Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights [Hardcover]

Bill Ivey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 2008

In this impassioned and persuasive book, Bill Ivey, the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, assesses the current state of the arts in America and finds cause for alarm. Even as he celebrates our ever-emerging culture and the way it enriches our lives here at home while spreading the dream of democracy around the world, he points to a looming crisis. The expanding footprint of copyright, an unconstrained arts industry marketplace, and a government unwilling to engage culture as a serious arena for public policy have come together to undermine art, artistry, and cultural heritage--the expressive life of America. In eight succinct chapters, Ivey blends personal and professional memoir, policy analysis, and deeply held convictions to explore and define a coordinated vision for art, culture, and expression in American life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Chairman of the National Endowment of Arts from 1998 to 2001, Ivey brings an informed perspective to a growing chorus of alarm over "big media, abetted by government, running roughshod over public interest." An enthusiast for mainstream American culture and the vernacular performing arts (he directed the Country Music Foundation from 1971 to 1998), Ivey demonstrates how the promise of early 20th century mass media-when film, radio and TV produced an unprecedented mass audience and "enabled America to discover its cultural mainstream"-is being stifled in the era of digital technology. A major mechanism for this is copyright law, which has become less a tool to protect creative enterprise than "to protect certain industries against competition"; as corporations snap up the rights to works of art, ordinary citizens are losing easy access to their national heritage. Ivey's answer is an official U.S. Department of Cultural Affairs (as well as a "Cultural Bill of Rights") committed to the idea that the arts are "key to a high quality of life for all Americans." With cogent consideration of the stakes for all involved, and some interesting glimpses behind the scenes at the NEA, Ivey has produced a comprehensive treatment of an important subject.
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Review

"Cogent consideration of the stakes for all involved. . . Interesting glimpses behind the scenes at the NEA. . . A comprehensive treatment."--Pw: Nonfiction (2)

"Provocative."--Usa Today

"Ivey is well equipped to lead a fresh discussion about the role of creativity in a healthy democracy."--Utne

"Explore(s) and define(s) a co-ordinated vision for art, culture and expression in American life.--Times Higher Ed Sup (Thes)

"Reads like a manifest on cultural happiness and quality of life through access to the arts. . . . Recommended."--Choice

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (May 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520241126
• ISBN-13: 978-0520241121
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #743,417 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A whole new arena of public policy, defined, April 17, 2008

By 

C. Hudson (Massachusetts, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights (Hardcover)

It's amazing that we've made it all the way into the 21st century without anyone attempting to write about the condition of the entire U.S. arts system and how it connects - or doesn't connect - with the public interest. But Bill Ivey has done it in Arts, Inc., a comprehensive and very readable look at how market forces and an inattentive government have allowed our culture to drift away from public purposes. Ivey is convinced that we can enhance quality of life for all Americans if we assert his six "cultural rights," and I tend to agree. Although I wish the author had spent more time on specific art forms like theater and the art gallery scene, Arts, Inc. includes plenty of eye-popping examples of how we've got things wrong. The book defines a whole new arena for public policy and goes beyond complaining about what we haven't done with art and art making to paint a picture of how a vibrant cultural life can give the U.S. a high quality of life in the coming post-consumerist age.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Arts in America, July 13, 2008

By 

G303.16.14.4 (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights (Hardcover)

Arts, Inc. is a very good book and probably the only one out there that explores the position of the arts--fine, popular, folk, commercial, and non-profit--in the United States. Whether one agrees with Bill Ivey's framing of the American arts scene in terms of "rights" or not, the book raises a set of issues that need to be discussed by citizens as well as members of government (who never seem to engage the arts seriously except when it comes to playing football with the NEA). Each right really focuses on a separate issue, and while there is inevitably some overlap between them, the book is not one idea endlessly repeated. The book reads extremely well and is filled with a good number of compelling examples of why the arts are in peril in the United States today. What is perhaps fundamental in Ivey's take on the arts is that they have a great potential to enhance the quality of life of ordinary Americans--both as art producers and consumers--and this potential is squandered because the arts have been totally left to market forces without any consideration of their relevance to the well being of the nation and its citizenry.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You should probably read 'Arts, Inc.', February 27, 2011

By 

A. Henkel - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights (Paperback)

Bill Ivey is an important voice in the national conversation on arts policy. In 'Arts, Inc.' and in his leadership in general, Ivey pursues tough questions that others are trying to ignore, or that powerful lobbyists have been able to silence. His rhetoric is a bit extreme for me, but the issues he discusses and his illustration of the facts far outweigh that in this book. Anyone interested in cultural policy, including those whose lives are affected by it (i.e. everyone) should read this book. It can serve as an introduction into the problems the next generation of Americans will have to face as we determine the course we want our cultural rights to take, but it is also useful for those who already have a firm grounding in issues of arts policy and want a thoughtful look at the current state of affairs.

I gave it 4 instead of 5 stars only because at times, I thought his tone was too passionate and polarizing, at least more than something I would write. But honestly, he's probably got the tone we need to take if we actually want to mobilize people to care about these issues and understand why they affect everyone.