IN ADVANCE OF a consideration of the impact of government cuts to the arts in Britain – slicing deeper in the coming months – it is worth looking at the situation in the United States, since we last commented on it a year ago.1 As the country slowly pulls out of recession and economic crisis, art museums and similar organisations are gradually rebuilding endowments and reviving programmes that have been temporarily suspended. But this does not mean a comfortable return to business as usual. A few examples will suffice to demonstrate the range of, sometimes uncomfortable, solutions. In January this year, the Getty Research Institute stopped maintaining the International Bibliography of Art – the direct successor to the Bibliography of the History of Art – which will continue only as a subscription service, while the records of the BHA up to 2007 are now freely available on the Getty’s website. The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles faced financial ruin until the collector Eli Broad came to the rescue. It now has a new director, Jeffrey Deitch, a successful art dealer whose appointment sparked a heated debate on the relationship between commercial interests and not-for-profit institutions. Raised eyebrows also greeted an exhibition at the New Museum, New York, that drew entirely on the collection of Dakis Joannou, one of the Museum’s trustees. Anxiety is a natural response to arrangements which test what is and is not acceptable practice.

This was particularly true in the case of attempts to deaccession works for general fundraising, most visibly in connection with Brandeis University’s bid to close the Rose Art Museum. Early in 2009, Brandeis contemplated a depleted endowment and diminishing support from donors. The Rose’s outstanding collection of modern and contemporary works represents a sizeable asset – worth perhaps $300 million in a favourable market – to which the trustees of Brandeis turned. Trying to circumvent restrictions on deaccessioning, they voted to shut the Museum and sell the entire collection. Sustained opposition, and the possibility of a backlash from donors, persuaded Brandeis to reconsider. Instead of a liquidation sale, it is examining the possibility of leasing works. For the moment, the Rose remains open.

Taken together, such events suggest the continuing flux in the museum sector, only some of which is attributable to economic factors. Although many institutions have reported healthy attendance figures during the recession, two recent studies have indicated the declining participation in the arts over the long term. In 2008 the National Endowment for the Arts conducted a ‘Survey of Public Participation in the Arts’. The results are discouraging for live performance, but museums fare better. More than fifty-one million U.S. adults visited an art museum or gallery during the year ending May 2008. The average age of visitors has increased from thirty-six to forty-three since 1982, a probable consequence of an aging population in which people remain active for longer. The proportion of eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds who visit art museums is stable, a promising sign. But potentially worrying is a six per cent drop in visits to art museums by college-educated Amer­icans since the previous survey in 2002. This year, the Center for the Future of Museums published Demographic Transformation and the Future of Museums, which considered how projected shifts might lead to falling attendance. The meaning of the data is far from clear, but it would be foolish to wish away the long-term implications of demographic changes that seldom conform to bureaucratic neatness, Panglossian cheer or Malthusian gloom.

Whether the need to adapt comes from economic instability or from the inherent dynamism of American society, arts organisations do not have the option of waiting to see what happens to them. Fortunately, there is a thriving culture of advocacy, and an increasingly sophisticated understanding of how to manage crises and to garner support. The DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the Kennedy Center runs ‘Arts in Crisis’, a free service in which experienced staff advise not-for-profit arts organisations on appropriate administrative and budgetary measures in a difficult economy. The advocacy group Americans for the Arts provides information on practical techniques for responding to budget cuts with effective lobbying at all levels of government. The U.S. Conference of Mayors notes that public support for the arts realises seven dollars for each dollar in public subsidy. Support from cities and state governments is as important as support from Congress and the White House.

The main problem, however, is not who will pay the bills but who will call the tune. Reversals of fortune can induce the fear that afflicted Brandeis; can shift the balance of power among institutions, collectors and dealers; and, on occasion, can produce terminal decline. Thankfully, the arts sector in the United States has shown its mettle and few institutions have failed. But the downturn exposed a more insidious problem, one that applies on both sides of the Atlantic. The truth is that very few arts organisations are autonomous. Some parent organisations are regulated, as is the case with universities whose art galleries are accredited by the American Association of Museums (which has recently amended its criteria in the wake of the Rose cliff-hanger). Much of the time, sadly, an arts organisation is answerable to others but unable to depend on them. Private institutions that rely on endowments and donations can see the money shrink overnight. State support can decline, especially with conflicting needs during a recession. This can leave institutions strapped for cash but still confounded by imposed duties that have less to do with the arts and more to do with the political interpretations of government sponsorship.

Funding for the arts is not homogeneous, and each organ­isation requires its own balance of public and private support. Whatever the source, money prefers confidence to doubt. Conditions in the United States suggest that an arts organisation’s survival, now and in the future, will depend on its capacity thoroughly to understand its purpose; to state that purpose consistently in changing circumstances; and to excel according to terms it defines clearly, and for itself. In the coming decades, successful arts organisations are unlikely to be confused about what and who they are for.

1 See the Editorial ‘The arts under Barak Obama’ in this Magazine, 151 (2009), p.443.