This article is a much shorter version of this. If you want the full force of my verbosity, read that one.

In Arts, Inc., Bill Ivey, former Chair of the NEA, makes the case that our artistic heritage is a set of public assets that should benefit all, but instead are often squandered by existing cultural institutions. Ivey seeks to remedy this through a Cultural Bill of Rights.

Each item in Ivey’s Cultural Bill of Rights fills a chapter in the book.

• “The right to our heritage—the right to explore music, literature, drama, painting and dance that define both our nation’s collective experience and our individual and community traditions.”
• “The right to the prominent presence of artists in public life—through their art and the incorporation of their voices and artistic visions into democratic debate.”
• “The right to an artistic life—the right to the knowledge and skills needed to play a musical instrument, draw, dance, compose, design or otherwise live a life of active creativity.”
• “The right to be represented to the rest of the world by art that fairly and honestly communicates America’s democratic values and ideals.”
• “The right to know about and explore art of the highest quality and to the lasting truths embedded in those forms of expression that have survived, in many lands, throughout the ages.”
• “The right to healthy arts enterprises that can take risks and invest in innovation while serving communities and the public interest.”

According to Ivey, we don’t enjoy these rights because of  a failure of the government to prioritize cultural life and rein in corporate greed. An East Wing/West Wing divide devalues the importance of arts and culture makes it easier to treat the arts as political footballs. Congressional hearings on indecency result in industry self-censorship such as parental advisory warnings, V-chips and MPAA ratings that have a chilling effect on creative efforts. Government takes corporate preferences more seriously than the public’s interest in culture, passing intellectual property law that favors corporate interests and keeps use of artistic assets out of public reach.

Ivey does offer practical recommendations. He suggests cultural impact should be a component of merger analysis by the FTC and DOJ antitrust division. And Ivey would require the FCC to consider local cultural impact in its decision-making. Ivey feels that the fragmentation of governmental arts policy among many small agencies and institutions leads to fragmented arts policy. He would prefer a Cabinet-level department to implement consistent, strategic, aligned policy. Ivey also suggests that we significantly reform intellectual property law, encouraging the adoption of Lawrence Lessig’s Creative Commons model for greater legal sharing of content, and the reinstatement of copyright registration. And he speaks against the digital divide, advocating subsidies for those not able to afford access to high speed internet. He is also a strong proponent of net neutrality.

Arts, Inc. is based on Bill Ivey’s experience, unique vantage point, and extensive research, and is dense with supporting evidence, but the suggested cure is inconsistent with the diagnosed disease. It appears to be a manifesto, but calls for adjustments to the system, rather than revolution. Ivey prescribes fixes to the arts industries as if they are machines that can be fixed with better engineering. But the arts are an ecosystem, not a machine. No engineer designs it; it emerges from collaborating and competing forces in equilibrium. Individual institutions continually optimize activities within the bounds of their ecosystems, making systemic reform difficult.

Ivey offers the Cultural Bill of Rights as a model for reform. However, it is divorced from historical views of rights, typically based on active struggle. By contrast, Ivey casts advocacy for cultural rights in the mold of the environmental movement—one that has focused on public awareness. While either model can be grounded in grassroots activism, ignoring the models of struggle dilutes his assertion that these cultural rights are rights in the way that we think of them.

Despite these problems, there are uniquely useful insights in Arts, Inc. Few writers have Ivey’s qualifications to discuss systemic issues of policy-making. He connects all the dots between the U.S. federal government, artists, consumers, corporate owners of artistic assets and nonprofit arts institutions. The breadth of knowledge and research is impressive, and many of his solutions in the final chapter are remarkably practical in contrast to the manifesto structure of the bulk of the book.

This is a long piece. If you’d like the very short version, you can find it here.

In Arts, Inc., Bill Ivey, former Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1998-2001 and Director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University (more expansive bio here) makes the case that our cultural and artistic heritage is a set of public assets that should benefit us all, but instead are too often captured or squandered by existing cultural institutions. Ivey seeks to remedy this through the framework of a Cultural Bill of Rights. Since the book was published in 2008, Arts, Inc. has been frequently cited by arts bloggers, and Ivey has continued to speak about the topics in the book at various seminars and conferences.

SUMMARY

Each item in Ivey’s Cultural Bill of Rights forms the basis of a chapter in the book, wherein Ivey explains why, in his opinion, we do not enjoy that particular right. He then goes into greater depth on how our government has failed to secure these rights, and closes with suggestions for how these rights could be established.

“The right to our heritage—the right to explore music, literature, drama, painting and dance that define both our nation’s collective experience and our individual and community traditions.” In Ivey’s view, we do not enjoy this right because the vast majority of the cultural and artistic record of our own nation is owned by for-profit corporations, who seek to exploit whatever can be profitable and ignore or leave to molder those items with little commercial value. When perceived commercial value of a cultural artifact is low, preservation is inconsistent and ad hoc. Corporate rights owners don’t always take their de facto role as cultural archivists seriously. And intellectual property law greatly favors the owners, so when commercial value is high, costs for use can be very high indeed. Ivey cleverly illuminates the omnipresent property status of our cultural and historical record by including the rights owner and royalty fee for each photo used in the book.

“The right to the prominent presence of artists in public life—through their art and the incorporation of their voices and artistic visions into democratic debate.” Ivey asserts that the sacrifices often required of artists, and the difficulty generating an income, discourage many artists from fully utilizing their skills. Even artists who appear to have “made it” by, for example, signing a recording contract, still struggle to gain the attention of their employers. And artists whose potential contribution is not immediately recognized are less likely to be supported by industries focused on immediate profit. Ivey discusses Bob Dylan’s career, and doubts that Bob Dylan would become a well-known musical artist today.

Furthermore, according to Ivey, the public little understands and values artistic professions, which hinders the engagement of artists with their communities. Or, as Ivey quotes an art student friend from college, “Every family wants a Picasso hanging on the wall, but no family wants one standing in the living room.”

“The right to an artistic life—the right to the knowledge and skills needed to play a musical instrument, draw, dance, compose, design or otherwise live a life of active creativity.” Ivey presents a long list of reasons he has perceived why each one of us does not have equal access to artistic tools that provide us with a means of expression:

• Access to high quality training for the underprivileged is irregular and often dependent upon the limited resources of charitable organizations. Even free guitar tutorials on YouTube are not available across the digital divide.
• Universal arts education usually exists through primary school at some level, but then generally becomes elective.
• There aren’t enough art educators, and it is difficult for professional artists to teach in-residence without educational certifications.
• We conflate happiness with wealth creation, and so pursue skills suited to wealth creation rather than happiness.
• Participation has been reframed as attendance, rather than personal artistic expression.

“The right to be represented to the rest of the world by art that fairly and honestly communicates America’s democratic values and ideals.” Ivey opens the chapter noting that post-September 11th, many Americans were shocked to learn how lowly our nation is esteemed in some parts of the world. He draws a connection between this perception of the United States and the poor representation of our culture that is offered abroad. He notes that one of the most popular depictions of the U.S. in Morocco at the beginning of the 21st century was the television show Baywatch, because it was broadcast for free across the Middle East, due to a unique and pioneering distribution model.

Ivey says that this sort of misrepresentation happens because our official diplomatic apparatus, the State Department, places little to no priority on cultural diplomacy, viewing it as a soft power approach that ended with the Cold War. As a former NEA Chair, Ivey speaks candidly about an East Wing/West Wing divide in federal government. Arts and culture are represented in the East Wing, alongside social functions, typically presented by the First Lady and her staff. But the serious work of government happens in the West Wing. Ivey shares interesting anecdotes of his own lack of authority and resources, as a “small agency head,” compared to Ministers of Culture in other countries. As a result of de-emphasized cultural diplomacy, commercial interests, often assisted by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, have a near monopoly on sharing U.S. culture abroad.

“The right to know about and explore art of the highest quality and to the lasting truths embedded in those forms of expression that have survived, in many lands, throughout the ages.” In this chapter, Ivey speaks of what is typically characterized as fine art or “high culture”: French cinema, classical music, gallery art, Shakespeare, ballet, etc. Per Ivey, we don’t enjoy this right for several reasons: commercial arts industries, like cable television and movie theaters, have little interest in offering something different, foreign, or strange (these are considered niche market products); moreover, fine arts are perceived to have an aloof and sneering attitude, and do not engage younger audiences on their own terms¹.

“The right to healthy arts enterprises that can take risks and invest in innovation while serving communities and the public interest.” Here Ivey takes aim at both commercial and nonprofit arts organizations for playing it safe. Commercial interests play it safe to maintain large audiences. For example, Ivey says Clear Channel scientifically picks songs least likely to offend or irritate so as to reduce channel changing, with bland pop music the inevitable result. This science is applied to hundreds of stations, all programmed together. To take another example, publishers need take care to distribute products that won’t be banned for indecency by the world’s biggest retailer, Walmart.

If some artist or new artistic product proves successful, then risk aversion leads commercial cultural interests to copy the success as rapidly and profitably as possible until the original idea is completely played out. In the same vein, “bankable” talent becomes more important to risk-averse institutions than matching the right talent and artistry to the content or audience.

Nonprofit institutions are also guilty of risk aversion, according to Ivey. They want to limit the risk of losing philanthropic revenue streams and audience members, and so may make similar, safe choices in programming. Some nonprofit organizations may operate more to preserve an art form with a declining audience than to create risky content for a new audience, anyway. This is more likely if a nonprofit exists to maintain elite forms of entertainment.

The Failure of Government

Ivey pins our failure as a society to enjoy these cultural rights largely on the government. The East Wing/West Wing divide mentioned above that devalues the importance of arts and culture makes it easier to treat federal arts funding and obscenity or explicit content in the arts as political footballs. Even though the First Amendment makes direct regulation of artistic expression difficult and rare (with the exception of FCC fines for broadcasters), Congressional hearings on perceived indecency or obscenity tend to result in industry self-censorship such as parental advisory warnings, V-chips and MPAA ratings that have a chilling effect on creative efforts. Government also takes corporate culture industries’ preferences more seriously than the public’s interest in culture, leading to frequently extended copyright terms and intellectual property law that increasingly favors corporate interests and keeps use of artistic assets out of public reach.

Bridging the Cultural Divide

Ivey ends the book by acknowledging, for the first time, what he sees as good news and positive trends. Citing Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind and Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat, Ivey notes that creativity is again seen as a positive economic driver. Economists are increasingly interested in happiness beyond Gross Domestic Product. Corporations are taking greater notice of stakeholder benefit, not merely shareholder benefit. And influential work like Gifts of the Muse has informed conversations among arts leaders and foundations on whether we’d benefit from a greater focus on the so-called “intrinsic” benefits from the arts, such as increased creativity.

In addition to the digital divide, Ivey posits a cultural divide that cuts across class and other group identifications and separates people from artistic expression. Professionals with 80-hour work weeks, for example, don’t have enough time for arts in their lives. To help resolve this, Ivey suggests a new Arts and Crafts movement that would encourage craftspersonship and could serve as a correction or counterpoint to industrial production of cultural goods. Ivey notes that the Arts and Crafts movement linked an “aesthetic with humanitarian sensibilities,” and suggests this is an antidote for our increasingly shallow cultural participation and divided society.

Ivey also offers a list of practical recommendations that are more specific and concrete than the Cultural Bill of Rights. He suggests that cultural impact should be a component of merger analysis by the FTC and the Department of Justice antitrust division. And Ivey would require the FCC to consider local cultural impact in its regulatory decision-making. This sensible idea could be implemented at the agency level². Ivey feels that the fragmentation of governmental arts policy among many small agencies and institutions, such as the NEA, NEH, Smithsonian, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, programs within the Department of the Interior, the Kennedy Center, cultural attachés in the State Department, the U.S. Trade Representative, the Commission on Fine Arts, the Department of Education, etc, lead to fragmented arts policy arenas with narrow foci that cannot help establish the Cultural Bill of Rights. He would instead prefer a Cabinet-level department, parallel to Ministries of Culture in other nations, to implement consistent, strategic, aligned policy. Ivey notes the potential for abuse by a Cabinet level department, but believes that this could not make the situation worse than it currently is.

Ivey also joins the chorus of those suggesting that we significantly reform intellectual property law. He encourages the adoption of Lawrence Lessig’s Creative Commons model for greater legal sharing of content, and notes growing discomfort with digital rights management (DRM) in the digital publishing industries. Additionally, Ivey would like to introduce “statutory rates” common in music publishing to other forms of cultural property, so that rights to utilize other work can be legally and consistently and reliably obtained³. And he recommends that copyright registration be reinstated, so that an additional step is required to enforce one’s copyrights.

Finally, Ivey speaks strongly against the digital divide, and advocates subsidies for those not able to afford access to the information superhighway, so that our next generation of artists is not determined by the affordability of high-speed internet. He is also a strong proponent of net neutrality, and makes it clear that concerned citizens must be careful observers of both Congress and the judiciary, because intellectual property law is developed as much in court as in legislative session.

ANALYSIS

Arts, Inc. is a long book, based on Bill Ivey’s considerable experience, unique vantage point, and extensive research. It is also a slow read. It is dense with supporting evidence, which is welcome, but Ivey is not afraid to repeat a point, in detail, if it can be applied to the topic at hand. For example, he repeats his concern several times, at length, that copyright law is harmful to future artists who wish to build upon past work of others. And with every chapter except the last focused on the terrible state of affairs for arts and culture in the United States, it becomes polemical and pedantic pretty quickly, despite several interesting stories from his time as NEA Chair.

Ivey has written what appears to be a manifesto, but ends with a call for adjustments to the system, rather than revolution. I can’t help but come to the conclusion that Ivey has too many axes to grind, including his apparent belief, based on some experience with lobbyists, that high school band teachers are an entrenched special interest who will ruthlessly cut off at the knees any other form of music education in high schools, therefore limiting a child’s ability to create other forms of music.

Machine vs. Ecosystem

Most of Ivey’s recommended solutions are practical things that a somewhat unified and motivated government could accomplish, but it is not self-evident that such changes would guarantee the whole Cultural Bill of Rights. In Chapter 2, Ivey states, “If America’s arts system can be viewed as a giant machine connecting artists, heritage, and our expressive lives, fair use is the lubricant that smoothes the give-and-take of creativity.” Ivey prescribes fixes to the arts industries as if they can be applied by fiat; as if they are machines that were designed by an engineer, and can be fixed with better engineering. But I believe he is wrong. Arts are an ecosystem, not a machine. No engineer designs an ecosystem; one emerges when collaborating and competing forces and the actors therein find a sustainable equilibrium. No one designed the current set of inter-related systems of arts and culture generation and propagation. They emerged as a result of various incentives, initiatives, and interplay of different collaborators and competitors.

Individual institutions might themselves be machine-like, and subject to tweaking. But each individual institution, typically lacking the ability to change the environment alone, continually optimizes its activities within the bounds of its ecosystem, making collective acts of systemic reform difficult. Further, each participant in a system at equilibrium is primarily concerned with survival, not intentional restructure of the system. Ivey laments that both for-profit and nonprofit arts institutions are risk averse, but this is the natural consequence when institutions fear for their survival in a highly competitive environment. Equilibrium, after all, does not imply plentiful resources for all members. Equilibrium can be highly competitive (and in nature, often is).

The arts and culture landscape that Ivey wants requires systemic change, and systems simply cannot be adjusted and redesigned like a machine. Systemic change requires either immense cooperation and coordination among the most powerful members of the system (which might be arts consumers in this case), or revolution, or breakdown of the system into a disequilibrium that may be seized upon and exploited.

Regulating Preference

Just as Ivey writes as though the arts ecosystem were actually a machine that could be fixed, he writes about individual institutions and arts users as if their behavior and preferences could and should be changed to match his.

Ivey believes that the division of the market for arts products into smaller and better-defined niches, or the “long tail,” is bad for our cultural consumption. He believes this promotes a focused insularity of cultural preference, and does not expose consumers to new artistic forms or ideas. He contrasts this model with the radio stations and DJ’s of his youth, who would take on a curatorial role and introduce listeners to a diverse variety of content. However, he does not address the trade-off between breadth and depth. Niche focus allows for a greater depth of exploration and expression and risk-taking within that niche than would have been possible on Wolfman Jack’s border-blasting broadcasts, or the Ed Sullivan Show, which Ivey uses as an example of curated culture for a mass audience. Ivey desires that cultural institutions take more risks, so we should acknowledge that catering to a particular niche may facilitate managed risk-taking. A modern classical music ensemble can take more artistic risks with daring compositions than a larger symphony orchestra can, because the modern music ensemble has sought out a niche audience that supports the risks inherent in new classical composition.

As noted above, in Ivey’s desire for a new Arts and Crafts movement that might reconnect aesthetic and humanitarian values, he points out over-worked professionals as people who are on the wrong side of the cultural divide. But these over-worked professionals cannot be compared to exploited workers of the industrial revolution. A career working 80-hour weeks as a lawyer, doctor, investment banker or management consultant is one that is chosen and striven for, not one that is imposed upon a person. It requires a fair amount of cultural chauvinism to assert that these professionals, who have made choices that we hope are consistent with their values and preferences, are on the “wrong” side because their preferences do not match an artist’s preferences.

Rights

Ivey offers the Cultural Bill of Rights as a model for reform. However, it is divorced from historical views of rights, which are typically based on active struggle. Ivey does not even discuss whether his Cultural Bill of Rights is more likely to be granted or rather demanded and asserted. This is a strange omission in a discussion of “Rights.”

Ivey believes that fair use greases the creative gears and supports the rights of artists to create while borrowing from other artists, while intense copyright restrictions inhibit such creativity. The principle of fair use is described as too vague and inconsistently applied, and in any case, fair use is only used as a defense once legal proceedings are threatened or under way, making it an expensive principle to apply in practice.

Ivey wants an expansion of this; he clearly advocates for a wider freedom within the scope of law to encourage and empower artists. Yet he spends no time on the artistic vitality of illegal reappropriation of cultural products for creative endeavors, e.g.: unauthorized samples in hip hop; exposure of friends to new music through mix tapes, burned CD’s or shared mp3 files; or unauthorized video mashups and parodies so prevalent on YouTube. He seems uninterested in, or possibly unaware of, the emergence of creative internet memes (transmittable and mutable ideas or cultural artifacts) from open, authority-flaunting internet playgrounds like 4chan. The artistic reappropriation that Ivey champions (e.g., collage, pastiche, remix) is happening in spite of legal limitations.

The best review of Arts, Inc. that I’ve read was published in voiceXchange, a peer-reviewed online journal published by graduate students in the University of Chicago’s Department of Music. Eric Martin Usner points out, “As so many studies of popular culture have shown, law and control/ownership actually do much to inspire creative circumvention of ‘official,’ mainstream, or hegemonic arts through creative ‘piracy’—cultural disobedience.” Usner further notes that the heritage of civil disobedience, from Thoreau to Martin Luther King, Jr., to Gandhi and Vaclav Havel is relevant in any discussion of rights. Ivey doesn’t spend much time with the history of other struggles for rights, e.g., the Civil Rights Movement, gay marriage, and the Declaration of Independence. In these struggles, rights were demanded from and asserted against powerful institutions long before they were ever granted by powerful institutions, and typically focus on the prevention of harm to one part of society by members of the dominant culture. By contrast, Ivey casts advocacy for cultural rights in the mold of the environmental movement—one that has focused on public awareness and changing hearts and minds, with a fair amount of success. While either model can be grounded in grassroots activism, ignoring the models of struggle dilutes his assertion that these cultural rights are actually rights, in the way we think of them.

Ivey recognizes that a centralized Department of Culture to administer our cultural rights could potentially have too much power to encourage a homogenized or sanitized U.S. arts scene. He makes the argument that it wouldn’t be worse than the current situation, where art gets homogenized and sanitized by corporate interests. He writes, “The introduction of a central cultural authority in the United Sates could backfire, opening new opportunities for control that might make it more difficult, not easier, for Americans to achieve rich expressive lives. But, as we’ve seen, there’s plenty of poorly directed cultural interference going on right now⁴.” Ivey sensibly anticipates concerns about a more powerful governmental authority involved in arts and culture, but simply asserts that the government won’t be worse, more parental, or more homogenizing than for-profit arts industries. He doesn’t support this assertion. Much of the book is an exploration of how we are not able to trust corporate or public institutions to protect and perpetuate our artistic heritage, yet he believes part of the solution is a new government institution to consolidate others.

Useful Scope

Despite these problems, there are uniquely useful insights in Arts, Inc. The wider public debate (i.e., outside of the arts blogosphere) over copyright law in the United States rarely takes utility for future artistic endeavor into account, despite some current relevant cases in classical music and theater. And among arts and culture writers, few have Ivey’s qualifications (and interest) to discuss structural, systemic issues of policy-making. Ivey has written a book that connects the dots all the way from the U.S. federal government to artists to consumers of art to children first exposed to the joys of artistic creation to corporate owners of artistic assets and nonprofit arts institutions. The breadth of Ivey’s knowledge and research is truly impressive, and many of his proffered solutions in the final chapter of the book, labeled “Conclusion” in the table of contents, are remarkably practical in contrast to the manifesto structure of the bulk of the book. I highly recommend this chapter, even if you choose to skip the rest.

IMPLICATIONS

The Cultural Bill of Rights is difficult to compare to human rights or civil rights, as these are often very much about not being harmed by members of the dominant culture. The Cultural Bill of Rights, for example, will not prevent anybody in this country from being lynched, so it is worthwhile to examine whether they are potent as “rights,” or whether they are redundant with free speech rights. If Ivey’s Cultural Bill of Rights seeks to protect us from active repression of (or chilling effect on) our artistic expression, then it is redundant with free speech rights, and Ivey ought to add his influence to ongoing free speech advocacy. But if the Cultural Bill of Rights means that we have a right to be encouraged and subsidized to be more artistic and expressive, and I think this is Ivey’s intention, how should such rights be balanced against other priorities? For example, how can Ivey’s cultural rights be granted precedence over the arts industries’ rights to profit by artistic expression as best they can?

Instead of answering these larger questions, Ivey has assumed the supremacy of artistic expression, and offered solutions for his cultural rights in the style of environmentalism. This sets up the arts as something we really should appreciate more, and should protect, even if we don’t really want to, or we’ll be sorry later. In other words, the heritage and capacity for artistry that Ivey says we’re entitled to is the broccoli that we’re supposed to be eating instead of the potato chips that the cultural industries are feeding us. The recommendation to use the organizing tools of environmentalism is consistent with the tone of Ivey’s recommendations for governmental and bureaucratic reform. But this is at odds with the tone of aggrieved complaint throughout the bulk of the book. Despite Ivey’s best efforts to write a manifesto of articulated grievance and demand for change, I’m left with the conclusion that you can take the bureaucrat out of Washington DC, but you can’t take Washington DC out of the bureaucrat. Ivey is calling for new policy, not revolution. This is perhaps consistent with his view of the arts as a machine (which can be tweaked) rather than a system (which is more likely to be changeable in a period of disruption or disequilibrium). An arts advocate should decide whether she or he accepts some central premises of Ivey’s:

1. We are entitled to and have a right to a life of artistic participation and expression.
2. The current arts system is not delivering our cultural rights.
3. These rights can be reclaimed, though, through adjustments to the culture machine.
4. The best way to reclaim them is through grassroots organizing to change hearts and minds, as with the environmental movement, so that politicians are forced to take notice, so that policies can be improved.
5. Once government policy is improved, our access to our cultural rights will be improved.

If you can agree with all of the above, then you can agree with Ivey’s prescriptions. If however, you believe that the arts are an ecosystem rather than a machine, or if you believe that a more powerful governmental presence in arts and culture will not be a positive change, then you must seek other solutions.

FURTHER READING

Eric Martin Usner’s review in voiceXchange, cited above, focuses on Ivey’s call for a more expressive life for all people, as well as some analysis of the concept of cultural rights.

Jason Baird Jackson at Indiana University responded to Arts, Inc. just this March, from a folklorist’s perspective, with more in depth analysis of Ivey’s perspective on intellectual property.

Video of a panel discussion of Arts, Inc., hosted by the Center for American Progress. Ivey was on the panel with Robert Lynch, President and CEO of Americans for the Arts, Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN), and moderator Sally Steenland, Sr. Policy Advisor for Faith and Progressive Policy at the Center for American Progress. The discussion focused on the theme of cultural assets as public goods.

Bill Ivey introduced many of the themes of Arts, Inc. back in a 2005 column in the Chronicle of Higher Education, entitled “America Needs a New System for Supporting the Arts”.

USA Today published exactly the reductive, brief review you’d expect from USA Today.

The Curb Center for Art, Enterprise & Public Policy at Vanderbilt University (Ivey is the Director) has a page about the book with well-chosen pull quotes.

Unlike in the case of Kansas, however, the story is not (quite) over. The legislature will have the opportunity to override the veto, and in fact it has happened before. Jonathan Katz, CEO of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, writes:

Overrides are never easy to accomplish, but the South Carolina legislature did overrule 56 of former Governor Mark Sanford’s budget vetoes last year. Included among those was an attempt to zero out a significant portion of SCAC’s FY2011 funding, an action that triggered loud public protest and was overturned by both houses of the legislature by overwhelming margins. Arts advocates in South Carolina have been mobilizing once again to urge lawmakers to override this most recent veto of state funding for SCAC. Legislative action on Governor Haley’s FY2012 budget vetoes, 35 in all, is anticipated tomorrow.

As the statement on the SCAC’s website points out, however, legislators need a two-thirds supermajority in both the House and Senate to override a veto. Yes, legislators overrode Sanford’s veto last year, but at that point Sanford was a scandal-ridden political carcass, whereas Haley still has net positive approval ratings. Will South Carolina lawmakers risk political capital over the Arts Commission? I guess we’ll find out.

If you know people who know people in South Carolina, now would be a good time to make sure they are aware of this.

The full press release, from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies‘s CEO Jonathan Katz, is below the fold.

Update: via Grantmakers in the Arts, here’s a news article from the Topeka Capital-Journal. While the news is upsetting, it is very good to see the arts commission referred to as “politically popular” in a state like Kansas. That’s a testament to the efforts of the Kansas Citizens for the Arts and the arts community in Kansas more generally over the past several months.

Update II: Bob Lynch from Americans for the Arts weighs in. His statement emphasizes that Brownback’s veto does not save Kansas any money, but instead makes it poorer – not just through theoretical notions of economic impact, but quite literally because gutting the Arts Commission means throwing away$1.2 million in matching funds from both the NEA and the Mid-America Arts Alliance.

A False Economy: Arts Vetoed in Kansas

Today more than ever, states that want to be competitive need a policy agenda that supports and nurtures the creativity and economic productivity of their citizens. With his veto of funding for the Kansas Arts Commission, Governor Sam Brownback has now declared his opinion that Kansas is too poor for that. The real poverty expressed in this action is not of the pocketbook; state arts agencies yield excellent return on investment in jobs and tax revenues.

Proponents of government efficiency should be deeply disturbed by Governor Brownback’s decision. Elected officials are obligated to ask, “What are the citizens of my state getting in return for this investment of public dollars?” The answer in Kansas is “Plenty.” The Kansas Arts Commission:

• fostered an arts and cultural sector supporting more than 4,000 jobs and generating more than $15 million annually in state and local government revenues;
• brought home $5.9 million in federal dollars to support arts activities for all Kansans over the past 10 years;
• engaged 300,000 students in arts education programs in and out of school last year;
• provided important social and creative outlets for seniors, persons with disabilities, children and underserved populations.

A $689,000 appropriation to the Kansas Arts Commission would have comprised 0.005% of the total state budget, one half of 1/100 of one percent. Governor Brownback’s veto won’t make even a modest dent in the state’s budget gap. It will, however, diminish the state’s ability to leverage public and private investment, compete in the creative sector, improve education, and make Kansas a more rewarding place to live, work, visit and raise a family.

Rather than achieving any savings, this veto creates a net loss. Without the Kansas Arts Commission, the state’s eligibility to secure its designated share of National Endowment for the Arts funds is in jeopardy. Those dollars can be allocated elsewhere, leaving Kansas taxpayers to pay for the arts in other states. Also lost through this veto is the state’s power to leverage private and public investment. Last year the Kansas Arts Commission awarded $1.4 million in grants, which was matched by $60.7 million in local and private dollars.

Kansas taxpayers want the kinds of communities that the arts create. Thoughtful decision makers see the arts as creative skills, as jobs, as industries—not as a frill. This is why Kansas citizens spoke out against the governor’s initial attempts to dismantle the Kansas Arts Commission, and why the legislature recommended funding for the agency. The veto of the entire Kansas Arts Commission budget was selective in its focus and extreme in its magnitude. Other states—wisely—are maintaining a public investment in the arts. The Kansas Arts Commission’s 45-year legacy of service to families and communities—a legacy which received support from Republican and Democratic governors alike—may now be denied to future generations.

The citizens of Kansas deserve better.

Jonathan Katz
Chief Executive Officer
National Assembly of State Arts Agencies

So much fallout from one video (which I encourage you to watch), filmed by a person who has been arrested for tampering with phones at a federal building, who attempted to sexually humiliate CNN anchor Abbie Boudreau, and is the subject of various lawsuits resulting from the ACORN videos (at least the Brooklyn branch of ACORN, btw, has been cleared of wrongdoing). The video also comes at a time when conservatives are agitating for the end of government funding to NPR and public radio. And with yet another two week extension with more cuts to the arts (cuts to the arts for children, even!), that threat is becoming very real.

A lot of people are asking—is what Mr. Schiller said so unreasonable? He points out in the video that federal funding actually makes up only one percent of NPR’s funding and 10% of the station economy, and that NPR is not a government program, which many people believe. He goes on to say that while he thinks NPR would be better off in the long run without government funding (which O’Keefe will no doubt run wild with), if funding were cut now, “a lot of stations would go dark.” Mr. Schiller is also careful to “take off his NPR hat” when he starts to express his own opinion that educated “so-called elite” people in America are now the minority.

There’s not much focus on what O’Keefe and his colleague say in the video—“Jews do kind of control the media,” “what Israel does can’t be excused”—but I suppose he can always say that he was playing a role.

Incidentally, there is now evidence that NPR refused the $5 million donation check offered in the meeting. NPR isn’t stupid- they’re not going to accept money from a donor with no history and who wants to get more favorable coverage on the news.

If you still believe that federal funding is essential for non-commercial radio that promotes local cultural events and offers a public space for discussion, get involved by sending a letter to congress, or just by talking with your neighbors. And maybe just keep in mind what mama said—if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.

A quick note about some upcoming speaking engagements: I’ll be on a panel next month at the annual Emerging Arts Leaders Symposium hosted by American University, speaking on the topic of “What Makes a Good Arts Leader?” I’m looking forward to sharing the stage with the NEA’s dynamic and ubiquitous Director of Public Affairs, Jamie Bennett, and my good friend Stephanie Evans of Americans for the Arts. The symposium takes place on Sunday, April 3 in Washington, DC, and my panel is in the mid-afternoon (3:45-5:00). Secondly, I’ll be co-hosting a discussion as part of Kathy Supové’s Music with a View Festival at the Flea Theater in New York on March 30, talking about some of the themes raised in my article for NewMusicBox, “Composing a Life.” Come say hi if you’re around!

ADVOCACY UPDATE

• So, Congress reconvened and passed a two-week continuing resolution that features $4 billion in cuts – including the elimination of the $40 million arts education program at the Department of Education. Meanwhile, negotiations are taking place now on the longer-term continuing resolution that will fund the federal government for the rest of the year. The version that the House passed a few weeks ago contains a 25% cut to the NEA. Guy Yedwab has an excellent roundup of reasons to support the NEA (although I do advise leaving any return-on-investment arguments to the professionals). Lex Leifheit suggests that we get our parents and grandparents involved in arts advocacy, a la Sarah Silverman’s Great Schlep.
• Some general commentary on the budget fight: Richard Kessler reminds us that this is not just about the arts, but rather a wholesale attempt to roll back the New Deal, and David Brooks suggests that we should be allying ourselves with other interest groups who stand to lose from cuts to discretionary funding, not fighting against them.
• Obama is also trying again to lower the limits on the charitable deduction donors can take on their taxes. This has some in the nonprofit community worried, and it is worth noting that arts organizations are disproportionately supported by high-net-worth donors most likely to be affected by the changes. I don’t know, though – I am skeptical that the tax deduction is as significant a motivator in donor behavior as most people seem to think it is. (Most of the research I’ve seen on this suggests otherwise.) I think the impact to arts organizations would be real, but not as big as feared.
• There are advocacy doings at the state and local levels too. Governor Walker of Wisconsin, already endearing himself so much to lefty-leaning artists through his union-busting ways, is threatening to severely reduce arts funding in that state as well. At least Chicago’s new mayor – and former ballet dancer – Rahm Emanuel has pledged support. And it looks like our friends in Kansas may have enough support in the state legislature to save their arts council. (That article is well worth the read, by the way.)
• Don’t forget that government advocacy is not the only kind that’s important. The Meyer Foundation, which had long been an arts supporter in the DC area, has adopted a new strategic framework that leaves the arts out in the cold. Obviously many fewer people have the ability to influence the decision-making processes of private foundations than do government bodies, but those who do have that influence should not be afraid to use it.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND

• The conversation Rocco started a month ago continues. The most interesting content lately belongs to Scott Walters, who recounted his experience attending a convening of arts leaders at the NEA to discuss the issues at hand; here is more.
• Meanwhile, the NEA released a trio of research reports re-examining aspects of the well-worn Survey of Public Participation in the Arts.  Perhaps the biggest headline comes from the fact that when you expand the definition of arts participation beyond ticket sales at the likes at the symphony, opera, art museum, etc. to include things like engagement with electronic media and personal creation, the proportion of people who engage with the arts rises to nearly 3 in 4. Thomas Cott has a great round-up of the reports themselves (which also examine the roles of arts education, age, and generation in arts attendance) as well as reactions from around the web.

ALL ABOUT ORCHESTRAS

• Man, a lot has been happening in Detroit since we last checked in. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s season is now cancelled, but rumors fly that management is considering hiring replacement players. Now the musicians are proposing binding arbitration to resume the season without a contract, under the terms that management last proposed, and are impatient for a response. Yikes!
• Last year, I predicted that composers would use the method employed by Eric Whitacre to create his Virtual Choir to crowdsource performances for their own pieces. It looks like this is now, in fact, happening, as Canadian composer Glen Rhodes is starting up a “virtual orchestra project” to play an original composition of his. (There’s a nice interview of Rhodes by Tara George at the above link.) Meanwhile, the YouTube Symphony, which is a live-action flesh-and-blood orchestra composed of members who auditioned via YouTube, is having another go-round under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas.

PHILANTHROPY AND GENEROSITY

• Americans for the Arts has joined up with Hyundai for a test of whether slactivism can help the arts: Hyundai’s new ad campaign, “Cure Compact Crampomitosis,” has AFTA as a charitable partner. For each person who joins the Facebook Causes page set up by Hyundai for the purpose, the car company donates 50 cents to AFTA – up to a maximum of $25k. (They are already more than halfway there.) On the one hand, I’m very glad to see a car company choosing an arts organization for support rather than any of the thousands of more traditional charities it could have picked. On the other hand, though, it seems like a pretty damn good deal for Hyundai…only $25k for 50,000 deep impressions? If just a handful of people buy cars as a result of this campaign, Hyundai comes out ahead. (In fairness, Hyundai is also matching donations made through the page, which nearly doubles the commitment as of this writing.) Well, good luck to them.
• Is giving money to the homeless a good way to help after all? Maybe it is, if you just ask them what they want and buy it for them.

THINKING CAPS

• I’m still making my way through Animating Democracy’s excellent Impact Arts site, but I can already tell it’s going to be a tremendous resource for me as well as the field.
• A new cultural policy think tank is in the house, and it wants your input: the Institute for Culture in the Service of Community Sustainability. Headed by Paul Nagle, ICSCS (pronounced “Isis”) is an affiliate of the British think tank DEMOS and takes a radically democratic approach to its work. Nagle has two guest posts on the IT Foundation blog that are well worth reading.
• Is extending copyright to fashion designers a good idea? UCLA economist and sociologist Gabriel Rossman says no.

COMINGS AND GOINGS

• Muhammad Yunus, the grandfather of microfinance, is being forced out as the head of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in what many see as a politically-motivated vendetta.
• Ex-Senator Chris Dodd is going to lead the Motion Picture Association of America, taking over for the legendary Jack Valenti.
• Former Hewlett Foundation Performing Arts Program Director Moy Eng will be the new head of the Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View, CA.

• First it was the state arts agencies; now the NEA is under attack. It turns out that the federal budget for the current fiscal year was never actually finalized, but instead was paid for bit by bit. As a result, the Republican House has called for a $22.5 million, or 13%, reduction in the NEA’s budget for the current fiscal year. As in, the one that is going on right now, for which grants are already being made. This would be the largest reduction to NEA funding in 16 years. (Not surprisingly, Republicans have since offered amendments to cut things even further…including one amendment from Scott Garrett (R-NJ) to eliminate the agency.) On top of this, President Obama’s budget for FY2012 (which begins October 1 of this year) calls for nearly as deep a cut – despite the fact that other cultural agencies (including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Smithsonian) did not receive proportionate reductions. This NEA is brimming over with smart, capable leadership and has been moving in some really exciting directions lately; it would be a shame to see that momentum blunted by capricious political winds outside of its control. You can take action here; please do this, especially if you do not live in New York City, Boston, DC, Chicago, LA, or San Francisco. Your voice matters.
• If you don’t like the economic impact-focused arguments at the link above, feel free to use Arlene Goldbard’s alternative letter instead. Arlene makes the moral case for arts support like no other.
• On the other end of the spectrum, Barry Hessenius offers an important perspective on the pragmatic side of arts advocacy. No vote occurs in a vacuum or truly on its merits in politics; everything is a horse trade. It’s ugly, but it’s what those people in the Middle East are taking to the streets for.
• Other perspectives on this: Adam Huttler fires a shot across the bow of our single-issue, NEA-funding-focused advocacy model and argues for more strategic alliances with and awareness of non-arts-specific goals. Arlene Goldbard and Guy Yedwab suggest that if we want to make a good long-term case for public arts support, the term “arts” might not be the most helpful and we might want to make sure  the work we do actually serves the public. And Matthew Guerrieri has this awesome find of a clean energy industry economic impact study that promises substantially fewer jobs created per dollar spent than in the arts.
• Finally, the greatest threat to our public arts infrastructure may not be rabid conservatives, but apathetic progressives. I’ve been frustrated for a long time by the lack of reciprocity between the arts community’s support for the liberal establishment and the liberal establishment’s support for the arts. This week, we have Jonathan Chait, Matt Yglesias, and Kevin Drum coming out as anywhere from mildly to strongly opposed to direct federal funding for the arts, and Tyler Cowen (though not exactly a liberal himself) denying that there’s a liberal case to be made. These are important voices, folks…a lot more important than Bob Lynch. They are thought leaders in the progressive community who don’t get the rationale for why the arts should have a role in federal policy. We need to educate them.

You Say You Want a Revolution

• Is this a game-changer? Kickstarter is letting organizations “curate” pages of crowdfunding campaigns. For-profits, nonprofits, and government are all represented among the current curators.
• I haven’t written too much about the crisis facing the Detroit Symphony; here is the latest news, some analysis from New England Conservatory’s Tony Woodcock, and more from Greg Sandow.
• Diane Ragdsale says in order to solve the supply/demand problem, we need to be able to identify mission-failing institutions and help them die. Sound familiar? By the way, here’s Diane’s manifesto on arts philanthropy and sustainability.
• Meanwhile, Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre goes for a more flexible business model. And a California legislator introduced a bill to create a flexible purpose corporation to compete with B-Lab’s Benefit Corporation and the L3C. Finally, Andrew Taylor writes on the intriguing economic set-up of Carnegie Hall’s upcoming Spring for Music orchestra festival.
• Shocker alert: Rosetta Thurman no longer identifies as a nonprofit professional. Don’t worry Rosetta, as long as you don’t adopt Dan Pallotta’s positions on compensation, you’ll still be okay in my book.
• Turns out the connection between the arts and regional economic growth goes back a long way:
  

  [C]ities in which printing presses were established 1450-1500 had no prior growth advantage, but subsequently grew far faster than similar cities without printing presses.

Someone’s Gonna Pay

• The Chronicle of Philanthropy names the top 50 donors of 2010; the LA Times susses out the biggest givers in the arts.
• Mike Bloomberg will once again generously support the arts in New York City.
• Assets for Artists is expanding to new locations. And so is the Awesome Foundation.
• More on supply and demand: Laura Zabel and Rebecca Novick editions.

Figuring Out the Details

• GiveWell is back with a typically thorough self-evaluation. Here’s an overview (bottom line: fewer causes, more “gold medal” charities), top-level priorities, GiveWell as a project, GiveWell as a donor resource, and web traffic stats.
• Andrew Taylor on prize philanthropy and unintended consequences.
• New study from the European Union on the entrepreneurial dimension of cultural and creative industries. And here’s one from Economist Intelligence Unit on the synergy between livability and economic development in urban places – culture is explicitly acknowledged as a component of livability.

Revolutions Can Be Fun Too

• Cool article about the Knight Foundation’s program supporting Random Acts of Culture.
• OKTrends considers the questions to ask on a first date. Want to know whether that hot chick will sleep with you? Ask her if she likes the taste of beer. How about that hot dude? Ask him if he’s ever imagined killing somebody. (I’m not making this up.)
• Congratulations to my friend and colleague Ron Ragin, whose performance on “Baba Yetu,” better known as the theme to the best-selling video game Civilization IV, helped the composer win two Grammys over the weekend. Here’s Ron bustin’ out the pipes for a PBS special on Video Games Live.

Sadly, Kansas is not the only one on the chopping block. In the Lone Star State, Governor Rick Perry’s budget includes no money for the Texas Commission on the Arts at all. In South Carolina, Governor Nikki Haley actually made elimination of the state arts commission one of her talking points for her State of the State address. In Washington, Governor Christine Gregoire has proposed elimination of the state arts agency as an independent entity and drastically reducing funding. And in Arizona, Governor Jan Brewer wants to eliminate state appropriations to the Arizona Arts Commission.

State arts agencies form a relatively small portion of the typical arts organization’s revenue stream. If they went away, it’s likely that the arts landscape would be more similar to than different from what it looks like today. But still, as this article in Miller-McCune points out, much would be lost. Besides the revenue itself, state arts agencies tend to be a source of particular support for community arts work, arts education, and smaller organizations run by a new generation of artists and administrators looking to get their first leg up. [Update: also, arts activities in rural areas; see Janet Brown’s comment below.] In many cases, they also funnel money to local arts agencies in order to have an even more targeted impact. So while they are not the be-all and end-all of the arts world, they do have an important role to play. And as Janet Brown eloquently puts it, it’s much harder to get the infrastructure re-established than to retain what’s already there.

State arts agencies have survived numerous similar elimination threats over the past several years, and before that as well. Since their initial creation in the late ’60s in the wake of the establishment of the NEA, all 50 state agencies (along with six territorial agencies) have managed to survive each year, albeit sometimes only by a hair. Indeed, the NEA’s innovative decentralization strategy involving partnerships with state and regional arts agencies has been an extremely effective weapon in such advocacy campaigns, because elimination of state arts councils necessarily means forfeiting federal matching funds as well – making justification on the grounds of saving the state money come off as rather hollow.

But this year, things seem different. Part of it is that this has been the latest in a long trend of diminishing arts funding from states. According to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, the appropriations for the current year have declined more than one-third in nominal terms from the appropriations of ten years ago, from $410 million in FY2002 to $272 million in FY2011 — and if you adjust those numbers for inflation, the reduction is nearly 50% in today’s dollars. Part of it, too, is that several of the agencies facing pressure this year are already significantly hobbled, having staved off massive cuts or elimination last year or the year before. Arizona, Kansas, and South Carolina all fall into this category. It’s as if the governors in those states (political conservatives, all) have adopted an “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” approach, betting that the local arts advocacy infrastructure can’t survive a war of attrition.

And unfortunately, they’re probably right. We’ve invested a lot as a field in bolstering support for the National Endowment for the Arts. But there currently exists no formal, nationwide advocacy infrastructure for state arts agencies [update: actually there is, see below], which still collectively spend nearly twice as much on the arts as the NEA even after suffering massive losses. As of today, the Arts Action Fund, which is run by Americans for the Arts, makes no mention of state arts agencies on its website, even though its mission statement says nothing about an exclusive focus on federal funding. The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, despite having a section of its website devoted to advocacy, is similarly mum on the predicament of individual members. Instead, it’s up to arts leaders in individual states to fend for themselves. The result of this decentralized approach to advocacy is that it is very difficult for the likes of Kansas and South Carolina to benefit from the efforts of their peers in places like New York, California, Massachusetts, and Illinois, and the geographic balkanization of our arts communities only continues. If we’re going to have a hope of retaining this vital layer of public infrastructure to the arts and restoring it to its former strength, we’ll need to start getting a lot more organized about it.

For further reading:

• Leonard Jacobs argues that the root of state arts agencies’ current troubles is not fiscal conservatism, it’s right-wing ideology. I half agree with him (the unfortunate fact is that nearly all states face ruinous budget crises right now, and Christine Gregoire, Washington’s governor, is a Democrat), but it’s worth pointing out that Leonard predicted a return of GOP hostility to public arts funding earlier than just about anyone, and quite presciently so.
• Matthew Guerrieri proposes a fanciful hardball tactic for Kansas arts organizations: threaten to move to Nebraska instead. Hey, it’s worked for film subsidies.
• Arlene Goldbard argues passionately for a new approach to advocacy and messaging about the arts.
• The Wichita Eagle’s editorial board has come out in support of the Kansas Arts Commission.

UPDATE: It turns out that there is a nationwide infrastructure for state arts advocacy: the State Arts Action Network at Americans for the Arts. Jay Dick, who heads up that effort, got in touch with me to correct the error. He also informed me that the Arts Action Fund is indeed federally focused, being a federal PAC. Alas, the SAAN homepage also makes no mention of current state arts advocacy campaigns, but if you live in one of the states whose agency is under threat, you can find and get involved with the relevant state arts advocacy group here. According to Jay, they need all the help they can get.