Perception is Power: The Time is Now to Reframe America's Misunderstood Essential Industry
This article explores the current relevancy crisis facing the American cultural sector, and solutions for advocating for greater support for the arts in the age of COVID-19. It is the first part of a two part series issued this week.
WPA original poster: NATIONAL ART WEEK - A WORK OF AMERICAN ART IN EVERY AMERICAN HOME. Illinois WPA Art Project, Chicago.
Over the past months in quarantine, I have spoken to dozens of cultural leaders, artists, philanthropists, galleries, art fairs, fundraisers, and others in both the nonprofit and market sides of the cultural sector. These conversations covered immediate remedies for the survival of the sector during this first phase of the COVID-19 crisis, as well as long-term strategies for sustainability, resiliency, and the future of arts funding.
While we exchanged a diversity of ideas on how we can best remake arts engagement and funding structures, the conversations all shared one particular and vital item: they all eventually became conversations about relevance. Or, in one artist’s words, why “America doesn’t care about the arts.”
This was also the path that conversations followed when we at the Arts Funders Forum (AFF) conducted interviews for our 2019 research study. That study revealed that a majority of art funders and cultural leaders believe that “the arts do a subpar job of expressing the sector's value to society. Art and culture is considered a ‘nice to have’ not a ‘must have’. Cultural leaders say the sector needs to make the case that the arts are essential to society and not a ‘status thing’.”
That consensus, backed up by institutional funding and income analysis, led AFF to report that: “Cultural Institutions are Struggling with an Existential Crisis of Relevance.”
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As I have previously written, we are currently seeing a demand for the arts like never before: individually and collectively, societies around the globe are expressing themselves through art, yearning for creative expression, using the arts to heal, and to understand this complicated moment.
As a result, we are experiencing perhaps a once in a lifetime shift in behaviors, attitudes, and even values. The cultural sector must leverage this shift. It must develop an army of spokespeople for the arts. Out of this moment, we may find the most captive audience the arts have had in this century.
And yet, even in this context, the American government’s response to the crisis facing this sector is drastically, woefully inadequate. The government’s response does not compute with what we are seeing: the surge in the public’s demonstrated need, and obvious appreciation for, the arts.
Why?
THE FACTS AND THE TWEET
The sector is faced with an unprecedented challenge. According to an ambitious and ongoing survey by Americans for the Arts, we are seeing devastating losses for arts organizations: it is estimated that there is nearly $5 billion in losses for more than 120,000 national arts nonprofits.
Anticipating the extensive losses in March, The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) — the sole entity representing the entirety of the national museum community — petitioned the Congress for at least $4 billion in economic relief legislation.
Nonetheless, the money allocated to the cultural sector in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act[i] — in the largest federal stimulus package in American history — was less than 5% of that requested amount. It amounts to $225 million for the arts out of a $2.2 trillion economic stimulus package.
(As a result, on April 7, nine museum associations sent a letter to congress advocating for additional funding. They articulated that without more funding, there was an “existential threat” to cultural organizations.)
It must be stated that this is the amount allocated to a sector that the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) counts as an $804 billion industry. One that represents over 4% of the nation's GDP. One that employs over 5 million workers.[ii] This is a greater portion of the economy than transportation, tourism, and agriculture[iii].
But as the sector has grown since the Great Recession, as has its contribution to the economic landscape, BOTH public and private funding has decreased. Public arts funding, when adjusted for inflation, decreased by 12.8% over the past 20 years. In real dollars, state arts agency appropriations decreased by 25%, local funding contracted by 9%, and federal funds have remained virtually flat. On the private funding side, as total charitable giving rose from $410 billion in 2017 to $428 billion in 2018, total giving to the arts remained stagnant - at $20 billion.
Adding insult to injury, we then saw The Tweet. On March 26, as the arts sector was absorbing the gut punch from the stimulus, the Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and the 116th Governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, tweeted:
While it is devastating that a high-ranking government official sees the arts as so inconsequential to society, and a waste of resources, we must acknowledge what is even more terrible: that she is not the only one.
According to rising philanthropist Jaimie Mayer, “The general public is not aware of what the cultural sector really is, what it really does, and what it really costs”, she told me recently during a conversation for my interview series The Path Forward.
The cultural sector has not properly articulated to the general public how it contributes to the national economy and who it really serves. If that had happened, perhaps the allocation in the stimulus would have been more in line with that of Germany or Britain.
This moment is proving in real time what some had deemed cliché: art’s power to heal and comfort, to inform and enlighten. This moment makes the case for art as a human necessity.
As Los Angeles-based artist Matt Nichols told me, “Imagine quarantine without books, films, paintings.” Emphasizing the artist’s place in the contemporary economy, he added, “These creators are gig workers, and gig workers are the new economy. It all starts with the creatives.”
It should be acknowledged that in the midst of these gig workers losing their gigs, artists are continuing to work and produce. Not only are they producing the content that the public is consuming, but they are pivoting their skill sets and responding to this crisis in real time by producing tangible solutions: fashion designers are creating masks, architects are designing makeshift medical care facilities, those with 3D printers are fabricating personal protective equipment. As Joshua Herrington, a New York-based public relations specialist told me, “‘creative’ is the definition of what you need in a time of crisis. Creatives are the problem solvers you want in your corner; they are trained to think outside the box and help design solutions that can carry us through the present and help shape the future, post lockdown. These skill sets are now more valuable than ever in a time of need. The term 'essential' comes to mind.”
The cultural sector must seize this moment to engage the general public, a public that is consuming art like never before. It must clarify and articulate its societal and economic benefits. It must fight for relevancy by appealing to this global, diverse, and engaged audience. If not, then it may not exist.
Clearly, the public sector has failed the cultural industry. We can not let the private sector do that same. So, how do we do this?
Continue to Part 2: The Solutions
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[i] The allocation in the CARES Act includes:
$75 million for both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities (to quickly award "general operating grants with no match requirements" to nonprofit and governmental arts agencies across the country, with 40% going to state arts agencies for regranting in their states)
$75 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
$50 million for the Institute of Museum and Library Services
$25 million for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC.
[ii] The report is the Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account (ACPSA), produced jointly by the NEA’s Office of Research & Analysis and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Commerce Department.
[iii] “Statement on Arts, Jobs, and the Economy,” Americans for the Arts, 2017, https://www.americansforthearts.org/news-room/arts-mobilization-center/statement-on-arts-jobs-and-the-economy