Solving the Proper Problem

It's a question I hear often . . .

"How do you convince people that the arts has value?"

Here's the answer.

You don't.

People are either going to believe that, or they aren't. 

Besides, I'm sure if I asked 100 people if they felt like the arts held some sort of intrinsic value, at least 80 would say yes.

The public doesn't have an "arts value" problem.

They may have an "art choice" problem, i.e. the inability to choose from multiple arts options.

Or they may have an "arts relevance" problem, i.e. difficulty believing that a particular piece of art is relevant to modern life.

Or they may just have a good ol' fashioned "time problem", i.e. they just don't think spending an evening with the arts is worth their time.

The good news is that with some creativity and will all those problems have solutions. 

Comments

[Jonathan Clausen]

I agree with all of your points. I also subscribe to the "shotgun" theory of arts participation as well: That, independent of the size of the market up to a certain threshold, an increase in art offerings also increases the size of audiences.

The higher number of offerings, the higher the likelyhood that an individual offering will resonate with an audience - thus generating buzz and, in economic terms, increasing the total utility of the entire artistic medium within the entire community.

In addition, great art, in (healthy) competition with other art, increases the expectation for both the audience and artists themselves and improves overall quality for the market.