The Recession and US Museums

In the painful process of the prioritisation of public expenditure, the prospect of political underwriting—that is, a sense of obligation to sustain cultural institutions by civic leadership—is greatly diminished both by the realities of public expenditure constraint and by the growing sentiment of politicians that the art world, at least at its current scale of activity, is simply not central to a civic agenda congested with crises in health, housing, employment, education and the environment.