Art & Money:

It was a little scary to reread my 1996 article, “Out of the Ivory Tower: Social Responsibility and the Art Critic,” reposted as part of Artnet Magazine’s 15th anniversary celebration. Afterward I realized how much of it could have been written today -- it was a bit like the feeling I had about the recent David Wojnarowicz censorship flap at the National Portrait Gallery -- as if a 15-year-old (or in the case of Wojnarowicz, 20 year old) time capsule had been unearthed to reveal today’s headlines.

Can it really be that nothing has changed? Of course it has -- 1996 was five years before 9/11 and the major disasters of the George W. Bush administration. It was before the financial meltdown of 2008, before we had heard of the Global War on Terror, Credit Default Swaps or the Tea Party. It was before the Supreme Court had emerged as a subsidiary of the Republican Party. It was even before we knew the name Monica Lewinsky.

However, several conferences and meetings I recently attended suggest that the terms of our discussions about the problems facing us inside and outside the art world remain very similar. The NEA no longer funds individual artist grants, having been revamped to ensure that its grants go to projects and organizations that run no risk of controversy. However, state and local governments still provide money to nonprofit arts institutions. At a recent meeting a lot of discussion centered around finding ways to convince these government bodies that money for the arts is not an expendable line item in times of budget crises.

I again heard the statistics about the collateral money art events infuse into the surrounding community, the dollar value added by artists and art institutions, the degree to which local economies are stimulated by the arts. Taking the higher ground, others argued that we should try to make the case that art is valuable because it instills critical discourse and participatory thinking.

But is any of it really true? If states are looking to stimulate the local economy, wouldn’t an infrastructure project have more long term effect than commissioning artists to install more giant art projects? Can one honestly make the case that states in danger of bankruptcy should be funding art festivals or even art classes instead of police forces, school lunches or Medicaid?

As for the notion of boosting “discourse,” I really wonder whether, in this era of proliferating art fairs, blockbuster shows and “festivalism,” that argument really holds water, either. Certainly, the threats facing the critical thinking and the open exchange of ideas are greater than ever. Developments like the corporate consolidation of media, the ubiquity of Murdoch-style infotainment, the politically motivated attacks on PBS and NPR, and ever-shrinking budgets for real investigative journalism certainly signal a crisis for a democracy that depends on an informed electorate. But is art today really up to filling in the gap? And if it is the case that some art retains its ability to challenge and provoke, is that really where this funding would be going anyway?

Meanwhile, the class divide within the art world referred to in “Out of the Ivory Tower” (to say nothing of the even greater class divide in society at large) is bigger than ever. I have always been struck by Clement Greenberg’s famous assertion in his 1939 essay Avant Garde and Kitsch that the avant-garde remains attached to the ruling class by “an umbilical cord of gold.” Today, as private patrons who have benefited from America’s trickle up (or should we say gush up) economic policies call the shots at museums, preside over a burgeoning art market and style themselves as the New Medicis, Greenberg’s dictum seems truer than ever, and sadly, no one dares to yank the chain.

Isn’t there something basically unhealthy about a society where social programs that serve the poor and middle class are cut to the bone while a Picasso can go for over $100 million? Oh yes, I know, this is “private money,” but how did these art collectors manage to amass such huge fortunes in the first place? Is a CEO, especially one who runs the company into the ground and then floats off with a golden parachute, really worth more than 300 times his lowest paid employee? Why are the bankers who nearly toppled our financial system free to retire to their mansions while we demonize teachers who want to have a tiny bit of retirement security? Why have virtually none of the productivity gains of the last 30 years gone to workers? Whose money is it, really?

And where does this leave us? I can’t help feeling that the art world’s responses to funding crises reveal a glaring myopia. The problem isn’t how we argue for a share of the increasingly tiny budget pie devoted to funding for social services and culture. The problem is the whole concept of the pie. I keep wondering, as state and local governments careen ever closer to bankruptcy and the federal government flirts with a trillion dollar deficit, why isn’t anyone connecting the dots to the extension of the Bush tax cuts? Why is the question of increasing taxes on the very wealthy so completely off the table?

I recently brought this up at an art party, only to be told that measures like a more progressive tax system or a reduction of write-offs like the charitable deduction would diminish art patrons’ ability to fund residencies or support museums. But again, what are we really talking about? Are we saying that art supporters are only motivated by tax incentives? And isn’t part of the bind that museums now find themselves due at least in part to their own grandiosity? Is it possible that they now find themselves over-extended precisely because they expanded beyond their means in good times? Are these really good reasons to argue that the wealthy and privileged shouldn’t be expected to contribute to a more equitable society?

I’m not against the art market, and I think artists (and writers) should be paid for what they do. But what is going on now seems completely out of proportion to what is needed for a vital, innovative and lively art scene, and in fact may even be detrimental to it. Is all the money sloshing around at the top skewing our values? Have we all been bought and sold?

Rereading my 1996 article, I realize I have changed. I feel more jaded than my younger self, particularly with respect to the efficacy of voting. I was very active in the effort to elect Obama, and like many others I feel let down -- duped into thinking things could change by an administration that seems completely co-opted by the corporate class. I still believe that Obama’s basic instincts are good, but somehow that doesn’t seem to matter. Why is it so much easier to take things in oligarchic directions than in democratic ones? George W. Bush profoundly changed America, but restoring the nation’s democratic values seems virtually impossible.

But I’m still not willing to accept the argument that voting is futile or that everything is predetermined by a small group at the top. And oddly, the most encouraging signs these days have come from outside our borders -- from the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia (the outcomes in Libya and Bahrain seem more uncertain) and in the faith that protesters in places like Iran and the Arab world place in the ideas of democracy. Here in this country the fight to preserve collective bargaining for state employees in Wisconsin appears to have failed (though at this writing a court has issued a stay on the law passed by the Republican lawmakers pending an examination of its constitutionality). Nevertheless, it is a small sign that people may be waking up to dangerous inequality that has been allowed to permeate this country.

Which leaves me with one final question. If there is to be a fight, which side will we be on?

ELEANOR HEARTNEY is a New York art critic and the author of Art & Today (2008) and many other books.