After a landmark year in California’s state funding for the arts that saw support for the California Arts Council’s boosted by $5 million, Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed state budget for 2015–16 allocates just $1.1 million to the organization.
arts funding
Posted inIn Brief
Deaccessioning Crisis Has UK Museums Group Contemplating Stricter Guidelines
The Museums Association, the largest professional membership organization for UK museums and their workers, is planning to revise its ethical guidelines in the hopes of dissuading institutions around the country from selling off works in their collections, the Independent reported.
Posted inOpinion
Patrimony Acrimony: Italy Turns to Private Funding for Restoration
Here in the United States, our cultural heritage is something we care about, but funding it is another story. In Italy, it’s long been the case idea that the government mostly pays to maintain cultural heritage, but as the state continues to struggle financially, officials are turning more and more to private funding — “to some dismay,” the New York Times reports.
Posted inNews
Artists Still Not Getting Paid (But at Least We’re Starting to Talk About It)
A campaign in the United Kingdom called Paying Artists released a report with a series of recommendations for getting artists paid, an urgency they claim based on their finding that “71% of artists exhibiting in publicly-funded galleries received no fee for their work.”
Posted inNews
Australian Government Cuts Over $100M from Arts and Culture
Australia’s conservative government will nearly halve its budget deficit in the coming fiscal year, in the process eliminating more than AUS$100 million (US$93.6 million) in funding for arts and culture programs, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Posted inNews
Major Arts Funding Organization Leaves LA for Chicago
CHICAGO — United States Artists (USA), the arts funding organization founded in 2005, made two announcements on April 2: the appointment of a new CEO, and the impending relocation of the headquarters from Los Angeles to Chicago.
Posted inNews
National Endowment for the Arts Skirts Budget Slash in Appropriations Bill
The National Endowment for the Arts is slated to receive a budget of $146.02 million per the 2014 Omnibus Appropriations bill released by Congress late yesterday. The figure is down from the Obama administration’s proposed $154.47 million and roughly on par with 2013’s allocation of $146.26 million.
Posted inNews
Where’s the Money? US Arts and Culture Economy By the Numbers
An unprecedented survey of the role of the arts in the larger economy, last week’s breakdown of the GDP contribution of America’s creative industries in 2011 is illuminating and depressing, if not entirely surprising in its conclusions.
Posted inNews
House Committee Seeks to Gut the NEA
In April, President Obama proposed his 2014 fiscal year budget, which, happily for us culture lovers, includes increases of some $15 million each for the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities. But Obama’s proposal was just the first step in a long, winding budget process, and now the Republicans have spoken: they want to slash the NEA and NEH budgets in half.
Posted inNews
Worker Strike Disrupts UK Museums
A widespread worker strike across the UK has delayed openings and shut down galleries at dozens of major museums across the country. The series of three daylong strikes happening yesterday, today, and Sunday are part of a larger action coordinated by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) against cuts to pay, pensions, and job conditions.
Posted inArt
The NEA Four Revisited: On Arts Funding
The NEA Four, now in residence at the New Museum, were denied National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grants in 1990, after Congress passed a “decency clause.” How has arts funding changed in the past 20 years? Its current state would certainly “disabuse just about anyone of the idea that pursuing an artistic career in 21st-century America is a romantic enterprise.”
Posted inNews
Facing Budget Cuts, Smithsonian Cuts Exhibitions and Closes Galleries
Earlier this week, officials with the Smithsonian Institution gave testimony on the impact of federal budget cuts from sequestration. The cuts will force the Smithsonian Institution to not just cancel or put on hold some upcoming exhibitions, but, starting May 1, to temporarily close off galleries throughout the year as well.