National Arts Index Reveals Lower Health and Vitality of Arts Industries in 2008

February 3rd, 2010

PND News Digest: January 22, 2010

Due to losses in charitable giving and declining attendance at larger cultural institutions, the health and vitality of the arts in the United States was lower in 2008 than it was in 2003, a new report from Americans for the Arts finds.

According to the National Arts Index (146 pages, PDF), attendance at art museums decreased by 13 percent over that period, while audiences at popular music events were down by 6 percent. At the same time, the report found that between 1998 and 2008 there was a steady increase in the number of artists and arts organizations and in arts-related employment. Indeed, while attendance at arts events is shrinking, advances in technology are changing how Americans experience the arts.

Conducted over four and a half years, the first study of the health and vitality of the arts industry in the United States looked at seventy-six indicators in nine categories to arrive at a decade-long view of trends in arts philanthropy, participation, and creativity as well as the relationship of the arts to other areas of American life, including employment and education. The measures include capacity and infrastructure, participation, contributed support, employment, nonprofit, creativity, demand for arts education, arts business, and competitiveness.

Measured against a base score of 100 (in 2003), the overall index score fell to 98.4 in 2008 and achieved its ten-year high, 105.5, in 1999. “The current economic crisis offers a unique and important opportunity to begin a national conversation about the value of the arts — to us as individuals, communities, and a nation,” said Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute and one of the project’s advisors. “We need to rethink a nonprofit arts sector that in many ways remains tethered to support models that have remained unchanged for a half century. Arts organizations need to find creative ways to engage their audiences, build on the public’s growing interest in personal creation, and stimulate audience demand.”

Although the national study was funded in part by the Rockefeller and Henry Luce foundations, the Michigan-based Kresge Foundation has awarded $1.2 million to Americans for the Arts to create a companion Local Arts Index and provide workshops and materials necessary to assist communities in the effective application of the local data. “Our work in all parts of the country suggests that the National Arts Index will have a valuable impact on local communities of every kind,” said Kresge Foundation president Rip Rapson “The Local Arts Index — the local application of this national tool — will help local leaders in one hundred communities make better-informed decisions about arts and culture investments. It will also contribute to heightened community understanding of the importance that arts and cultural activities play in a community’s economic health and social vitality.”

“First-Ever National Arts Index Measures Health and Vitality of Arts in the United States.” Americans for the Arts Press Release 1/20/10.

Trescott, Jacqueline. “The Nationals Arts Index, a New Survey by Americans for the Arts, Paints a Troubling Picture for Arts Organization.” Washington Post 1/21/10.

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