Essay Example on Government Support for the Art Industry: A History

Introduction

Governments across the world have supported art through funding from the period of Ancient Athens and the middle ages to today. Each legislation in every country is vested with a high amount of responsibility to ensure the art industry is well funded and protected. The Federal Arts Project was created by the United States during the time of depression to support unemployed artists (Kilian III 17). Since then, the government did not offer much support to the art industry. However, recently, the US government has been promoting art to a great extent. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has been supporting art through multiple leadership initiatives. It has partnered with local, state, and federal agencies as well as regional art organizations to fund individual artists and to make grants. This way, it has played a critical role in alleviating financial stress prevalent in the arts industry. The funding of the sector has stimulated the private sector in enhancing the country's cultural growth. It supports the industry through direct and indirect funding like tax exemptions, donations, and direct financing through National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

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History of Government Support on Arts

The National Endowment Fund for the Arts is an independent Federal agency which was initiated to support the funding of arts in the US. The Arts and Humanities Act of 1965 established NEA to focus specifically on matters of arts (Kilian III 5). According to the law, art was defined as music, drama, folk art, and dance. Creative writing, graphic art, sculpture, painting, fashion design, industrial craft, costume, photography, sound recordings, and motion pictures. Since then, NEA became the primary financier of the non-profit art in the USA (Kilian III 5). The federal government is usually able to foster the preservation as well as innovation in the arts industry. It funds new artistic classic works of art, hence, making them accessible to all people. More so, the artist gets motivated and become more innovative. More so, NEA promotes art education at all levels and preserves the cultural heritage of the United States by honoring national heroes and features.

NEA usually funds the artistic work through American Jazz fellowships, Literature Fellowships, and National Heritage Fellowships. For example, literature fellowship amounting to $ 20,000 is mainly awarded to those artists on fiction, poetry, and drama (Kilian III 6). The translation projects are usually awarded between $ 10,000 and $ 20,000(Kilian III 6).More so, the American Jazz Masters are awarded $ 20,000.The fund is offered to any distinguished Jazz musician (Kilian III 7). The grants offered to non-profit art organizations support multiple projects like new developing works, bringing art to new audiences, and developing the entire art industry. The NEA grant for art education focuses on strengthening art education in the education system of America. This way, the lifelong learning of arts is encouraged.

The Debate over Funding the Art in the USA

The Artwork has more than Enough Fund Even without the Support of NEA

The critics argue that the public funding of the Art through NEA is insignificant compared to the private financing of the industry. Even before the formation of NEA in 1965, the art industry was performing without government support. The endowment was created just because of the significant needs of that period, which do not necessarily apply today. The funding from the private sector on the arts is so huger, amounting to nearly 99% of the total funds that the art industry receives (Kilian III 5).

According to the critics, there has been a tremendous growth of the charitable sector for the financing of the arts. This move has rendered the public support insignificant in the industry, meaning the fund should be diverted to other areas of the US economy (Kenworthy 21. The art industry has recently focused on fundraising to finance its activities. The funds raised through private institutions are many times larger than the funds that are received from the government through NEA. According to the conclusions from other countries like Great Britain, the performing arts can thrive even without public funding. Luccasen argue that the government can boast the private sector but does not need to incorporate the funding of arts in its budget. The art industry does not need much government intervention because it is purely a private affair that should be funded and supported using private funding. Therefore, critics have concluded that the elimination of NEA funding is critical because it can be diverted to other sectors where it is needed most. The art has more than enough and can easily flourish without the support of the federal government.

However, other people claim that art has no enough funding. The NEA supporters argue that the artwork will not have enough financing without NEA. The main focus of NEA was not to replace private support to the art industry. The NEA was formed in the year 1965 to support and supplement the support to the art industry because of its importance to the federal government (Lucassen and Kathleen 7). It was created to help in correcting the biases of private funding instead. The arts, according to the objectives of NEA, is critical national life and not just for luxury (Kim 44). Therefore, even though the art is not necessarily profitable, it is a vital sector that should be supported by the federal government. According to Kim, public financing for arts would encourage individual donors to contribute towards the arts industry. The research is based on crowding in and crowding in hypothesis which argues that government support to the art industry may encourage private funding.

NEA has Focused More on Welfare of the Elite Artists Only

Even though NEA claims to support the underprivileged individuals in the art industry, most of the attention has been focused on elite artists. The critics argue that the largest share of the fund usually goes to multi-million dollar organizations that can thrive comfortably without government support. The funding has concentrated more on the middle to upper-class prosperous people who could enjoy art in the absence of NEA subsidies (Kenworthy 19). The poor class, who require a lot of federal support in their art have been receiving little funding from the government. Therefore, even though the art industry has been funded over the years using public funds, the poor and underprivileged artists continue to suffer. Most of them rely on private and donor funding. Therefore, NEA funds have no significant impact on the arts industry and ought to be eliminated in totality.

However, the supporters claim that NEA usually funds any creativity irrespective of the status of the artist. Even though the NEA has been met with a lot of controversies about supporting the elite groups of artists, the organization is very self-conscious nowadays. It promotes multiple creative programs like Creative Forbes Program (Lucassen and Kathleen 7). This way, it increases community art activities through promoting wellness, health, quality of life for the members of military force, veterans as well as their respective families. More so, NEA has been supporting the Challenge America program, designed to help the communities with low or no access to arts programming. This fund is mainly focused on the non-elite group of artists.

NEA Lowering the Quality of American Art

Many people have claimed that NEA reduces the quality of American art to a great extent. NEA funding is threatening the independence of the arts and artists at large. The artists rely on creativity and talents, which mainly develops when artists are independent in their thoughts and actions. Government intervention usually interferes with this creativity and eventually lowering the quality of the art (Kipp-Giusti 9). Many people have argued that in case government gets into the business of financing arts, it result to pernicious impact upon the arts. According to Bill, in any free society, artists can produce any work that their talent, imagination, and means can support, whether it is controversial or not. Based on this claim, the question remains whether those artists funded with public money have the freedom in totality to express their thoughts and imaginations even though their works are perceived as controversial, obscene, or nude. The NEA has been perceived to be creating a mini-industrial policy for the art, which usually hurts the quality of artistic works. Government subsidies typically reduce the choice and diversity in the creative marketplace. It discourages creativity by forcing artists to emulate one another to succeed, which is not practical in the art industry.

However, NEA supporters have argued that public funding is not lowering the quality of arts in the US in any way. The NEA has been encouraging creativity by awarding the best performances across the nation. It does not promote copy-pasted forms of art but requires any artist to become original and more creative in his or her production (Huffman 32). Therefore, the output of masterpieces in the arts industry is not encouraged by the government. More so, NEA supports artists to maintain their careers in the industry by all means. It also provides avenues for artist training and experimentation (Huffman 33). This way, it plays a critical role in reducing unemployment levels in the country. According to Zither, the current justification for support of arts in America rests in two dimensions or benefits; instrumental benefits and intrinsic. The essential benefits are those quantifiable or measurable outcomes from artistic work. Examples of these benefits include economic impacts, the creation of jobs, and improving students' test scores. The intrinsic benefits, on the other hand, are intangible benefits, which include a greater attachment to the community and personal interests.

NEA Continues to Fund Pornography

The critics have argued that NEA funding should stop because it will continue supporting the obscene and pornographic productions. According to the court ruling of 1990, the procedure by which the government helps art is mainly unconstitutional. Kilian III argues that it is unfair to use public funds to finance materials that are perceived as nude or obscene. Such artworks include depictions of sadomasochism, sexual exploitation of children, or people engaged in sexual intercourse. According to the author, such works have no scientific value and should not be funded using taxpayers' money. Some of the films and movies that have been financed by NEA appeal to deal with children's sexuality of children. Some of the pornographic films that people claim NEA funded that include Ten Cents, a Dance (Kipp-Giusti 15). Sex Fish, Coming Home, and Seventeen Rooms, among others. These movies showed either sexual activities, love affairs, or nude clips. The films are encouraging immorality in society. Even though supports claimed that it was a mistake to fund such productions, it is a clear indication that NEA is misusing public funds in supporting immoral activities.

However, according to the supporters, NEA does not fund pornography. The NEA supporters have argued that the primary objective of art is not to fund any obscene or pornographic content. It support both original work, education for the artists, standards and values (Kim 44). Even though the organization funded any controversial content before, that is something outdated. The fact that the organization made a mistake does not mean it is terrible in totality. NEA has supported multiple creativity, originality and other arts which encourage values and morality for the people. Rosenstein, advocates for public funding of arts. She claims that the actions to the financing of art by the government should be...