With a world in crisis and an art market spinning out of control, ace art-world consultants Chen & Lampert deliver a quiz full of hard choices for Art in America readers from far and wide.
They say that culture should be free for all, yet we’ve long been relying on our government to foot the bill in the form of grants and pork barrel spending. From the WPA to the NEA, America has underwritten the top tier of high culture for decades on end. The current president and his party have been slashing budgets and taking the reins at leading institutions like the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, and the Kennedy Center. You are a concerned taxpayer who wants to know that your money is being well spent. Take this quiz to find out if you should send a donation to PBS or hate mail to NPR.
1. Which of the following has contributed the least to civilization?
a) Museum of Ice Cream
b) Museum of Sex
c) The New Museum
2. When people say, “The arts will survive on their own,” they really mean:
a) Only rich artists can afford this profession
b) Starving artists make better art
c) Martial arts
3. If the arts were fully defunded, what would museums become thereafter?
a) ICE training centers
b) Erewhons
c) Sotheby’s at the Breuer
4.What problem would disappear overnight if we cut arts funding?
a) Afterparties
b) Art herpes
c) Jerry Saltz
5. Who benefits most from defunding the arts?
a) Taxpayers who will save $0.73 annually
b) Debauched philanthropists who derive erotic pleasure from writing checks
c) Philistines
6.If artists want money so badly, why don’t they just:
a) Do crime
b) Do paintings
c) Do OnlyFans
7. What replaces publicly funded art programs?
a) Individual arts patronage
b) Community-funded needle exchanges
c) Professional wrestling
8. If the arts disappear, children will still learn creativity from:
a) Cannabis store bud-tenders
b) AI
c) Satan
9. Who should decide which art deserves funding?
a) RFK Jr.
b) Donald Trump Jr.
c) Dinosaur Jr.
10. Defunding the arts would finally allow society to focus on:
a) STEM
b) Marxism
c) THAT THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SOCIETY
SCORES
10–16: You are either a barbarian or a quarter-zip–wearing tech bro who only believes in the “art of the deal.” The only culture you are willing to overpay for is shrink-wrapped sneakers.
17–23: You believe civilization needs only the Mona Lisa and Banksy. Everything else is a distraction from the real work of colonizing Mars, building sentient robot dogs with machine guns, and playing polyamorous pickleball.
24–30: Art must be defended at all costs as a human passion project, from the cave paintings at Lascaux to the graffiti in an Exxon station bathroom. You’ll give your last dollar to keep the museum lights on so that poets can read to an audience of four people from their iPhones.
