As a matter of principle, one would expect that the people should be
able to decide how public money is spent. Traditionally, "the people"
rarely get in a big room together and hash out the local budget
(although budgets are approved at town meetings in some localities in
America). Absent this unusual process, the people's will is enacted
by elected representatives, such as legislators and mayors.
Thus the mayor will have some role in the spending of public money in
nearly any city.
That said, one usually doesn't want the mayor inserting his particular
artistic preferences for those of the city as a whole. Many large
cities have city-funded museums, and some cities have special boards
in charge of spending money to promote local art (or to buy art for
public spaces). In the event that the people in charge of these
programs (e.g., museum curators, town art purchasing committees, etc.)
are doing their job properly, the mayor should probably leave them
alone. Then again, the mayor has a responsibility to see that city
money is not wasted, and he should probably step in when outrageous
decisions come too often.
For a famous example of a mayor who decided to intervene in the
decisions of a city-funded museum, read about New York Mayor Rudy
Giuliani's fight with the Brooklyn Museum of Art's "Sensation" exhibit
(search in google for [brooklyn museum sensation]). Many of the
articles that come up will have some philosophical discussions on the
question of city officials' control of public money directed toward
the arts.
You might check out this page from PBS' NewsHour:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec99/art_10-8.html |
