Posts tagged arts funding
[The majority of arts funding supports large organizations with budgets greater than $5 million. Such organizations, which comprise less than 2 percent of the universe of arts and cultural nonprofits, receive more than half of the sector’s total revenue. These institutions focus primarily on Western European art forms, and their programs serve audiences that are predominantly white and upper income. Only 10 percent of grant dollars made with a primary or secondary purpose of supporting the arts explicitly benefit underserved communities, including lower-income populations, communities of color and other disadvantaged groups. And less than 4 percent focus on advancing social justice goals. These facts suggest that most arts philanthropy is not engaged in addressing inequities that trouble our communities, and is not meeting the needs of our most marginalized populations.
Nicholas Serota In the Guardian's Comment is Free and Reaction
‘The idea that you can cut a £180bn deficit by slicing money out of the budget of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport is frankly absurd.” The words of an arts bureaucrat, theatre director, artist or writer with a special case to plead? No: Nick Clegg’s, in the election campaign.
Ongoing debate about BP and Cultural Sponsorship
After the Tate, the Royal Opera House, the British Museum and the National Portrait Gallery released a joint statement last week thanking BP for their long-term commitment to the arts and culture scene in London, this weeks sees 171 artists sign a letter attacking the Tate for continuing links to the controversial company.
The question as I see it isn’t whether the Tate and other well-respected institutions should continue their support for BP (short of pulling their summer programming and probably exhibitions for the next couple of years that have already received and spent money), but whether they will begin to shop around for new partners in the light of what has happened in the Gulf of Mexico. No easy feat in the current economic climate.
What also remains to be seen is whether the association with BP will undermine the authority of the museum and attempts at sustainability and reliance on green technologies? Having purposefully and vocally abstained from links and sponsorship from companies with concerns in Apartheid South Africa, can the British Museum now - and with a clear conscience - justify not to be “squeamishy” (see Sir Christopher Frayling’s interview at the link above) about links to a company which has caused one of the world’s most catastrophic environmental disasters and overseen a woeful response?
Where can the moral/financial-dependency line be drawn? And where should the compromises be made?
