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The Nation's Pulse
Money for Sculptures, But Not Firefighters
Is criticizing arts funding itself art?
Ann Arbor, Mich., is laying off firefighters, but it has enough surplus cash lying around to buy an $850,000 water sculpture, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy reported this week in a story that gained international attention when it was linked on the Drudge Report. While the nation scoffs at liberal Ann Arbor’s backwards priorities, many people might be overlooking similar scandals in their own back yards. The shocking truth is that governments across the United States are maintaining unjustifiable levels of arts funding while crying poverty.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last week that the Fulton County Arts Council “signed over $1.9 million to more than 100 programs in the economically beleaguered local arts community.” And yet the county, which typically spends millions of dollars a year on local arts groups, is proposing to raise taxes so it won’t have to lay off teachers.
The state-funded Nevada Arts Council this month approved 149 grants for a total of $560,837, even though the state faces a possible budget shortfall next year of $3.5 billion.
In Ann Arbor, some public officials defend the $850,000 sculpture because it was financed through a separate account. Like many municipalities, Ann Arbor has a rule that diverts to public art 1 percent of the funding for capital projects that cost $100,000 or more.
But the money in that account isn’t dug from the ground with the first shovel-strike of each capital project. It is taxpayer money. Municipalities and states typically separate their capital and general fund budgets, but often the capital money comes from the general fund (if not from Washington). Ann Arbor officials say they can’t use the water sculpture money to fund firefighter positions because there are two pots of money — as if it’s just insane to even think of pouring one pot into the other in bad times.
That way of thinking is skewing public budgets nationwide. Instead of setting priorities so that essential services are fully funded, officials are acting as though every department, every program, every service has to be treated equally.
In New Hampshire, courts are being closed on some Fridays, jury trials are being delayed, and a court clerk’s office is closing every afternoon at 1. And yet the state Department of Cultural Resources has enough money to keep the state library open and continue doling out community arts grants.
The inability of public officials to prioritize is always frustrating, but in this recession it is becoming maddening. Do most artists really believe that arts grants are even with the court system on the scale of public priorities? Probably not, yet politicians act as if shifting arts funding to higher-priority public services during a severe recession is heresy.
If states and municipalities can’t even do this simple bit of budget prioritization, what hope is there for getting entitlement spending and other, more intractable problems under control?
About the Author
Andrew Cline is editorial page editor of the New Hampshire Union Leader. His Twitter ID is @Drewhampshire.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (47) | Leave a comment
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Melvin| 7.23.10 @ 6:36AM
Remember back some time ago when the arts were funded by philanthropists, and those appreciative of the arts.
Politicians constantly complain about and remind us about executives in Compay X in the private sector making 60 million dollar bonuses, and then turn around and pay $850,000 for a hunk of tin that shoots water.
What if there is a serious fire in Ann Arbor, what is the politicians going to do, load up the water sculpture in a truck and have it shoot water onto the burning structure?
If the bureaucrats absolutely had to have an art form, they could have just as well went to the local Community College and had it's welding class creating something from local talent.
This asinine behavior by political bureaucrats all over this Country using tax payers money to fund worthless junk is just plain ignorant.
I could probably go to any government council with a bronzed pile of dog crap with a bronze rose stuck into in with a bronze notice stating, "Out of the pile of ugliness and waste rises beauty to meet the new dawn."
I'm quite sure Fido's art from could fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars from some government drone, that fancies themselves as some type of Euro art know-it-all.
Tomas| 7.23.10 @ 3:53PM
When I was a wee lad, it was taken for granted that art would be part of the grade school/high school curriculum. It was considered an essential component of well-rounded development, preparing us not only for a career, but for a life of beauty.
It didn't matter where the money came from. What was important was that it was there. When the private funding dried up, the public funding stepped in to fill the gap.
The problem with public funding is that it eventually experiences shortfalls, and when it comes to competing programs, arts, music, and sports are the first too get the heave-ho.
This is cataclysmic, but understandable. As an artist and musician, I believe in the importance of grounding our youth in the fundamentals and history of creativity. But, I can understand the dilemma a government faces when the choice comes down to "fire fighting, sculpture."
The answer is obvious. Yet, it's also obvious that this piece of art (and let's get into the "what is art" thing here, OK? I'll win that one....) was commissioned quite a while ago. It would have been best for the government to delay its installation until the funding for the essential services had been secured.
Bad timing.
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Eric Cartman| 7.23.10 @ 5:32PM
Drum roll, please. And now, the moment you have all been waiting for. The" Pat Paulsen Understatement of the Year Award" goes to . . . . I'm so nervous . . .. Tomas! For his two word summing up of the AA sculpture embarrassment: Bad timing!
Tom| 7.24.10 @ 8:50AM
"Yet, it's also obvious that this piece of art (and let's get into the "what is art" thing here, OK? I'll win that one....) was commissioned quite a while ago."
You'd win if art was arrogance without reason. If the criteria was different I bet the outcome would be also.
Barry| 7.23.10 @ 7:05AM
That's not all -- Ann Arbor is also beginning a program to turn off streetlights at night. Several downtown streets are already blacked out, with ore to come. So much for safety. They are no longer going to pick up leaves in the Fall. They told citizens to buy mulching mowers.
Eric Cartman| 7.23.10 @ 10:59AM
Wow! A-squared never changes LOL. What they should do is take all the Hippies at the Hash Bash and tie rakes to their asses and viola'! Hippie Powered Power Rakes! As the walk around AA they will unknowingly clean the leaves! "Wow, man! What all this stuff?!" Green power!
Then, light their dreadlocks on fire at dusk - the oily mop burns for hours! Tada! Walking streetlights! (Sort of artsy-fartsy too!)
Tape a vuvuzela horn to their mouth and hand them a bucket of water. Tell them any fire is a threat to their pot. "MUST PUT OUT FIRE! Blow horn and toss bucket of water on fire! (Just the water, stupid. Save the bucket).
See, these are not problems, people! Solutions can be found if we put our imagination to work! So get out there, grab a useless hippie and light his hair on fire! The world will be a better place.
Chalkdust| 7.23.10 @ 7:16AM
Funding "art" with tax dollars is the way liberals/progressives show the great unwashed just how crass and crude they really are.
Thats why I am certain the dog doo-doo thingy will sell for more public dollars than "Piss Christ"
JM| 7.24.10 @ 9:40AM
To Tomas, yes I remember when the arts were part of the curriculum, back in the day before the Dept of Education was created and the bureaucrats' pay and teachers union demands sucked the resources out of the schools. Back in the day when we taught reading, writing and arithmetic along with PE and art and music and structure reigned in the classrooms of America. Now it is all about sensitivity training and sex ed. Why is it that we pay more in taxes per child to reap poorer scholastic results today than we did prior to the inception of the DOE? It isn't inflation or lack of funding for programs that has driven art out of the schools. It is things like the insistence that art and teachers' pensions must be funded on the public dime. But just like everything else, the government has usurped "charity" - why should philanthropists or communities fund an arts project when porkbarreling politicians can load it into the latest Stimulus bill or Health Care Reform Act? I mean who ever notices that stuff in a 2400 page bill?
S. Ruger| 7.23.10 @ 8:23AM
Mr. Cline writes, "Do most artists really believe that arts grants are even with the court system on the scale of public priorities? Probably not, ..."
I think he's wrong. Artists and their supporters likely believe that their art provides such a humanizing influence on society that it is at least as valuable as having police on the streets or courts in session.
There's a grain of truth in this, and citizens will have a steep uphill climb in communities like Ann Arbor to reach the point where we're pouring from one pot to another.
KyMouse| 7.23.10 @ 9:04AM
Why should ANY artists feed at the public trough, especially during tough economic times?
If they want to provide their "humanizing influence" for society, let them do it on their free time -- after work, or on the weekends -- and at their own expense. I know a number of good, albeit "amateur," artists who hold down jobs and save up to buy their canvas and clay. Why on earth SHOULDN'T they?
By the way, I like public television and sometimes listen to NPR, but I see no reason why they shouldn't have commercials like other networks. Why should taxpayers foot the bill for their broadcasts?
S Ruger| 7.23.10 @ 9:26AM
Oh, I basically agree, KyMouse. The government should only be in the art business to preserve and present art that has earned the title "classic." The new, freaky stuff should be supported on the artists' dimes.
I was trying to point out that this is not the view of the dear folks of Ann Arbor or similar bastions of supposed enlightenment, so don't expect them to support courts over sculptures.
KyMouse| 7.27.10 @ 10:06AM
I understand, S. My comment wasn't so much aimed at yours as using it as a springboard. However, I don't think it's the government's place to support even "classic" art, unless that would be the occasional sculpture or decoration for an important public building, such as in the Capitol rotunda.
Louis Jenkins| 7.23.10 @ 8:53AM
It's a bunch of bilge water. Cutting back on Firemen but allowing the community to go great guns on sculptures is a travisty. What are they gonna' do when the sculptures catches on fire?
S Ruger| 7.23.10 @ 9:53AM
Ah, but it's a water sculpture.
Eric Cartman| 7.23.10 @ 11:11AM
Take a hippie. Tape a garden hose to his head, telling him it is Earth Goddess Gaia's umbilical cord. (Make sure he doesn't think its the lady from The Food Network. He may have the munchies and bad things could happen).
Tell him that he must stand in the city square with the hose taped to his head to save the planet from the BP oil spill. Turn the water on and tell him it is to cool the burning, injured planet. Tell him, "Al Gore will be proud of you, young man. He's at your house right now thanking your girlfriend for you shared sacrifice"
Voila'! Water sculpture!
As a bonus, it keeps Al Gore off the street for a while. I'm a genius!
S. Ruger| 7.23.10 @ 11:29AM
From your complete and believable description, I thought maybe you had seen the actual thing, Eric. So I looked it up. Not as interesting as your design, I'm afraid:
http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-.....c_art.html
Eric Cartman| 7.23.10 @ 11:44AM
Thank you, S.R. I see it's a rather mundane sculpture. Ya know, if we could take the hippie/water hose sculpture and attach that kids toy "WIGGLING WATER SNAKE " and light the hippies' oily dreadlocks on fire all the while piping in the muzak version of Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water", I think AA could actually make money! Maybe even buy a new firetruck and hire more fireman! I would come see it, I'll tell you that. Stop at Bicycle Jim's for some onion soup, maybe hit the Brown Jug for a pizza and a cold one.
Louis Jenkins| 7.23.10 @ 12:37PM
Yeah, it is. Too bad. Okay, declare it a Haz Mat Zone. You'll still need firefighters. Or pour some oil in the water and set that on fire. The problem with firefighters is that they've worked themselves out of a job. They do such good work on fire prevention that they're not needed now as much as twenty years back. But when you need them, you need them. I say get rid of the sculptures and keep the firemen.
Medici| 7.23.10 @ 11:03AM
Govt. should stay out of the arts (except to preserve the great museums). New public art,like new art in general, is bad. Old public art at least was pigeon friendly. NPR and PBS get little public money and indeed are on perpetual begathons. They now show reruns of the programs they were supposed to replace with "up-lift" I subscribe to "listener supported radio" because it has no talk --just the music I like. As far as giving up grants, why should anyone,even artists, make unilateral sacrifices for the "common good?"
Ken (Old Texican)| 7.23.10 @ 11:16AM
$850,000............ 15 firemen and a new fire truck.
Sounds like a good trade to me.
Who got the $850,000? The artist? Good work if you can get it.
MAJ Mike| 7.23.10 @ 11:58AM
The artist got part of it, but that money went through many hands, including the administrators of the program, their staff and the sales rep who made the deal. I'd be pleasantly surprised if the artist got half. When conservatives propose that the wealthiest sectors of the economy drive economic growth through their investments, it's derided as "trickle down" economics, but when liberals claim that government spending, which takes money from the productive private sectors, and trickles it down through layer after layer of bureaucracy, creates jobs, it's called "stimulus." Just another example of government "trickling down" on our heads and telling us that it's raining.
Radegunda| 7.23.10 @ 3:33PM
So funneling taxpayers' money through various layers of government bureaucracy so some of it ends up in a statue is just as important as providing firefighters and police to protect the citizens who pay the taxes?
Okaaaay. Do you have one of those bumper stickers that says the military should be forced to fund itself on bake sales so the educrat bureaucracy can have more money to indoctrinate our kids in leftist ideology?
Apparently you didn't understand the basic point about setting priorities for the use of citizens' money---or the way bureaucrats will cut the most crucial government responsibilities first, as a way of blackmailing the citizens into ponying up more of their hard-earned cash.
Tom| 7.24.10 @ 8:52AM
Did you actually read his post?
pomdter| 7.23.10 @ 12:00PM
Hey Obama won, the liberals rule. I'm done fighting it. All I really want to know now, is how do I get a piece of the action? Stimulus funds, art grants, bailouts, tax credits, crazy pensions, etc etc, surely there's a game in there for me!
sinanju| 7.23.10 @ 1:23PM
Guys. You're forgetting that, if history is repeating itself, Obama almost certainly has some massive WPA-style, Federal Art Project in the works. Surely some of those hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars are already being earmarked to support the poo-flingers and crucifix-marinators.
Unless, of course, The One's sole contribution will be to the performing arts through his weekly White House parties and concerts...
Radegunda| 7.23.10 @ 3:35PM
Remember when the leftists were screaming that it was "censorship" if the government declined to subsidize certain "artists" from the taxpayers' pockets?
Don't expect they will ever get their priorities straight.
RCV| 7.23.10 @ 7:30PM
I thought you guys were for local control? Now you're going to tell the citizens of Ann Arbor how to spend their money? Maybe you could have the GOP in Washington pass a bill imposing your priorities on every community?
Tim*| 7.23.10 @ 8:09PM
We call it Free Speech , LawBoy .
David Shoup| 7.25.10 @ 11:48AM
The self contradiction of calling tax payer extortion "Free Speech" is in-freaking-credible. The Ministry of Truth, Education, and Mind Control has done their duty. But, we are descended from a woman who believed a stupid lie from the mouth of a serpent, so what can we expect?
Tom| 7.24.10 @ 8:55AM
Let us disregard how much federal money may have been involved in this and just focus on the local angle. Does that mean when a commentator sees a locality do something he or she thinks is foolish it should just be ignored because it is a local matter? I saw neither the author of the article or anyone posting comments calling for the congress to outlaw the spending; I saw lots of comments on how foolish the spending priorities were.
RCV| 7.24.10 @ 12:49PM
And unless you live in Ann Arbor, it's none of your business. You right-wingers are so hypocritical about objecting when others do things in their communities you don't like.
Tom| 7.24.10 @ 4:52PM
Did you read more than 1 paragraph? How is one to make an argument of state and local governments squandering precious and limited resources without examples? The author listed several examples of government using revenue foolishly.
"And unless you live in Ann Arbor, it's none of your business." This is simply and utterly silly. Beyond the fact that there was probably federal monies, MY monies, involved in the project it is perfectly valid when people object to how other communities are run. I do not think 'left-wingers' are hypocrits when they denouce some aspect of civil society in conservative locales, I think they are wrong. Of course, since you had no real answer to my reply to your silly strawman argument, Congress imposing priorities upon every community, your only answer was ad hominem foolishness.
And by the way, Congress imposes priorities in communities every day. Every penny of federal money comes with chains that are miles long specifying how, where, and on whom the money can be spent.
John II| 7.24.10 @ 4:58PM
Well, Ann Arbor IS a college town, so there's likely to be a somewhat heftier proportion of dimwits among the citizenry than in, say, Elko, but I'd still like to know where the people of Ann Arbor generally come down on this issue. It's pretty clear what the great majority, at least, of the people of Bell, California, think about their retiring city manager.
And what's happening to the general culture as reflected on all levels of government is EVERYONE's business, Ricky.
You're right about my hypocrisy, though: I find your thoughts contemptible, and I'm only feigning the civility in my response to them. Hypocrisy, you'll recall from your study of La Rochefoucauld, is the homage vice pays to virtue.
Eric Cartman| 7.25.10 @ 6:30PM
Well, then, Liberal aholes like RC should have no problem with the Fed taking back $800K from AA, right? If AA wants to waste its money - let's repeat that - THEIR money, fine. Just to make sure it is only spending its own, give back that much to the Feds. Seems fair.
And look, AA can make up the difference by implementing the "Hippies As Things" projects outlined above. Take the useless and give them a reason to exist! There are a lot of useless people in AA - probably 90% +. The Liberals. Put them to work!
Robert Pinkerton| 7.23.10 @ 7:39PM
That was probably in reference to Robert Mapplethorpe. Now this Mr. Mapplethorpe's photographs were partly male homo-erotic-themed and/or sadomasochistic-themed. Photographs in this category did try mightily to be obscene; none the less, although they were gross-out (After all, to be an Ahhh-tist, one must aim at shocking the bourgeoisie -- a forlorn hope in this jaded age.), they fell short of obscenity: All they achieved, outside the public controversy, was absurdity. However, this does not mean that obscenity was absent from Mr. Mapplethorpe's exhibition. Obscenity was indeed present, and it lay in the fact that this tomfool, damnfool, bull-stupid exhibition was paid for with public funds.
Hyrdr| 7.23.10 @ 10:32PM
This whole thing is Bush's fault. Stinking liberals had NOTHING to do with it.
A Mac| 7.25.10 @ 1:49PM
Ever notice that government speaks of "monies", not "money"? A dollar is not a dollar in government - a dollar is an "art dollar" or a "salary dollar", and the two can not be exchanged, even in an emergency.
That's one of the basic, fundamental inefficiencies in government.