I could go on several crazy rants right about now:
- Government needs to shrink in general.
- Government picking winners and losers needing to happening.
- Nobody get me started on how much it no doubt hurts the bottom line
of every artist and indeed every person in any industry who didn't get
picked by the government as a winner when their potential customers have
to work harder and take home less because their tax dollars are going to pay
for public art projects that they in many cases don't even like.
Here's a crazy alternative. Use the city streets the same way someone
might use an art gallery. Every place
that anyone is thinking �lets put a nice piece of art there� instead of
buying art, ask any artists who are willing
and intrested in doing so donate or loan a piece of
art on either a short or long term basis
but if an artist donates or loans a piece of their
art for display then the information
for people to contact them to buy some of their artwork
(maybe even including that piece) have to be clearly and visibly displayed both around
the piece and online.
The idea is that rather than paying for gallery space or as much gallery
space to advertise an artist then has the option to place their
art out in public view at no cost to them.
For anyone who thinks this sounds crazy I know an artist who did a
picture of an animal and loaned
it to a local cat shelter with the understanding that they would clearly
display for and offer her business card to people on the off chance someone
wanted to have a picture of their pet
painted. Eventually she did take her picture
out of there, but there was no reason she or other artists who do a type
of art more similar to what she was
doing couldn't do something similar to that type of thing again.
In all honesty if it's going to cost extra for the tax payer to have those set
aside spaces for the art that might get
donated or loaned compared to having no art
there then no probably that shouldn't even be done and the space should be left
empty. So I don't know how those costs should get addressed, but hey if there
are privately funded and owned entities that want to take on those costs then
I will consider the issue addressed. Ideally the government needs to get it's
hands, dollars, and whatever else it shouldn't have in their out of the arts.
But there are good alternatives to spending tax money on
art that don't have to leave any less
art out there. Who know there might
even be better art on display this way.
Sorry every person who doesn't like the idea of Government having to get very
minimalist and utilitarian in design on how many things, but actually there's
something I would consider appropriate about that. Of course I am in favor of
setting the temperatures in every capital building to range between 55 and 80
degrees Fahrenheit so while people won't die from extreme temperatures they
won't be so comfortable that they are feeling like taking so much time writing
whatever the latest bill is that we all know needed to be a lot shorter and
have less dollars getting spent and fewer new rules that make everyone's
lives harder in the first place, and the tax payer isn't paying anywhere
near as much to heat those buildings.
After all if I wanted to start in on conspiracy theories I would probably be
accusing whoever it is that wants people to reduce their standards of living in
a way that ends with people being kept more easily under government control of
being something to do with �minimalism� being a style or life style choice
that some how is even a thing when ironically we all know they probably aren't
living that way.
By the way for anyone thinking there are any sour grapes I am going to take this chance
to point out I do a completely different and unrelated type of art, and the
types of artist who's work will usually end up in public displays like are
doing something else completely. My issue is the spending of tax payer dollars.
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