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Thursday, April 07, 2011
Cutting Arts Funding
Kevin Spacey appears on Chris Matthews' Hardball to argue against cutting funding to the arts. Beautiful argument, so well said, it not only applies to funding for the arts in the U.S., but in Canada, the UK, and everywhere else around the world. Make sure you watch it all the way to the end. (And thanks to Caseen for the link!)
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9 comments:
Nikki, thank you so much for posting this. As an arts supporter in the States, and an employee of an arts funding organization, I am familiar with and deeply appreciative of Kevin Spacey's eloquent arguments. I hope his message reaches as many people as possible, so I'll be reposting!
What are we fighting for, indeed. Art is life.
Spacey's comments regarding the macroeconomic value of the arts (read Broadway as the Main Street to the American cultural heart) make a very satisfying argument for many who naturally are in favour of the arts. But the arts are always troubling to many, as the latest attack at the New York Metropolitan on Gauguin's Two Tahitian Women demonstrates. As Jonathan Jones (writing for the Guardian) notes, the nude, such as in Gauguin's pictures, still represent something "dirty" in this day and age of digital media (wasn't the New Age supposed to replace the old one of paint and canvas).
Why is art disturbing, and, I would ask Kevin Spacey, why should something that is disturbing be funded? This line of argument goes back to Plato's Republic. I suspect behind a lot of congress' wishing to cut arts funding there is this emotion of unease with the arts. As the woman who attacked the Gauguin said, He has nudity and is bad for the children. He has two women in the painting and it's very homosexual.
But then we are clearly in two ideological camps.
Sorry, the attack on the Gauguin was not the New York Metropolitan, but the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. I guess I just love the Met too much, it naturally springs to mind.
They should cut all funding to the Republicans.
But it's not really the cost of the arts is it? It's because intelligent people like it. It's because it's subversive.
Just for the sake of playing devil's advocate, my understanding of the argument against government funding is based on the belief that artists should have to depend on their audiences for support, and that subsidies dilute the bond between artist and audience, alienating one from the other. Does Spacey address this point? (I can't watch the video from where I am yet.)
@Colleen/redeem147: Yes, I suppose being "subversive," or, from another point of view, hostile to Republican costituencies, is probably not endearing contemporary artists to the majority party in the US House of Representatives.
Ah, he does address it. He points out the arts have always been publicly funded. Good enough for me; I was just wondering.
It's not hard to agree that the funding of Broadway or a Film Festival or even some obscure poet in Springfield (somewhere in America) is something we can all get behind. But what about the more controversial stuff. In Canada there was a big debate over the purchase of Barnett Newman's "Voice of Fire" for $1.8 million, even by no less than Greg Graham, director of Canadian Artists' Representation/Front des Artistes canadiens. This was our own example of culture wars: the issue over what represents Canadian culture (for those in the know, the painting is by an American artist).
Now the Republicans certainly approach arts fudning from an ideological point of view, funding of the arts follows along two ideological lines. But aside for the political positions of each side, what the arts do is construct for us a view of ourselves as a nation (during my grad days in the U.S., I saw An american in Paris with Gene Kelly. It still speaks to me about what Americans are). Art represents national identity better than most things--where would Canada be without Group of Seven or Emily Carr? Or for that matter, William Shatner, who's performances of Shakespeare even Plummer hailed--now that's truly Canadian.
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