Kareem Dale in Charge of Arts Portfolio

The NY Times is reporting that Obama has hired Kareem Dale to be in charge of the arts portfolio temporarily. Dale is a lawyer from Chicago and was appointed special assistant to Obama for disability policy. People from both the art and disability camps are disappointed with the decision, each hoping that they would have an advocate in the White House to call their own, and instead they will have to share. Before Dale, there was talk of hiring a Cabinet level secretary of the arts (an idea proposed by Quincy Jones), and there was an online petition created in support of it.

Art Programs in the Great Depression

In order to see how the topic of art might be dealt with in the future, we can look to the past. In 1935 during the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WGA), the largest agency of the New Deal, created Federal Project Number One. It was a group of projects that helped to relieve artists, writers, actors, and musicians. With the support of the government, artists were commissioned to create art for federal buildings, photographers captured images of the Great Depression, writers wrote about the New Deal, and actors lifted the spirits of audiences across the country. Supporting the arts was not a top priority for Franklin D. Roosevelt, but his first lady, Eleanor, believed that Number One was essential for the development of culture in the U.S. and she encouraged him to take the necessary steps to put it into action. Opponents of the New Deal pressured the White House to scale Number One in the late 1930′s, but the work of that time remains with us today and serves as an illustration of climate of the Great Depression.

Stimulating the Arts

photograph by hedi slimane

According to npr.com, $50 million has been included in the stimulus plan for the National Endowment of the Arts and $150 million to repair the infrastructure of the Smithsonian. Many art groups and organizations have been greatly affected by the crisis, with cancelled performances, funding and pay cuts, and art institutions being shut down. In January 2009, an article illustrating how much art contributes to the economy was posted to the news section of the NEA’s website:

According to research by Americans for the Arts, nonprofit arts organizations and their audiences generate $166.2 billion in economic activity every year, support 5.7 million jobs, and return nearly $30 billion in government revenue every year. Every $1 billion in spending by nonprofit arts and culture organizations and their audiences results in almost 70,000 full time jobs.

This study is called ‘Arts & Economic Prosperity III: The Economic Impact of Nonprofit Arts and Culture Organizations and Their Audiences,’ and according to its website, it is “among the most frequently cited statistics used to demonstrate the impact of the nation’s nonprofit arts industry on the local, state, and national economy.”

Another study called ‘Arts & the Economy: Using Arts and Culture to Stimulate State Economic Development,’ which can be found in its entirety here, states that, “Arts and culture are important to state economies. Arts and culture-related industries, also known as ‘creative industries,’ provide direct economic benefits to states and communities: They create jobs, attract investments, generate tax revenues, and stimulate local economies through tourism and consumer purchases.” Reviewing all of this information, it is being clear exactly how imperative it is that the arts be included in the stimulus bill. Without government support, a significant part of our economy will collapse.

Artists make up 1.4 percent of the U.S labor force, which is about 2 million people, according to the NEA’s own study, Artists in the Workforce.

Not only artists will be affected: “There are many more arts administrators who manage arts institutions including office staff such as accountants and booking agents, production staff such as stage managers, and artistic staff such as ballet masters and artist managers.”