The cost of art
by Matt Worley

A few years ago an artist was commissioned to create a sculpture for the University of New Mexico. It was to depict the merging of Anglo and Hispanic cultures in the Albuquerque area. The "design" of this art was approved by the regents at UNM, and the sculpture was finished and installed on time. But there were two problems. One, the artist was not paid his entire fee up front. Two, the artist took liberties with the "design." He added a curl of barbed-wire fence (like the tops of fences at prisons) to the top of the sculpture. It has been on display at UNM for over a year. The artist has not gotten the last payment (around $35,000) for his efforts because of this addition.

UNM doesn't want to pay for it, so they put the bill on the City Of Albuquerque, claiming the payment fell under an arts allocation called 1%. The theory being that 1% of city money will go for artistic installments around the city. Last week the new mayor, Jim Baca (yeah, I voted for him), decided the city shouldn't pay for art resting on the UNM grounds. $35,000. It's less than half of what each of the top three mayoral candidates spent in the latest mayoral election. Somehow, though, neither the city or UNM has the money to pay an artist for work that has been finished and installed for over a year.

Think about it for a second. An artist is commissioned to create a piece of art. And even though the "design" was altered a bit (this was thoughtfully explained by the artist as a natural evolution of the piece--totally plausible when it comes to art), he is entitled to his money. Just because someone disagrees with the perceived message of the piece (and the only people disagreeing with the message are the people who don't want to pay the bill) doesn't mean the art is wrong.

Let me put it another way. When large companies want to build new facilities for their operations, they scout out cities and take bids on how much money the city is willing to pay the company for "enriching" the city with its presence. The companies get tax breaks, bond incentives (and low or no interest loans), extra water rights and the right to build whatever kind of stupid looking building they want. Usually the companies and city are very happy that 200 local people are getting new jobs. Of course the new jobs are always of the under $10 an hour variety, while the bigger salaries go to existing company employees who are relocated to the shiny new building.

I'm gonna do a little math. $10 an hour, 40 hours a week, 12 months a year. $19,200 before taxes. Let's say the company gets incentives of around $20 million for the new installment in the new city. 200 people from the city get these piddly wages. And if the shiny new building doesn't end up working out for the company, it's no big deal. The operation is written off as a loss (meaning the entire $20 million investment and any profits that might have come from the failed operation is never taxed--screwing the local economy who paid for the installation with earlier tax dollars), the 200 people lose their jobs and some poor real estate company spends a decade trying to sell a piece of property no one in their right mind would want to buy.

One more small example. The U.S. will spend around 265 billion dollars on defense this year. While much of it is used to pay and run the armed services, a great deal of this money is used to pay for continued building of obsolete aircraft and unneeded bombs. Why? Because there is a contract and the U.S. government pays these contracts year in and year out, regardless of whether they are getting what they wanted in the first place. The defense contractors keep putting together planes and bombs because they've already gotten the money. And when the U.S. says they don't need anymore planes or bombs of a certain type, the defense contractors, who developed this technology with U.S. tax dollars, sell their wares around the world.

But art isn't that important. It's okay to screw an artist (especially if the art is somehow offensive to a couple of people) because artists aren't doing anything useful. It's not like spending this $35,000 on one guy is going to help the local economy. Yeah, right.

So here's my proposition: Give that $20 million to 200 artists of various disciplines. They have three years to enrich the locals with their ideas of expression. It works out to around $36,665 a year before taxes. Maybe there won't be a shiny new building sitting on an eternally green hill (in the middle of a desert), but there might be a little more cheerfulness and enlightenment spread to the locals.

It's gotta work out better than paying 200 people to sit in a glorified warehouse bugging the hell out of the rest of us with their telemarketing ways.

Matt Worley has been both a telemarketer and an artist.

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