{"id":252,"date":"2010-01-30T08:00:25","date_gmt":"2010-01-30T06:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.option.culture.marrot.org\/?p=252"},"modified":"2010-01-30T08:00:25","modified_gmt":"2010-01-30T06:00:25","slug":"252","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.option-culture.com\/?p=252","title":{"rendered":"Time to break the taboo about financing US culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Pour nos amis anglophones, un article publi\u00e9 pr\u00e9c\u00e9demment sur le site<\/em> Culture\u00a0virale (<\/em>http:\/\/culturevirale.free.fr<\/em><\/a>), qui prend une nouvelle actualit\u00e9 avec la crise \u00e9conomique.<\/em><\/p>\n

Certain observers of American museums (see for instance A. Ellis, The Art Newspaper<\/em>, March 2004) have made the recommendation that American museums, based on their current financial situations, loosen rules on deaccessioning (a concept foreign to European cultural organisations; in France, for example, a museum\u2019s ownership of the works of art in its collections is inalienable and indefeasible; museums are not allowed to sell or to give away a work, nor to let it be taken away.) \u00a0But doesn\u2019t this suggestion open a Pandora\u2019s Box, giving way to a series of potentially major consequences that are difficult to foresee?<\/p>\n

\n

Inarguably, it is necessary to think creatively about ways of diversifying museums\u2019 income. Their expenses are increasing, while sources of revenue – earned income, public funding and private donations – remain stable or decrease. However, doesn\u2019t Mr. Ellis\u2019 proposal reinforce the temptation faced by museum trustees to find a new source of revenue by selling a part, albeit tiny, of the collections that their institutions hold in public trust? Above all, does this focus on deaccessioning not neglect the consideration of other solutions that might be equally worth exploring?<\/p>\n

\"Drapeau<\/p>\n

We could, for example, think about increasing public funding, not only from the federal government, but also from local government, i.e.<\/em> cities and states, which in the United States is currently very low compared to European standards.<\/p>\n

Our point is not to discuss the respective merits of cultural industries, private philanthropy and the free market to optimize the creation, conservation and distribution of cultural goods. Let\u2019s simply recall that in France there is such a thing as a \u201cpublic service of culture,\u201d embodied by the Ministry of Culture and by a strong commitment at the various levels of local government to improve access to cultural heritage and new artistic productions –\u00a0 a purpose worthy of government intervention.<\/p>\n

Europeans and Americans hold diverging views of what constitutes the general interest, a difference which has enormous implications for the public funding of culture. However, the American public should be aware that an example such as the size of California\u2019s cultural budget, consisting of only a few million dollars, is viewed with disbelief by European politicians, civil servants and cultural leaders, considering that California is the seventh richest \u201cstate\u201d in the world and a massive exporter of creative industries.<\/p>\n

Europeans recognize and admire the excellence and prestige of American museums, so they are all the more sorry when they see American museums obliged to reduce their programmes and cut staff facing difficult economic climates. The objections raised by American professionals of culture can easily be foreseen: public funding of cultural activities seems to present dangers of censorship and increased bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

These risks do exist, but public funding in the US is currently so low that it seems unlikely that they could pose a serious threat in the foreseeable future. On the contrary, would not such an influx of funding encourage risk-taking by artists and foster new artistic creation? After all, a significant number of American musicians, dancers, and artists in the visual and performing arts have found a temporary or permanent home in Europe in response to lack of adequate support in their own country.<\/p>\n

As has frequently been demonstrated, Europe and the US undoubtedly have a lot to learn from each other. Now, with examples of deaccessioning on the rise, it may be time to question the taboo of public funding of the arts in the US and to explore new sources of funding by the government. In our view, this option would better preserve what ultimately justifies museums\u2019 existence – the objects and works of art that they present to the public.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pour nos amis anglophones, un article publi\u00e9 pr\u00e9c\u00e9demment sur le site Culture\u00a0virale (http:\/\/culturevirale.free.fr), qui prend une nouvelle actualit\u00e9 avec la crise \u00e9conomique. Certain observers of American museums (see for instance A. Ellis, The Art Newspaper, March 2004) have made the recommendation that American museums, based on their current financial situations, loosen rules on deaccessioning (a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,12,24,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philanthropie","category-politique-culturelle","category-strategie","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.option-culture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.option-culture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.option-culture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.option-culture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.option-culture.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.option-culture.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.option-culture.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.option-culture.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.option-culture.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}