Publicly funded arts institutions are under more pressure than ever to quantify the social benefits they bring, as would be done for schools and hospitals. But why is it so different when it comes to art? The arts have undergone a dramatic change these last years, including intensive growth of the global art market but also significant reductions in public funding.
When the governments support is absent it will lead to more shut downs and limits the world of art as we know it. The art are giving so much good out to the world. It is important to see the affects of it. London’s commercial theathre earnes over a half a billion pounds a year. (theguardian.com) This is also one of the biggest tourist attractions that London has. Imagine taking that away. There is also social value in arts and is benefitial in many different ways. A recent Europe-wide study of 5,000 13- to 16-year-olds found that drama in schools significantly increases teenagers’ capacity to communicate and to learn, to relate to each other and to tolerate minorities, as well as making them more likely to vote, by contrast, those who didn’t do drama were likelier to watch television and play computer games. The cuts made by the government are crucial to the arts, and they are making big decicions that will have great impact not just on the world of art but of the future of the society. As David Edgar writes in the guardian “Cuts will have unpredictable effects on arts provision in England. Unless the National Theatre, Walsall’s New Art Gallery, Battersea Arts Centre, Sadler’s Wells and Cardboard Citizens are all profligately run, or the prospects for private patronage have been scandalously underestimated, then a failure to win the argument for continued public funding – even at reduced levels – would lead to the closure of the great majority of currently funded arts organisations, especially outside London.”
One thing is for certant. The impact of changes in funding structures for arts organizations and institutions constitutes an area of concern. But it is important to discuss these cuts and these changes and make sure we know the consecuences of these actions when they are beeing made. Art is valuable and benefitial, and that is why it needs funding.
The arts are a necessity. They are a way for us to share our stories, they are a way for us to express ourselves, a way for us to cope and to escape. When the arts thrive, so do we, and when the arts suffer, we do too.
article : https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/jan/05/david-edgar-why-fund-the-arts
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