A Snap Shot of Public Participation in Visual Arts

December 20th, 2009

On Thursday, December 10, 2009, The National Endowment for the Arts released the 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, which is a periodic survey that tracks adults’ reported levels of arts engagement. On December 10, 2009, the Arts Endowment hosted a three-hour roundtable discussion about the the 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts. Representatives of national arts service organizations, state and regional arts organizations and NEA’s discipline directors joined Arts Endowment Senior Deputy Chairman Joan Shigekawa in this discussion of the Survey. You can view and listen to the discussion here.

The survey’s

“core questions” ask large, nationally representative samples of the U.S. adult population about its attendance at seven types of performing arts event: jazz; classical music; opera; musicals; non-musical plays; ballet; dance “other” than ballet; and Latin, Spanish, or salsa music, a new category in 2008. American are also asked about their reading of literature and their visits to art museums or galleries, art and craft fairs, outdoor performing festivals, and parks and historic sites. Additional questions seek to know whether adults create or perform art of their own, whether they take arts classes or lessons, and whether they do a wide range of other leisure activities not necessarily involving the arts.”

Owning Art

Below are some interesting highlights of the survey results regarding owning any original pieces of art, such as paintings, drawings, sculpture, prints, or lithographs (Pg. 49 of the report).

-In 2008, 20 percent of adults (46 million Americans) reported owning original art.

-Of the 20 percent of adults who said that they owned original art in 2008, about one-third had purchased or otherwise acquired original art during the past 12 months.

-About one-third of respondents in households with income of $75,000 or more per year owned original art (10 percent had purchased art in the past 12 months).

-Owning original art is also highly correlated with years of formal education.

-People ages 45 to 64 are more likely to own original art than people of other age groups.

-People ages 25 to 34 were among the most likely to report purchasing art in the past year, but among all age groups, they formed the second-lowest percentage of owners of original art.

Art Museums and Galleries

The report also provided some interesting stats on adult attendance to art museums and galleries, especially in demographics.

-In 2008, 51 million people visited an art museum or gallery at least once.

-About 55 percent of people who went to art museums or art galleries in 2008 were women.

-Approximately 54 precent of 2008 art museum-going adults had a college or graduate degree. Adults with a high school education or less represented 18 percent of art museum visitors.

-About 26 percent of non-Hispanic whites, 15 percent of Hispanics, 12 percent of African Americans, and 23 percent of adults in other racial/ethnic categories (largely Asian American and Native Americans) visited an art museum or gallery in 2008.

-More than half (52 percent) of U.S. adults with a graduate-level degree visited an art museum or art gallery in 2008. That is, more people in this demographic group visited an art museum or gallery in 2008 than did not, a trend that is unique among benchmark arts activities.

-About one-quarter of adults ages 18 to 64 visited an art museum or gallery in 2008. The attendance rate drops sharply for adult older than 75 years.

-Residents of the Pacific region (West Coast) were among the most likely to go to art museums or galleries in 2008.

-Crossover of art museum attendance and attendance at other art activities were notably high. At least 50 percent of attenders at jazz, classical music, Latin music, opera, ballet, other dance, craft fairs, performing arts festivals, and historic sites also visited an art museum in 2008.

-Approximately 69 percent of adults who purchased original art within the last year also visited an art museum or gallery in 2008.

Interested in the survey results for other areas of the arts and how they compare with the last survey (completed in 2002)? Check out the report here.

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