Andrew Horwitz on the American fundraising model and artists as entrepreneurs, who want money so they can make more art, not more money.
As European-style government funding for the arts is unlikely to continue, and as the idea of the ‘American Model’ of arts funding is being promoted abroad, it seems ever more urgent that we have a conversation about the strengths and weaknesses of arts funding in America and how to bring coherence, sustainability and resilience to the cultural ecology.
It is important to note that there is no single American model of arts funding, but rather a hodgepodge of public, private and philanthropic resources assembled into a constantly shifting and volatile landscape. Usually – but not always – this works out in favour of the already advantaged. The ‘American Model’ as espoused by Michael Kaiser and the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the Kennedy Center – and aggressively marketed both domestically and abroad – is only one possible model. Deeply rooted in an older European funding model – that of pre-democratic patronage by nobility – it draws its primary practices from corporate America.
Over the years, the gap created by scant government support in the US funding landscape has been filled by a chaotic and disaggregated system of public, private and philanthropic support. This chaos and volatility is deeply American and quite central to our values as a country. While in the past this dynamism has frequently led to social innovation and economic progress, at the moment our system seems to be broken.
As European-style government funding for the arts is unlikely to continue, and as the idea of the ‘American Model’ of arts funding is being promoted abroad, it seems ever more urgent that we have a conversation about the strengths and weaknesses of arts funding in America and how to bring coherence, sustainability and resilience to the cultural ecology.
It is important to note that there is no single American model of arts funding, but rather a hodgepodge of public, private and philanthropic resources assembled into a constantly shifting and volatile landscape. Usually – but not always – this works out in favour of the already advantaged. The ‘American Model’ as espoused by Michael Kaiser and the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the Kennedy Center – and aggressively marketed both domestically and abroad – is only one possible model. Deeply rooted in an older European funding model – that of pre-democratic patronage by nobility – it draws its primary practices from corporate America.
Over the years, the gap created by scant government support in the US funding landscape has been filled by a chaotic and disaggregated system of public, private and philanthropic support. This chaos and volatility is deeply American and quite central to our values as a country. While in the past this dynamism has frequently led to social innovation and economic progress, at the moment our system seems to be broken.