Art and the Twenty-First Century Gift: Corporate Philanthropy and Government Funding in the Cultural Sector

Abstract

Marcel Mauss's work on the archaic gift contributes to understandings of corporate and government support of arts organisations, or 'institutional funding'. His approach allows us to see institutional funding as a gift that is embedded in a system of exchange wherein gifts come with a variety of obligations, and self-interest and disinterestedness are inseparable.The institutional gift operates through money and contracts; nevertheless, it entails obligations to give, to receive and to reciprocate. This system of obligations has been joined, in the contemporary institutional gift, by another obligation: the obligation to ask.Institutional funding of the arts has acquired additional twenty-first century elements. The article elaborates these, using the UK as an example. It also argues that the ambivalence felt by some members of the arts world about institutional funding stems, in large part, from the obligations inherent in the gift. The recent imposition of the neo-liberal model into the arts is an intrinsic part of the exchange between institutional funders and arts organisations. Given that Mauss's work is strongly anti-liberal and anti-utilitarian, it is ironic that his ideas should prove so useful for understanding a form of twenty-first century gift in which neo-liberalism plays such a crucial role.2

London and the English desert – the geography of cultural capital in the UK

“…One effect of the protection of London by the UK government is that the capital has become the favoured location of the world's super-rich, and that affects art funding (Alexander, 2014). Of the richest 1000 people living in the UK in 2014, almost half lived in London.…”

Unequal entanglements: how arts practitioners reflect on the impact of intensifying economic inequality

“…Pushing institutions towards audience-generating "big hitters", this would bear particularly constraining effects for critical representational politics and for sustainable diversity, equality and inclusion work. Consequently, arts practitioners are forced to navigate the ethical challenges of the "gift" of arts funding (Alexander, 2014) and gallery support, while also having to negotiate between the conflicting values of neoliberal entrepreneurialism on one hand and the arts' public role on the other. Austerity was also reported to have eroded the artistic ecosystem more broadly, deepening the classed, gendered and raced inequalities that already manifest in practices of arts consumption, education and production.…”

The Façade, the Face, and the Sympathies: Opening the Black Box of Symbolic Capital as a Source of Philanthropic Attractiveness

“…One field in which organizations are particularly dependent upon corporate support is cultural production (Froelich 1999). Corporate support for the cultural sector has long existed in various countries (Googins and Rochlin 2000), but this trend has only grown stronger with the overall disengagement of the state (Alexander 2014). In the nonprofit sector of arts and culture, 44% of revenues come from philanthropic donations and 12% from government.…”