On Supporting the Arts

A couple of weeks ago, composer Michael Gordon (not to be confused with ex-Phish bassist Mike Gordon) had a post on the New York Times blog The Score about the importance of the arts (music in particular) in society and the need to support them. Gordon tells the story of playing a festival in Italy with his band and uses that generally as a springboard to argue about the importance of music to bring understanding to the world. His conclusion is very powerful:

After our arrival here in Catania the local cultural emissary took my band out for dinner. As usually happens in Europe our hosts asked us how we could have elected George Bush as president. I have heard the conversation many times. We reminded them that half of the country did not vote for Bush. As members of my band tried to assuage the negative impressions these Europeans had about Americans, I thought that here a different type of cultural diplomacy was going on. There are thousands, maybe tens of thousands of American artists performing around the world — not passing through like tourists but having real, meaningful, positive interactions with the citizens of other nations. In these many small interactions, we communicate a different America.

A good point, although he takes a couple of missteps along the way.

First, he insinuates that the best way to support for the arts is with government funding:

The arts play an extremely important role in European life. I’m not a statistician, so don’t hold me to exact numbers, but a quick search on the Web brought me this information: In the most recent study on government spending on the arts, Finland, which leads the European countries, spent about $91 per capita. (The data is summarized in a January 2000 research note by the National Endowment for the Arts.) Most European countries trail that figure by a bit, but they’re all in the same ballpark. However, the United States, the world’s greatest economic power (isn’t that what our political leaders keep telling us) spent about $6 per capita on the arts.

Why is that so important? Because the arts will be our legacy:

What we remember about a culture after thousands of years is most likely to be their arts, architecture, writing and achievements in thought. Is it worth nurturing, exporting and preserving our culture? Most countries think it is. But in the United States this isn’t a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. It’s a non-issue.

Oddly enough, I remember making that exact same issue with a fellow student in a high school social studies class during a debate about the National Endowment for the Arts. He took the traditional conservative position that public money shouldn't be used to subsidize artists (he went on to join the College Republican at WVU - go figure). I argued the contrary. But in subsequent years, I've changed my position.

Direct subsidization of artists by the government, it seems to me, is both haphazardly random and counter-capitalistic. How can a government agency possibly determine what art deserves funding and what doesn't without moving into some shady First Amendment areas? And why should a few artists lucky enough to curry favor with the government funders be sheltered from the market forces with which we all must deal? Propping up artists who make art that nobody wants to consume is wasteful and just a bit pointless.

What I'd prefer to see the NEA do is shift its mission in two ways. First, its primary goal should be arts education in public and private schools. The market for artistic works will be buoyed by educated consumers who have their appetites whetted in school. Second, if it subsidized any performers directly, it should be artists who serve economically depressed areas that could not support such art on its own. In other words, take the NEA grant away from the Metropolitan Opera and give it to some organization that takes opera on the road into rural areas that otherwise would never see and hear it.

The other misstep Gordon makes is a familiar one:

Those of us who perform and compose semi-popular music — that is, experimental, art, classical and jazz — cannot survive in the free market like rock, urban and country musicians do. Although there is a fan base for these more esoteric types of music that numbers in the millions, it just doesn’t add up to the large CD sales and stadium tours that the popular music stars enjoy.

In other words, "serious" music needs support from the public via the government, regardless of popular appeal, while "pop" musicians and artists are left to suffer the whims of the marketplace and, in the words of Frank Zappa, "got to play for poot in the bistro bars."

That rests on, what I feel, is a fundamental flaw in trying to shuffle "art" music and "pop" music into separate ghettos. I refuse to draw such distinctions. Music is music and its value to any given person can be measured only by how they react to it, not whether it's made for serious purposes or otherwise. Speaking for myself, music that moves me in some way reaches the same place in my brain and (dare I say it) soul, regardless of where it comes from. The bridge from "Afraid of Sunlight," the fiery workout at the end of "Starless," and the guitar solo in "Watermelon in Easter Hay" have jammed themselves in the same crevice of my skull as the delicate second movement of Mozart's clarinet concerto, the broad strokes of Copland's Third Symphony, or the brutal rhythms of The Rites of Spring. I simply see no reason to put Marillion, King Crimson, or Zappa aside as not being "serious" artists. It's worth considering that lots of what we now consider essential parts of the orchestra repertoire was popular entertainment when it was made.

If you look at it that way, the idea that non-pop musicians should be shielded from the market falls away. If an artist can't figure out a way to sell what he or she does well enough to make a living, that's life. I've heard lots of talented musicians who play for 100 people a night and then have to go to shitty day jobs to make ends meet. Most pop musicians don't "survive in the free market." In a perfect world, we'd all be able to pursue our muse without regard to making a living. But this is not that world and as long as it's not, the playing field should be the same for everyone.

But, to get back to Gordon's broader point, he is absolutely correct about the value of music (and the arts in general) in life, in building bridges between people and cultures, and in defining who we are as a civilization. And I certainly have no problem with private citizens and foundations funding what ever kind of artistic programs they want, market forces be damned. So get out there and make your voice heard as a consumer the best way you can - support your local artistic endeavors with your dollars and your time.