Public art ... valid or a waste of taxpayer's money?

Public art ... valid or a waste of taxpayer's money?

  • I like it, don't always understand it but agree it should be there.

    Votes: 88 75.2%

  • I think it's a waste of money that could be spent on more important infrastructures.

    Votes: 20 17.1%

  • I'm indifferent and have no opinion.

    Votes: 9 7.7%
  • Total voters
    117
Roger Hicks said:
No, it wasn't, actually. It was that to the effect that anyone who can afford £100] for a seat, doesn't need a subsidy from me. Go back to the original post (I did).
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It is not as easy as that. Opera houses aren't subsidized because some parliament thought "the poor should subsidize the rich, for a change" (well, maybe they are in Italy, now that it has completely tumbled into the hands of corruption). In general they are subsidized because it is considered their public duty to preserve the performance of more complex and less popular operas than those being played in non-subsidized commercial venues (where you will find barely anything that is not Mozart, Verdi, Wagner or Lloyd-Webber).

Besides that, a job at the opera does pay for many musicians less mainstream activities, and even feeds some photographers, painters and makeup artists. I certainly have received my share of ballet subsidies...
 
Most of it's pretty bad isn't it? About what one would expect from government art, which is a self canceling phrase if I ever heard one. Lord, they waste enough money on bizarre things. I'd rather the government not finance ANY arts organizations. It just corrupts them, and you get a passle of highly trained grant writers constantly submitting proposals for grants money that produces utterly lousy art. Art is supposed to be about questioning whatever is in authority. You can't do that if you're being fed by it.
 
Steve M. said:
Most of it's pretty bad isn't it? About what one would expect from government art, which is a self canceling phrase if I ever heard one. Lord, they waste enough money on bizarre things. I'd rather the government not finance ANY arts organizations. It just corrupts them, and you get a passle of highly trained grant writers constantly submitting proposals for grants money that produces utterly lousy art. Art is supposed to be about questioning whatever is in authority. You can't do that if you're being fed by it.
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I'm with you. And that doesn't included how much Alameda county (in CA) has thrown at the Raiders (another alien art form as Roger has stated). But I don't completely go along with the premise that art is to question authority. Let's just say it should stand on its merits in the real world (not the funded world).
 
I'm not going to buy into the debate of Govt. subsidy for opera again. It's got to the point of flogging a dead horse now anyway. However Roger you openly state you dislike opera. Is this based on the fact that you tried it and it wasn't for you? Or is it because in England it's seemed to be something that belongs to the wealthy and elite and not for the masses? In Oz at least most people I've met here in Adelaide at the opera and indeed in Melbourne and Sydney are just music lovers. Most of us would love it if opera could reach out to a far greater audience. Here in S.Oz our State Company do "Opera in the Park" and regularly take scaled down productions out to regional areas. Your throw away line that Wagners music is probably better than it sounds suggests that you haven't really delved into his work beyond a compilation disc with the Ride of the Valkyries. No criticism intended here just curious to know.
 
Jamie123 said:
Dear Roger,
my name is not George. It's not Jaimie either but it's definitely not George.

Anyways, I'm not sure I agree with your defninition of "public art". In one instance you seem to define it as publicly accessible art (i.e. art gallery) and in another as publicly funded or subsidized art. I do think that public funding and subsidies should aim to make art more accessible to the public but I don't think all publicly accessible art is "public art*. An art gallery is usually privately owned. Yes it's open to the public but so is Louis Vuitton.

I don't pretend to know how much money goes to what institution in what country but we should also keep in mind that some art forms require more money to be supported than others.
Also, as George has shown, tickets to the opera can be acquired for a reasonably low amount of money. Even your example, where the tickets were £31 is still in the realm of what I would consider reasonable. The fact that the cheaper tickets are sold out faster than the more expensive ones is not really surprising.
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Dear Not-George-but-not-Jamie-either,

Sorry about addressing the reply to the wrong person; brain fade. It was getting late and I seem to have some sort of flu.

@ Andrew. Yup. Dead horse.

@ Alan. No, I'm cheerfully elitist but I have quite a low boredom threshold. 'Wagner's music is better than it sounds' is a quote, almost certainly from Edgar Wilson Nye but I have seen it attributed elsewhere. I also like Rossini's 'Wagner has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour.' I have in fact listened to far more Wagner than you might think (especially at school, and voluntarily at that, at the Music Appreciation Society), but I decided some 35 years ago that I need no longer make excuses for not liking his work nor waste any more time listening to him. Admittedly, if you really do want to waste time, he's a bargain: you can waste two or three hours listening, then look at your watch and find it's only been a quarter of an hour.

@ Fred. It it's only £700,000 for the year I withdraw all objections to its funding on the grounds of cost. In fact it's a bargain. But if it's to dig them out of yet another hole, I'd like to know how much they got for the whole year. As for the poor not being taxed, even those who pay no income tax are in fact quite heavily taxed in a number of other ways, the main examples by a long way being excise duties and VAT. They also pay the voluntary 'stupidity tax' known as the National Lottery. Great quote about a cheap way to kill, though.

Cheers,

R.
 
blazeicehockey said:
A case of bad polling. There is no option to say I like it and I understand it. Sigh Sigh. Is the OP trying to impose an opinion on us or being impartial and not trying to sway the result?
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Now you tell me! 😀

I was definitely trying to be impartial.
 
I like sculptures often. Even when I think it is plain and or a little too churchy for me I can still appreciate the vastness of space occupied with quality craftsmanship.

Murals on the other hand are typically disgustingly stupid.

In my city local artists sometimes to get to paint junction boxes for lights and stuff at intersections. They are big, like 5ft tall x2x3. Unfortunately a lot of them are painted in this fluorescent look that is popular here with people that know nothing about art - or in my opinion have any respect for it. The idea is cool though.

The best thing we had in town and not on the University Campus was probably a mail drop box painted like R2D2 but somehow someone got it taken away.
 
Abolish the government! Let the market decide!

In the West it worked beautifully between the fall of the Roman Empire up until the first couple of monarchies started to fall. Ah, to live in unregulated, God-fearing, insular freedom, with no labor laws that stifle growth and without any silly partisanship.

And "art" was a complete "private" enterprise.

Personal responsibility! You die or get invaded or get swindled by merchants, your responsibility.
 
if the poll were still open, i'd have voted for no government funding. such funding is the work of private foundations, not congress, or a state legislature, or a municipal council. now, the PURCHASE of a work of art for a specific use, on a case-by-case basis, is a whole 'nother thang.
 
paulfish4570 said:
if the poll were still open, i'd have voted for no government funding. such funding is the work of private foundations, not congress, or a state legislature, or a municipal council. now, the PURCHASE of a work of art for a specific use, on a case-by-case basis, is a whole 'nother thang.
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Nice point... I am not interested in Government commissioned work at all. Although I have no problem with cities deciding to buy art from artists or even asking them to do something open ended.
 
Field said:
Nice point... I am not interested in Government commissioned work at all. Although I have no problem with cities deciding to buy art from artists or even asking them to do something open ended.
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Interesting question here. Should all government offices be in tin sheds and Portacabins? Or are they allowed to commission decent-looking buildings? If good architecture isn't art, what is?

Cheers,

R.
 
They should start by having postage stamps be void of art. As well as paper money. And coins. Letter stationary. Commissioned portraits. Monuments.

Let's face it, that statue of Lincoln is way too big, and I want my money back.

Also, don't get me started on Buckingham Palace. All that art in there is publicly-funded. Oh! And those BP headquarters: I want full accounting of the art they bought with tax breaks.
 
Personally, I don't believe in govt. owned artwork, with the exception of museums/ national treasures, etc.

I do think that breaks/ grants/ sponsorship should be offered by govt's to encourage art though. Just as it is in a countries best interest to ensure it maintains a healthy birth rate, thus it is equally important that a govt. presides over a country that is a good place to live in, and art is one of the key elements in any such place.

For such incentives to artists though, I believe a govt should get something in return, in the form of the art created from such funding being publicly available for periods of time. This would then ensure a constantly evolving stream of creative artistic work, which I think would be a very good thing.

In conclusion then, I guess I believe art should not be commissioned by a country, but rather supported by such instead.
 
Well, let us look of the effects of the public, populace buying art for public view from "taxes":

Example Duesseldorf and its Klee and modern art K20 Museum:
They bought originally 40+ Klees from funds of the state lottery (That use was/is stipulated in the bill establishing the lottery as part of the "common good" it can/must be used for).

The museums in Duesseldorf, the art school, "Kunsthochschule", of Beuys, Becher, Gursky, Ruff, .. thrives and has/had worldwide effects on photography.

Who wants to complain here? Lottery profits partially used for art!

What wise politicians set this one up? In Germany after WWII this was a no-brainer. In the US of today, even we, i.e., many photogs here prefer to shoot themselves in the foot repeatedly as in many of these posts, because we allow inept politicians to handle the public purse (taxes) by the way their bread is buttered and stupid political divisions, rather than by increasing the public good through government and taxes.
 
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