large sponsorships and donations. And also, you will see the most important names of all: generous individuals who have decided to donate large portions of their own self-made fortunes to make these productions possible, because they want to give back to their own country, a place that gave them the opportunity to create such wealth in the first place.
Anything else you’d like to add?
I find it fascinating that the same artists who are so angry about the recent Presidential election results are just as quick to demand that government finance their entire livelihoods. Why would you want to rely on government to pay you to create your art, the thing that you hold most dear, when that very government is led by an individual and a political party that you are so fundamentally and ideologically against? Why do you want to be reliant on an entity that is led by a person that you have deemed sexist, racist, xenophobic, megalomaniacal, and a liar? Wouldn’t you rather hold your head high and walk away saying “We The People don’t need that kind of government or your money, we will fund the arts on our terms?”
READ MORE:
President Trump, Defund the National Endowment for the Arts — For Art’s Sake
The National Endowment for the Arts: What Does it Do?
Trump’s Presidency Means Curtains for the NEA & NEH
– Amelia Hamilton (@ameliahammy) is a conservative blogger, fellow with the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, and hockey fan.