Dear reader,
Remember the post Are You Entertained? In it I tried to explain why I feel and believe that today we are not relating to the arts as we should. A few days ago I read an article in the New York Times online about a survey in arts attendance done by the National Endowment for the Arts. In this article, the survey shows that overall attendance of art exhibitions or live performances has dropped from 2008 to 2012, yet because of advancement in technology, many people engage with arts in different forms than before. New categories were included as well: “Hoping to capture the widest possible range of arts activity, researchers asked respondents about their reading, Internet use and participation in pottery classes, among other things. Danced at a wedding? Crocheted a sweater for your niece? Posted a photograph on Facebook? Then you participated in “art making” or “art sharing,” according to the survey.” The author quotes representatives of the Endowment of the Arts who are quick to point out that the numbers do not necessarily mean people engage less with the arts and the performing arts, but just in different ways than before. (Patricia Cohen, “A New Survey Finds a Drop in Arts Attendance”, NY Times, Sept 26, 2013). That I do agree with.
But here is my observation – in the newsletter from the NY Times that I get daily, where I found this article, the arts section comes as very last from all national categories. Even sports are before it. After it are the regional news. Of all the general national topics – arts is last. If art was present from the very beginning of humans (see Beginnings), and if according to very recent studies, it might have appeared in form of religious worship before agriculture – i.e. before business (see What is Religion?), why does it end up at the bottom of the list today? This is what I see as the signs of incorrect engagement with the arts in our culture today. And I am not saying we need to engage more, or instead of other things; I just think that we need to change the manner of engagement with the arts.
Art and the Invisible 
Hello, Vessie,
This is such an important and complex question. Thank you for asking it.
First, we have the democratization of the arts in the modern world –everyone can make/create art today. It is not exclusively preserved or consumed by the elites.
Most people (excluding the poorest ones) can go to a concert or a museum. In the not-so-distant past, only the elite had an access to and could appreciate art. You needed special education in order to interpret art. Today, everyone (or almost everyone) can.
Perhaps, the democratization of the arts has also trivialized it and lessened its value. People can listen to a classical piece at home on their computers, so why bother to go to a concert? We have access to music everywhere and all the time.
Traditionally, politics, economics, and wars were always considered the “hard” and “important” subjects and the arts (and education) were delegated to the last pages of newspapers. You can just look at what we spend money on the most as a society to determine where our values stand. Certainly, the arts are not in the top 10 with perhaps the exception of the entertainment industry.
Also, we have to define which arts we are talking about – visual, performance, film, architecture…
Each one of these has a different place and role in society. For example, the largest buildings within a society tell us about its values.
For example, in the Middle Ages, religion was one of the most important elements, and we know that because the tallest and most expensive buildings were the cathedrals. Today, the largest / tallest buildings are banks and stadium, which means that we, collectively, value money and sports the most.
Hi, Dessie! Thank you for the wonderful and informative response. About the democratization of the arts – I think this is a good thing, personally, but I do think that it has caused changes in the use and the creating of the arts that not all might necessarily be positive. And even though different arts don’t have exactly the same role in society, I do think there are similar broad tendencies (I guess I would call them) in approaching and initiating any artistic activity. At least I’m hoping to discover such in the personal and collective use of arts and be able to use that at a starting point – tendencies that would tell me how art is supposed to function and how we have deviated from it. I still have a lot of reading and thinking to do 🙂
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