We’ve Got A Lot Less Of What It Takes To Get Along…


As the economic crisis has unfolded, I think a lot of us who care about the arts have been blind-sided by the confluence of politics, economic issues, and the creative enterprises we love. As critics, we exist to experience the thrill of the creative; we are the audience, we are the reactive element. None of us, really, can cope with a world where the thrill is gone.

I’ve been meaning, for months, to work on this - muse a little about how money meets art, about the binds we face in the economic collapse… and some idea of how we can survive. This wasn’t, I think, how we expected things to shake out: outside of the folks at Breitbart’s Big Hollywood, many of us were expecting, I suspect, a bit of a renaissance in the arts, a chance to exhale after the Bush years, a chance to celebrate the creative side of “hope” and “change.”

Since the beginning of the year, about 16 Broadway shows have closed; outside of some of the current profit centers of commercially successful musicals, almost nothing survived the November crash with a cushion large enough to weather the early months of the year, always a slow period in theater, made slower by the lack of discretionary funds to spend on entertainment. Recorded music and concert sales have tanked - never mind the disaster of electronics sales that mean fewer high end sound systems and flat screen TVs. And television is reeling from enormous drops in audience share, as well as drops in future ad revenue projections. NBC’s desperation play of the Jay Leno show may still be idiotic, but the economic justifications for it have only grown as GE flails around trying to escape the collapse of its debt.

Perhaps the only bright spot is the week-to-week increase in film ticket revenue, mirroring American behavior in the Depression: apparently, we’re still lured to forget our troubles watching the flickering light in the darkened hall (making escapist crap like Paul Blart: Mall Cop, He’s Just Not That Into You, Madea Goes To Jail, and Friday the 13th into even more unexpected successes than anyone anticipated). Still, even in with increased traffic, there are problems in film exhibition: ticket prices are generally too high, and movieplexes sit in some of the most enormous commercial property boondoggles of the real estate bubble. As we relocated 20, 24 nd 30 screen megaplexes further and further out in the exurbs, we attached them to malls and housing developments that are now part of the crux of the mortgage meltdown and the home construction debacle. Audiences that want film will struggle more and more this year with economic realities that force unpleasant choices that mean foregoing a weekly trip to the movies… unless prices can be forced down (anybody else see the return of the extended bargain matinee?).

Even less discussed, lately, is the disconcerting dry-up of charitable giving and high end donors who supported the fine arts: Classical Music, Dance, Museums, Regional Theater… all are reeling as donations dry up, and state supporting funds begin to feel the heat of balancing budgets. It’s all too clear that support for the arts is seen as frivolous and unnecessary too often and by too many; we worry about a healthcare crisis and a schools crisis… but no one seems to care about a looming culture crisis, a world with much less art. And light.

One of President Obama’s budget proposals this year is to finance his healthcare proposals (still vague and unspecified) with tax increases, including reduction of the itemized deduction for charitable giving. That proposal has evoked familiar howls from both sides - some howling that it’s a swipe against religion (churches make up the bulk of giving), others shooting back that no one needs more incentive to support Harvard (educational endowments, second only to churches), others comlaining about “helping the needy”… lost in all of it is the necessity of charitable giving to the arts.

Art and money has always been an uneasy mix, always that sense of dependency on the deep pockets of the wealthy has made for discomfort (and nowhere, perhaps, is the economic crisis making fools of us all on that score than in the collapse of the art auction market). Artists don’t like to talk money, aren’t necessarily comfortable talking about the need for money… but if no one speaks up, loudly and soon, a lot will be lost. A lot already has. How can you describe the loss of pictures you won’t see, music you won’t hear, talent the likes of which you will never know?

One of the things about this financial crisis that’s struck me repeatedly is how slowly people have been coming to terms with just what is happening: the realities of an economy fueled by excessive levels of debt, the fact that the lives we led will not be the lives of our near future, the many ways that the mortgage crisis, the banking crisis, and probably the government spending crisis… all of it touches all of our lives. There are still people talking about “when things get back to normal” as if this, now, is not our new normal. We’re no longer in the money. And that’s going to mean a lot to our arts, and to our culture. And as critics, I think we’re only beginning to realize what that means.

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March 12th, 2009
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