Art in Crisis: Maintaining a Creative Workforce in an Economic Maelstrom

After weeks of negotiations, the Obama-proposed $787 billion stimulus package was signed into law last Friday in an attempt to combat the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Though the bill is comprised of both tax cuts and new spending, one major segment of the economy was almost entirely excluded from the act: the arts. In an effort to "ensure that tax paper money [was] not lost on wasteful and non-stimulative projects," Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn (pictured right) proposed an amendment that aimed at preventing stimulus money from going towards the funding of artistic institutions. Organizations deemed unworthy of stimulus money were parks, museums, theaters and art centers. In a surprising decision, the Senate voted last week 73-24 to approve the revision with bipartisan support. With government working to bailout many other major American industries however, Congress failed to adequately explain its refusal to help one of the nation’s largest employers. While the effects of the yet-to-be enacted stimulus bill are still uncertain, the Senate’s decision to exclude the arts from the deal came as a blow to an already weak market.

Ignoring the deseperate please of arts advocacy groups, Coburn and his supporters defended the initiative by claiming that artistic funding failed to create jobs. However, with an estimated 5.7 million workers facing unemployment, the senator failed to acknowledge that the primary concern of the National Endowment for the Arts has been job creation. As such, the Coburn amendment sought to destabilize an already struggling industry through largely misleading claims. Not only does the industry employ millions of Americans, but also makes up one of the largest sectors of the U.S. economy. With the American economy on the verge of collapse, maintaining the arts is essential to fiscal recovery. Search the web and find a veritable breakdown of the many art institutions amid budgetary crisis. Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) is on the brink of financial collapse and has already been forced to cut its relatively small workforce by 32 employees. A private institution, the museum has exceeded its projected annual budget and has been unable to rely on the dwindling donations of private donors. With few options keeping it from closure, museum directors have considered everything from a merger with the government-funded Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to the auctioning of art from its collection. As early as November of last year, Museum Director Jeremy Strick was demanding that "the city step forward and offer the kind of financial support commensurate with the work being done." Unfortunately, MOCA’s dire situation is by no means unique. Hundreds of institutions such as the Austin Museum of Art and the Portland Arts Museum have also been forced into layoffs and budget tightening. Though attendance is steady, dwindling private donations have threatened an industry largely reliant on philanthropic contributions. As a result, endowment campaigns across the nation have been abandoned. The Coburn amendment would thus have only led the artistic community to greater financial disaster, adding to growing unemployment and threatening the future of the market.

Yet while such financial impacts can by no means be underestimated, the effects of the initiative on childhood education would have been equally damaging. In preventing creative institutions from gaining financial stability, Coburn ignored the vital role artistic organizations play in local economies and communities. As Merryl Goldberg of Americans for the Arts wrote earlier this year, "the arts are a field discriminated against and an easy target when times get tough." Yet "the arts are also what communities and individuals rely on in these exact same tough times." As such, more than ever, the arts provide a channel by which to communicate and explore deeper cultural understanding and experience. Exposure to innovative processes not only aids in development but creates a platform from which children may develop both critical minds and cognitive skills. Recent research has found that students who study the arts are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement and three times more likely to consistently attend class. While art is often mistakenly seen as an elite pastime, cultural institutions also allow for easy access to millions of Americans. LACMA alone offers over 400,000 visitors free or subsidized admission annually and, as popular tourist destinations, art museums employ over 250,000 Americans. With contributions of over $14.5 billion to the U.S. economy, the success of art institutions not only signals the profitability of the art market, but of Wall Street as well. An industry dependent on luxury spending, art sales decline when patrons become more frugal. As with every other business, the price of art rises and falls with the Dow.

Thus, when Americans for the Arts (pictured left) announced a large initiative to try and overturn the amendment, Congress finally awakened to the crisis at hand and recognized the need to provide monetary aid to a weakened industry. On February 13, 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed both the Senate and the House of Representatives, overturning the language put forth by the Coburn amendment and giving $50 million to the National Endowment for the Arts. In a time when the future of the industry remains in question, such actions are essential in maintaining one of the largest workforces in the U.S. economy and hopefully signal a more sympathetic government towards creative culture. Nonetheless, reviving the art market will take more than a simple increase in organizational funding. Exciting public interest in the arts will once again prove vital. With such a viable and important segment of our economy in crisis, it is imperative that Congress continue its support of the arts, most importantly by seeking to alleviate the negative image the Coburn amendment has cast on the funding of artistic agencies. The designation of the arts as "non-stimulative" has come at a time when creative institutions are struggling most. Recent auctions at Sotheby’s and Christy’s proved disastrous and countless institutions are seeking financial support and face possible closures. Even with the $50 million in stimulus money, questions remain as to the future of the art market and what impact the relatively small sum will have on maintaining the industry's viability.

Though the Coburn amendment was eventually overturned, the bill's brief passage reflects an alarming trend in Washington to overlook the arts. While President Obama has vowed to increase government support of the arts, it remains to be seen whether the new administration will live up to its campaign promises. Just last week, the president of Americans for the Arts pointed to a disturbing trend in the industry's financing, suggesting that government support has actually regressed over the past several years. According to transcripts, “If the NEA had simply maintained its 1979 percentage of discretionary funding, its 2008 budget would have been $613 million.” As of yet, the Obama administration has requested a NEA budget of only $205 million, a sum which includes the $50 million in stimulus money. Such failures continue to impact the success of the industry, despite the invaluable impact the arts bring both to America’s financial sector and educational system. With $29.6 billion in tax revenues and $166.2 billion in profits, artistic patronage not only preserves the creative community but is essential to American financial recovery. Continued insistence on government funding and increased personal donations are both vital in ensuring the success of America's artistic community without further damage to its support system.