New School Remarks: Economic Censorship and the Arts
By Ruby Lerner, June 4, 2002

On overt censorship matters, attention has focused primarily on the public sector. What is much more difficult to examine is the subtle role that private sector philanthropy plays in determining what kinds of art and ideas get produced and then disseminated. It is hard to call the practices I am going to describe as censorship in any of the ways we normally think of it, but the point is we don't know what important ideas and people we're not getting access to as a result.

I'm going to focus on living artists creating new work.

Often when people talk about support for "the arts", it seems that they mean anything BUT support for actual living breathing artists. James Baldwin said, "Everybody wants an artist on the wall or on the library shelf, but nobody wants one in the house."

Years ago I read a wonderful article in the Sunday Times Magazine by composer Lester Trimble; he was lamenting the state of support for contemporary composers; He said,"Year after year we starve the horse while applying layers of gilt to the cart. But for all our grand expenditure of money on concert halls and theaters, we are not enriching our culture by one jot."

I am completely baffled by people who believe work shouldn't be supported unless the artist is long dead and the work has "stood the test of time." Think about applying this ludicrous principle to support for scientific research. Well, there wouldn't actually be any scientific research, would there? You'd just have scientists endlessly writing essays about experiments done 100 years ago. Think of what we wouldn't have now. So, nothing could be more important than support for a country's contemporary creative voices.

In fact, I'm going to posit a radical proposition--that perhaps it's possible to judge the health of a community or a society by how well it supports its contemporary creative voices--in all areas--education, science, business, humanities and in the arts.

So, what are some of the policies and practices of private sector philanthropy that may, either knowingly, or since I prefer to be optimistic, unconsciously, discourage the fullest expression of diverse ideas? How much private sector philanthropy is going to support and promote the work of living, breathing artists? Or, in other words, do funding policies and practices in private philanthropy actually reward dead artists at the expense of the living?

Private philanthropy consists of support from individuals, historically the largest source of private contributions, foundations, which are second, and corporate support which comes in third. According to the Foundation Center's most recent Arts Funding Update, in 1998 all private arts giving totaled $7.66 billion, with the foundation sector, (56,600 strong, by the way), providing an estimated $3.69 billion for arts, culture, media and the

humanities in 2000.

Just to focus on the foundation sector for a moment, $3.69 billion dollars is a lot of money. Where is all this money going? Again, from the Foundation Center Update--38.2% went to specific project support, 32.4% went to capital support, generally that would be construction support for building expansions or to help create or augment an endowment fund, and 21.9% provided general operating support.

What might these numbers tell us? That the least amount of money is going toward the ongoing capacity building of organizations; this is particularly important money for the small and mid-sized organizations that support individual artists and innovation more generally. Instead these organizations are forced to perpetually invent new programs in order to continue attracting project support, the largest category. This eats up a lot of energy.

Also, we've seen valuable initiatives get created to address a specific issue in the field, sometimes for a 3-5 year trial period, during which time many demonstrate their importance to the field, only to be financially abandoned so that they can never come to full maturity. I've been saying that our field is littered with the corpses not of the failures but of the successes. We've lost the Advancement Program and the Regional Regrant Program at the NEA, to name just two important public sector initiatives--but I suspect there's a village of lost ideas out there.

Back to the funding. About 1/3 of foundation funding is going toward capital expenses--just speculating, but I don't think it's unfair to assume that most of this money will be going to larger and more traditional arts organizations.

The discipline breakdown is also revealing. The performing arts received 32.2% of arts grant dollars, and the Report stresses that there is especially strong support for symphony and opera. 29.1% went toward museum activities, 9.9% went to media and communications which includes public TV and radio, and multidisciplinary arts, especially multi-purpose arts centers, arts councils and arts education programs accounted for another 8.8%.

Now, of course, in each of those broad categories, some of the funding is going to artists creating new work, but, I think you can begin to see my point which is that relative to the total arts giving, support to living artists will be small. It would be really great to have the actual percentage of total arts giving that IS going to support the work of living artists, and to the organizations that support the creation of new work. This would be a great graduate student project, for instance, to sort out support for museum exhibits of living vs. dead artists, and of the living, how many are not already "famous." This information would be tremendously helpful to those of us attempting to advocate with foundations specifically, and the private sector generally (which also includes individuals and corporations).

We need a Percent for Artists program--by this I mean putting artists back into the arts, bringing artists into the house. Perhaps we could think of it as tithing for the future. What an amazing difference just 10%, just 10%, of that total 7.66 billion,(or $766 million) would make for the work of contemporary artists creating original work as well as sustaining the organizations that help working artists. Just 10% for the living.

Further, we need to evaluate how well all institutions, programs and projects support artists. If endowment funds are being raised, what percentage will go to support artists' projects? What percentage of annual operating budgets support artists' projects directly? Boards need to monitor this; funders need to monitor this. If we care about the future, it needs to be of concern.