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Artists have become too Elite federal
study says.
Stunning increases in the number of American artists and arts groups over the past 30 years have far outpaced the growth in public and private support and cannot be sustained --partly because artists and art groups have not cultivated a broad public, a new federal study to be released today reports. "Sad to say", the study prepared by the National Endowment for the Arts, concludes "many American citizens fail to recognize the direct relevance of art to their lives." Art groups are also often elitist, racial segergated, class based and isolated from the communties they claim to serve, but don't the report says. The 193-page document "American Canvas" was based in part on views of artists, art officials, social critics and scholars. Unlike most art surveys, "American Canvas", does not attribute the "marginalization of the arts" in American life mainily to the loss of support from federal, state, and local goverments. Though govement, private, and corporate support is down, the audience is aging, and the arts are being ignored or neglectd in public schools, the report notes. The document also reflects the growing anxiety about future of the arts from Jane Alexander, the outgoing chairman of the embattled endowment. The agency's budget has been cut almost in half during her 4 year tenure. As examples of declining support, the report cites surveys, showing museum expenses running 22 percent above income and the nation's 65 largest dance companies spending 36% more than they take in. "The arts community itself bears a measure of responsiblity," the report says, "because it neglected those aspects of participation, democritization and popularization that might have helped sustain the arts when the political climate turned sour". "Private support for the arts, topped out at $10.23 billion, in 1992 and had fallen below $10 billion by 1995, it said. While support has dropped recently, the number of non-profit art groups has grown significantly in the last three decades since the endowment was created in 1965. Between 1965 and 1994, the number of professional orchestras in the United States grew from 100 to 230, professional opera companies from 27 to 120, dance companies from 37 to 400, and theater companies from 58 to 425, according to the report. In the report arts writer John Kridler, credits the Federal Govermnet, which created the endowment, and the Ford Foundation which made the $400 million in arts grants between 1957 and and 1976 with igniting the growth. |