Art in '08

Tyler Green is right: A primer on the Democratic candidates' dedication to funding and supporting arts would be very useful. Naturally a prospective plan for fundings arts ranks some ways below foreign policy outlook and universal health coverage as a concern in a primary campaign. Even slim, marginal differences between the candidates on these crucial issues would outweigh in my estimation very great differences between the two vis-á-vis the arts.

Priorities noted. And that said, the political situation of the arts still matters greatly and there is an opportunity for a candidate to take a leadership role in communicating to the nation and to the Congress what those issues are. So I'll agree with Green's tentative proposition: It's both worthwhile and timely for the arts community to debate and identify three federal/national policy issues that we want to see a Democratic candidate embrace. Three that come to mind would be the estate tax, public art, and local access.

The first one I'll be discussing in a piece on a new exhibition at the Phillips Collection, "Degas to Diebenkorn: The Phillips Collects". I don't want to scoop myself so some of those comments will have to wait for the time being. I've debated the value of publicly funding art at every libertarian happy hour I've ever attended, so I feel familiar with the for and against arguments on that score. Local access is a more loosey-goosey category but I think it's important to discuss art as it happens beyond the coasts—and pace the conventional wisdom it's in the flyover country where things like National Endowment of the Arts grants have their greatest impact.

More to come.