Culture Crunch: The Recession and the Arts

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That's what the Art Institute of Chicago--venue of that Obama first date--discovered recently. In April the museum, which gets about $6.5 million a year in support from the city, announced plans to increase admission for adults from $12 to $18 while eliminating its separate charge for special exhibitions. In response, Chicago alderman Edward Burke threatened to end the museum's city-supplied free water. Eventually a compromise was reached: the institute would charge out-of-town visitors the full amount, but Chicagoans would get a $2 discount. James Cuno, the institute's director, says he's very aware that because museums have obligations to the public, they can't operate like just any business. "Our goal is to increase access to the collection," he says. "That's the business we're in. We're not in the business of making money."

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Help from the Top?

While it struggled to pull the economy out of its tailspin, the White House and Congress paid fitful attention to culture, not all of it welcome. During the debate in February over the federal stimulus package, the Senate passed a version of the bill that explicitly barred money from theaters, museums and other arts groups. Though that provision was removed in the final version, it impressed on the arts community that it had to remind leaders that "real people" work in their sector of the economy, which provides 5.7 million jobs and nearly $30 billion in tax revenue.

Eventually the stimulus package included an additional $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). President Obama has also proposed increasing the NEA budget next year by $6 million, to $161.3 million. And in May he nominated a firecracker, the Broadway producer Rocco Landesman, to be the NEA's next chairman. But at the same time, arts groups are worried about what they see as a serious threat to their donor base: the White House proposal to reduce as much as 20% the tax deduction that higher-income families can take for charitable contributions.

"The people who are dealing with economic policy [in the White House] are not talking to the people who are dealing with cultural policy, because they don't see any connection," says David A. Ross, former director of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. "What's clear is that there is a direct connection between economic recovery and cultural spending." Ross would like to see a federal rescue mission for the arts, a $250 million fund to stabilize museums and libraries. That would be only a small fraction of what we've just spent to bail out the banks, but the probability that Congress and the White House will be allocating that much additional money for cultural institutions is roughly zero.