Some time back I posted a blog that was highly critical of the then Morrison Government’s decision to roll the Department of Communications and the Arts into a new super Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications. It was a move that drew widespread condemnation from the arts community at the time. There was no reference to the new department’s arts responsibilities at all.

Fast forward to the recent federal budget and it appears little has changed. With the current cost of living crisis, it’s little wonder that no new support was announced for the visual arts sector, which is facing challenges of its own. That’s according to a recent newsletter from the National Association of the Visual Arts (NAVA). The only new arts funding announcement made was a $8.6 million extension of the Revive Live program, aimed at supporting Australia’s live music venues and festivals. NAVA argues that artists remain among the most precariously employed workers in the country.

As I mentioned in the earlier blog, there was a time when the arts weren’t treated with such callous disregard during tough economic times. We only have to look back to what was happening during the great depression in the United States to find a more enlightened attitude. The Works Progress Administration was established by Franklin D Roosevelt shortly after he was elected US President in 1932. It was part of his New Deal which involved massive programs to provide employment for the millions who were out of work. The WPA provided programs to struggling writers and artists.

“The Corn Parade” by Orr C Fisher (livingnewdeal)

Artists were commissioned to paint murals in post offices, town halls and railroad stations across the country. And whilst this may have produced a lot of idealized kitsch, it did keep a lot of artists alive. Around 1400 murals were painted in post offices alone and artists such as Jack Levine believe that the New Deal threw them a life line. “I didn’t have a dime”, he once said. Another WPA artist was Vincent Campanella “artists were able to see themselves as part of the working class and they saw themselves as free to be what they wanted to be under the WPA, painters who were free to paint the common life.”

When governments disregard the arts, they don’t just make life difficult for artists and writers, there are also galleries, publishers, theatres, manufacturers of artists materials and their retailers. It’s the future of an entire arts industry that gets called into question.

Where Are The Arts?