The two articles we read this quarter dealt with how much arts are funded by the government and how much the arts budget gets cut. The first article "When the Government Funded the Arts" discusses two viewpoints of different men, one who supports increasing funding for the arts and one who believes that the arts get funded enough. The other article titled "Euro Crisis Hits Museums" talks about how funding for the arts in Europe is bad in a lot of places because some nations simply cannot afford to keep up with their old history, art, and architecture. Funding for the arts is a touchy subject because there is no right or wrong answer, but I personally believe that in order to keep the culture and history of a place its art must be preserved and the community must be involved or else it will not flourish.
George McGovern, a senator, discusses the numerous reasons why he believes the arts should be funded. While I agree with his general belief, I do no think that all of his methods of funding them would be very effective. He believes that increasing public awareness for art will help in funding it somehow. While it will bring general awareness to the issue, it will not necessarily help in the big scheme of things. Another thing he addressed is giving grants to specific artists. There are a lot of problems with this, including deciding who gets grants and who does not. If it is portfolio based then there has to be a committee to review it but who can say if art is worthy enough for a grant or not? Or if it is based on past exhibitions, how do newer artists get funded? One part of his argument I did agree with was that he wanted to make cultural centers where artists can come together and make and appreciate art. I think this can be more valuable than funding museums in some cases because it is open to more people. The other man in the article believed that the art has enough funding already. I disagree with this but I feel like my points have been clear throughout this essay.
One thing I did not realize about arts funding was that a lot of places, specifically smaller countries in Europe, simply cannot keep up with the amount of work that needs to be put into preserving certain art (mainly architecture). The second article mentioned specifically that Italy cannot even preserve Pompeii, its most popular tourist destination. This is incredibly saddening to hear because there is not much that Italy can do about it. Sometimes art requires a lot more work than people expect it to and there has to be limits. I understand that art cannot have an unlimited budget but I'm not sure I understand what the limit for the budget should be. This issue is so difficult to discuss because there is no right or wrong answer and no one way to solve it. The arts should be funded more but not every government has the ability to do so.
George McGovern, a senator, discusses the numerous reasons why he believes the arts should be funded. While I agree with his general belief, I do no think that all of his methods of funding them would be very effective. He believes that increasing public awareness for art will help in funding it somehow. While it will bring general awareness to the issue, it will not necessarily help in the big scheme of things. Another thing he addressed is giving grants to specific artists. There are a lot of problems with this, including deciding who gets grants and who does not. If it is portfolio based then there has to be a committee to review it but who can say if art is worthy enough for a grant or not? Or if it is based on past exhibitions, how do newer artists get funded? One part of his argument I did agree with was that he wanted to make cultural centers where artists can come together and make and appreciate art. I think this can be more valuable than funding museums in some cases because it is open to more people. The other man in the article believed that the art has enough funding already. I disagree with this but I feel like my points have been clear throughout this essay.
One thing I did not realize about arts funding was that a lot of places, specifically smaller countries in Europe, simply cannot keep up with the amount of work that needs to be put into preserving certain art (mainly architecture). The second article mentioned specifically that Italy cannot even preserve Pompeii, its most popular tourist destination. This is incredibly saddening to hear because there is not much that Italy can do about it. Sometimes art requires a lot more work than people expect it to and there has to be limits. I understand that art cannot have an unlimited budget but I'm not sure I understand what the limit for the budget should be. This issue is so difficult to discuss because there is no right or wrong answer and no one way to solve it. The arts should be funded more but not every government has the ability to do so.