I’m basically just posting this here so i can link to it from this discussion over at Larvatus Prodeo. But it’s a reminder though that I’m involved in many debates and discussions about arts funding and policy priorities in Australia at the moment (most recently here and here) and too easily forget that most people don’t have much an idea of what i’m on about most of the time. Posting this graph from the Australia Council’s 2006/07 annual report provides a bit of context to my critique of current funding priorities.
If you are interest in engaging in any of these issues, the Federal Government is currently developing a National Cultural Policy and is seeking input on it via web forum or formal submission here. Regardless of your views i’d encourage you to engage with the process.
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Tags: australia council · Australian arts · dance · literatrure · music · National Cultural Policy · Opera · orchestras · theatre · visual arts13 Comments
13 responses so far ↓
That graph reveals an enormous unbalance in funding. As a visual artist I want to see more funding directed to the visual arts. Visual arts today is a multi- faceted arena, encompassing many new and cutting edge disciplines of which, new media, technical advancement and science will provide a stimulating contribution for the future. Funding is required in the areas that reflect the exciting times we live in , and the contribution that is made to the visual arts, will contribute to a vibrant arts community and and a forward looking country.
Hi Marcus – is there a breakdown of the spending within the visual arts per form? Are there details on new media as opposed to painting etc?
You are quoting figures from FY06-07. Annual reports are available for all the years since, include the last. Comparing FY0809 and FY0607, Orchestra funding has been slashed by 25% (down to 47.1m) and moved to fund other forms like cross-arts (increased 117% to 16.9m). The boat is turning, albeit slowly, and only presenting one year of figures (and outdated figures at that) is a little misleading.
@Andrew I have never seen a break down of visual arts money by form. Not sure if one exists. I have seen useful breakdowns by recipient which would hint at that but not necesarily provide the information. Other factors to look at is the relative spending on artists as opposed to organisations, events, etc. Historically, and in part because of the nature of the form, the visual arts have been far less top heavy in their funding patterns than the performing arts.
@Michael. Fair point. It wasn’t my intention to be misleading, i’m just lazy and was in a mad hurry this morning. Someone asked about this this morning and this was the most recent version i had on my hard drive — from memory i saved it around the time of the 2020 summit. I’m getting married tomorrow so searching for more recent data wasn’t priority number 1 for the day! I will make an effort when i get a chance to update it.
Annual reports are here if you want to do some digging.
http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/about_us/annual_report2
Opera and Orchestras can eat my ****. If they can’t sustain themselves via subscriptions, philanthropy, ticket sales and through broadening their cloistered, wealthy audiences they don’t deserve such a ridiculous degree of over-compensation. Level the playing field for funding across all artforms and I’ll get off my soapbox!
Thanks for sharing this shocking abuse of tax-payers’ involuntary contributions to closeted culture.
I’d be really interested to see breakdown of earned income as well. Is it not true that orchestras also have the greatest level of earned income? Also unionised performers?
Orchestras and Operas should stand by themselves and compete with other forms of music that do not receive such generous funding. The impact of the funding is that the audience enjoys subsidised ticket costs and the audience is usually from the higher socioeconimic groups so they really do not need this type of government handout. Should Briteney Spears tickets be subsided? no a ludicrous thought so why do it with Operea and Orchestras. If they cannot put bums on seats without funding then they do not need to be around.
The reason orchestras come out looking like the big winners is that, unlike other costly things such as the NGA, Australian Museum etc, they have to get their government funding through the Australia Council. In reality, the main symphony orchestras in Australia are not too different from the major state-owned institutions – it is a matter of Government policy that we should have them. However, when they were separated from the ABC, they were set up as corporations. So unlike the NGA etc that get their Government funds directly through a Federal budget. appropriation, these bodies need to “apply” for Oz Co and State arts grant funding. To get a fair picture of where Oz Co funding goes, either add in the budget funds to NGA, NLA, Australian Museum etc – or – take out the funding provided to each State Symphony Orchestra. If you wanted to look at State arts budgets, you would need to do the same thing. Each state will support some of its big institutions directly through their budgets while other “institutions” like state operas and orchestras need to get their funding as grants through the State arts funding body.
@Ian. You’re partially right, although the major visual arts organisations, libraries and museums do not receive major funding from the Australia Council — they are mostly state government funded or occasionally through other parts of the Federal Government.
However, my larger argument — which is that administratively heavy heritage arts are disproportionately favoured over the new, the low cost and the innovative — is actually even more obvious when the you start to include the major collecting instituions.
Last time i looked, the NGV recieved funding levels that were greater than pretty much ALL of the initiatives for living artists in Victoria COMBINED — regardless of artform.
My point is not to specfically criticise Orchestras and Opera, but rather to argue that funding patterns have become self reinforcing — creating bad fedback loops. Beauracracies that are large enough to be funded are learge enough to lobby for more funding and have been very successful at doing so. The atomised world where people actually make stuff has simply drifted off the radar and is rarely funded or even invited to participate in the policy process.
If you want to see the argument articulated in more detail, check out the Meanjin essay linked to above.
[...] at Marcus Westbury’s blog, he’s posted a graph breakdown of the Australia Council’s funding by artform category, [...]
marcus
Such is the worrying complexity of management of the funded visual arts sector it is is near impossible to say : where the money actually gos to or how much money, in total, is involved.
One visible truth is ; the funded sector produces a lot of consultations, a lot of reports , a lot of recommendations for more funding-for….. more….., To little visible result.
There is quite a lot of federal money going around in the funded visual arts sector but a lot of of it ,about 10 to 1, gos to the costs of the worrying costs of the complexity of Organisations in the field. To give one example;The Myer report resulted in the allocation of a fair bit of funding through the VACS program . But typically ,of its roughly $15 million total per/annum ,$13 million is paid to Organisations. Some organisations do a good job but the organisation sector has over the past decade bred to about the limit of avaliable resources and in the process has damaged the carrying capacity of the land. There are an awful lot of organisations out there .
I think this has happened because the Question :
What exactly is public art funding for— what is its purpose? Has for decades, been a very conflicted question.
Without clarity as to purpose, good design is impossible- it inevitably will go round in circles attempting the instrumental implementation of purposes that are fatally contradictory and thus impossible to make real .
The history of Art is in many ways the history of the audiences.
I think the conflicting positions as to the purpose of public arts funding policy are something like this
Is:
The purpose of funding is to create new art/artforms by creating a demand; a audience that otherwise would not exist , an sort of modern day aristocratic patron?
Or
Is it’s purpose to improve and instruct the publics taste,– is it aimed at producing education so as to create new audiences that currently don’t exist .. ‘audience development’?
Or
is its purpose one of a follower of both art and audiences- helper/augmentor and not a leader at all?
I would put the basic conflict about purpose as something like this;
Is the purpose of arts funding that of leadership :setting directions and standards?
or
Is its role to be one of follower of art & audiences, a role of helping/ augmenting the development of artforms that to some degree already have audiences that are really independent of the funded field?
This conflict gos right back to the 80s and the beginnings of ‘art industry’ policy. It got very hot in the 90s and has gone on ever since.
It obviously has a ideological base, the mainstream of Australian poltical culture is freemarket .
On the otherhand many in the funded field see their role as one of supplying leadership setting standards and educating the public about advanced art.
This conflict as to primary purpose has been going around in circles for decades and has resulted in it doing neither purpose well.
just a wee bit more,
a scheme where the money invested in it is the scheme’s only income is a Ponzi scheme.
Any art scheme where people are effectively paid to be the audience supplying support /income to the scheme is as unsustainable as any other sort of ponzi scheme
The comments above should really have gone under
Crowdsourcing a cultural policy? –Meee culpa