Macomb Rejects DIA Support

Macomb County Commissioners have effectively voted against a proposal which would have county residents vote on a tax to help fund the Detroit Institute of Arts. The vote was a tie, but ties don't get things done. It is seen as a blow to the DIA, which wanted to create an endowment payed for by voters of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb Counties. Wayne County has approved an 'arts authority' to manage a millage question to be put before her voters. Oakland County has yet to act.

We have nothing against the Detroit Institute of Arts, nor against art in general. But it strikes us that any overt government support of the arts, whatever they may be, is, at the least, a tricky issue. This next question is going to rankle the supporters of the arts, again, whatever they may be, but it is fair to ask why taxpayers ought to support whatever the patrons of the arts call art. Especially when you consider the amount of taxpayer cash given out over the years for 'art' of dubious value, it doesn't seem right to ask for support for the 'arts' without asking what art is.

It also calls to mind the age old problem inherent in taxes: all that it takes for me to force you to fund my pet project is to have fifty percent plus one of the voters (or, more rightly, fifty percent plus one of those who bother to vote) decide to make you help me pay for it. Not that such is always wrong: some things need to be paid for out of the public coffers no matter what any given individual may think, and many necessary things would not get done without the democratic process to some degree making citizens ante up no matter what.

Yet it strikes us that there is a significant difference between, say, asking others to pay taxes for police and fire protection and asking them to pay for an art museum. Think what you will, it is better to have cops on the street than paintings on the the wall, even very good and exceptional paintings. Beyond that, consider what a given individual might think of as art compared to what an 'arts authority' may think art. That 'authority' may believe art what is in fact tripe. We've all seen things called art which we know are not: avant garde paintings and sculptures and displays which are little more than pretentious, or worse.

Further, we don't even see where it is wise of the arts community to want government of any kind at any level determining what art is or can be. A simple look at what government has determined about other things demonstrates readily what it might do to art. The City of Detroit cannot run its basic services; can it really defend or define good art?

This is not to say that we are against art, though we will be charged with that. But it is to say that some things should be left to the private sector, to the market and the forces which drive it. Art is one of them.

We cannot imagine any serious, rational person who does not appreciate Michaelangelo or Renoir. We do not see many serious, rational people in government or on arts authorities.