Lambert Zuidervaart is a philosopher as well as a former president of the Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts. His previous publications have taken up Theodore W. Adorno's aesthetic theory and the conceptualization of artistic truth. In this latest book, Zuidervaart offers a highly philosophical and theoretical justification for government support for the arts. He proposes that the arts foster critical and creative communication that is essential to a properly functioning democratic culture and social economy. Zuidervaart concludes, “Direct state subsidies for the arts are warranted on the basis of both public justice and societal need” (p. 310).
The text begins in a familiar time and place by addressing the culture wars of the 1990s. Zuidervaart states that debates about government funding for the arts have been mired in “three conceptual polarities” (p. 5). The first is the conflict between advocating government support for the arts and relying on a free market system. The second is that between free expression and traditional values. The third is the tension between a view of the arts as questioning the status quo and one that sees the arts as ushering in a breakdown of societal norms. The author claims that such arguments bypass important philosophical issues and contribute to a deficit in culture and democracy (p. 17).
Zuidervaart then proceeds to examine the existing philosophical and theoretical frameworks of these debates. It is beyond the scope of this review to detail his intricate analysis of the literature regarding the arts in economic, political, and modernist theory. To provide a brief overview: The author examines the economic theories of Ruth Towse, John O'Hagen, Russell Keat, and David Throsby. Zuidervaart proposes moving the economic discussion beyond their focus on benefits and merits of the arts and beyond the tendency to pit state subsidies for the arts against free market forces. He calls for recognition of a “three-sector economy” that includes a civic sector (p. 47). He analyzes political theorists Joel Feinberg, John Rawls, and Ronald Dworkin, who he believes ignore the sociocultural character of art and make art dependent upon only economic and political considerations. He also points to David Schwartz as one theorist who provides a better analogy between enhancing the arts and democratic education. Still, Zuidervaart argues instead for a concept of the arts as essential to public justice and for the relational autonomy of the arts (p. 69). Zuidervaart's assessments are impressive. He clearly dissects a wide range of texts and proposes his own theoretical frameworks, which he acknowledges are most indebted to the ideas of Adorno and Jürgen Habermas.
Discussions of economic, political, and aesthetic theories remain highly abstract throughout this book. Aside from a brief mention of the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts and its artists' and administrators' collaborations with the public and local government in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the section where Zuidervaart examines a stronger connection between theory and any practical application of these ideas is in his discussion of feminist theory and new genre public art. He considers Nancy Fraser, Seyla Benhabib, and Suzanne Lacy, and notes the element of engagement in their work. New genre public art aims at social intervention, and its artists question “modernist notions of authenticity in favor of a new emphasis on social responsibility” (p. 251).
The main concepts Zuidervaart advances are those of a civic sector, relational autonomy of the arts, authenticity, and social responsibility—the realization of which will advance a truly democratic culture and society. He defines civic sector as “an economic zone of nonprofit mutual benefit, and non-governmental organizations” (p. 132). He argues that theories of nonprofits as a result of “government failure and contract failure” “assume the factual and normative primacy of the proprietary market. To my mind this is a fatal flaw” (p. 142). Rather, “solidarity … [is] the primary societal principle governing civil society and the public sphere” (p. 147) and the civic sector must include this social economic basis. Government should support arts in public because they constitute a sociocultural good: Artists often challenge money and power and strengthen the fabric of civil society; thus, they need support to keep them independent of the economic system as well as the administrative state. Zuidervaart asserts that the place for the arts lies in the civic sector. However, his concept of relational autonomy proposes an interface between art in civil society and the economic and political systems (rather than arts maintaining individual or art-internal autonomy). Authenticity is the expectation that artists create original works, yet social responsibility demands more—that artists should be not only trustworthy in their task but also responsive to society, for they are members of a larger community (p. 303).
Ultimately, Zuidervaart believes government must support the arts to achieve not merely a formally political democratic state, but a “democratic society” in which, “resources everyone needs in order to flourish … do not continually flow into the private coffers of the most wealthy and powerful … a society where the norms of participation, recognition, and freedom prevail in the institutions and organizations … [where] people would enjoy justice, resourcefulness, and solidarity across the entire range of their social lives” (pp. 315–16). This is a very tall order, indeed, and one not likely attainable in the present. The goal is so lofty, it distracts from acceptance of his arguments. I hoped for more concrete examples of how his theories might play out. However, Zuidervaart insists such a “fully democratic society” is worthy of our imagination. It is hard to take issue with that vision. While Zuidervaart's work remains essentially theoretical, it is a substantial scholarly monograph advancing the philosophy of art in public.
