Brazil's Cultural Citizenship

I am fortunate enough to live in a city with two free art museums, Baltimore Museum of Art and The Walters Art Museum, not to mention the fact that in under an hour I can be on the sprawling Smithsonian Campus with several lifetimes-worth of free museum-visiting options, so it's easy to forget that there are places in the country where this kind of culture is a commodity, afforded by an elite few.

A recent trip to the depressed midwestern heart of the U. S. took me to the Art Institute of Chicago, which cost me $40 (one adult @$23 & one student @$17) + parking in downtown Chicago. Even Chicago residents pay $20 a visit ($14 for students).

Admission Information for Art Institute Webpage

While forking over the fee for an afternoon of the arts, I couldn't help but wonder how many Chicagoans are deterred by those high admission costs. (Yes, children under 14 are free, and the museum is free to everyone Thursdays from 5-8pm--if you get there earlier enough to be at the head of the line, you may even get to spend more than an hour looking at art!) Who are we keeping out of our museums? What do those exclusions say about what the museum experience means in 21st-century USA?

Here are a few more general admission fees (in descending order of price) from some of the country's top art museums:

Boston Museum of Fine Arts: $25

The Met: $25

NYC MOMA: $25

Philadelphia Museum of Art: $20

High Museum of Art, Atlanta: $19.50

The Frick: $18

Guggenheim: $18

San Francisco MOMA: $18

The Whitney: $18

Seattle Art Museum: $17

Milwaukee Art Museum: $15

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: $13

The Phillips Collection: $12

Detroit Institute of Art: $8; (free for residents of surrounding counties)

The Cleveland Museum of Art: FREE!

With two notable exceptions, the double digit prices for art museum admission underscore the museum visit's prestige as a luxury activity, a sort of experiential cultural capital to enhance the status of an already select crowd.

Brazil's government is working to create a decidedly different cultural landscape for its citizens. Amidst an economic crisis, the country recently decided to issue a vale-cultura, a monthly "cultural stipend," to workers making up to five times the minimum wage (approximately 12 million Brazilians). Employers will pay 90% of the 50 reais (approximately US $25) with workers opting to pay the additional 10%. Cultural stipends will be issued on debit cards that workers can use to go to the theatre, the movies, museums; buy CDs or consume other cultural products. The initiative is expected to go into effect this year.

While this initiative promises to increase Brazil's cultural consumption by 7.2 billion reais a year (approximately US $3.6 billion), this move also speaks to how Brazil views the relationship between citizenship and culture. The initiative's stated goals have a decidedly educational aim, "Primeiro, fortalecer o mercado consumidor de bens e serviços criativos e, segundo, contribuir para a formação de cidadãos apreciadores e consumidores de cultura." (First to strengthen the consumer market of creative goods and services, and second, to contribute to the education of citizens who value and consume culture.)

States can promote a number of different types of consumerism, but Brazil's vale-cultura democratizes citizens' access to cultural knowledge while supporting a fiscal sector that provides meaningful and enriching ways to experience citizenship. Having a vale-cultura means that the museum visit is no longer a cultural luxury; it is a worker's decision and right. (The São Paolo Museum of Art costs R$15, which would leave workers 35 reais for the rest of the month's cultural activities.)

Brazilian artist, Paulo Nazareth, currently on display in Sao Paolo

The vale-cultura--understood as part of the legacy of former President Lula's social welfare program, bolsa família--seems to suggest that the Brazilian government sees culture as more than recreation; it is a sort of sustenance, as essential as nourishment, shelter, and medical care. In the words of Brazil's Minister of Culture, Marta Suplicy, "A gente não quer só comida....Cultura é o alimento da alma." (People want more than just food...Culture is the bread of the soul.")