Art has the power to transform lives, rejuvenate communities, and make the world a better place, says the UK Government. And then, while artists are busy trying to secure publicly funded grants (issued via the government) that will help save the children and everyone else, the state is busy cutting funds to areas like public housing, education, and healthcare.
This, according to the latest arts report to come out of UK think tank Policy Exchange, is the scenario that’s currently being played out across Britain.
Munira Mirza, arts commentator and the report’s editor, says the government has in effect used the arts as a smokescreen to alleviate pressure on the government to deal with ‘real issues.’ The 129 page document features essays by prominent critics such as Josie Appleton, James Heartfield, Sara Selwood, and Mirza herself with titles such as The social impacts of the arts – myth or reality?, Who owns public art? and The arts as painkiller.
It’s a good read but the arguments presented in this report are unlikely to cause any bureaucrats, either at the Arts Council or in local government, to shake with fear.
In his essay James Heartfield claims, ‘Local authorities have … turned to cultural regeneration as a phoney substitute for real economic revival … Instead of renewing infrastructure, every municipal government has prettified cities with flowers, festivals, paintings and sculptures.’ To what extent Heartfield can be certain local authorities have chosen one – public funding of public art – over the other – renewing infrastructure – is unclear. But anyone who has visited the northern UK cities of Liverpool, Manchester or Newcastle in recent years will have noticed that cultural regeneration in those places has led to an increase in private investment that is now spearheading development. One would imagine that the community, artists and business sector have all benefited as a result.
In the USA the idea that cultural regeneration can lead to the rejuvenation of the commercial and trade sectors is well supported. Just ask the Atlanta committee set up to raise public funds to help realise a new performing arts centre for Prince William County, or those trying to win back arts funding in Kansas on the basis that it’s good for the economy.
But politics aside, the most important area under discussion in the ‘Culture Vultures’ report is that public funding is resulting in poorer quality works of art.
It says this is partly due to kinds of artwork commissioned with public funds. Josie Appleton, author of Museums for People, points out that ‘today, we are building six times as many sculptures than during the highest point of “statue-mania” between 1900-1909.’
And partly it’s a reflection of the kinds of ‘artists’ who would prefer to write out the requisite and exhaustive grant applications and tow whatever sanctimonious line needs towing in order to keep their government paymasters happy.
Appleton argues: ‘This arrangement favours PR types, not serious artists- the kinds of people who can hold smooth workshops and keep everybody onboard.”
To some extent this situation is to be expected, after all bureaucrats are unlikely to have any real insight into the mind of the artist and are far more likely to want to deal with people who are ‘on their level.’ Often it seems that every time something funded with public money is deemed vaguely controversial there is a negative reaction from those outside the artistic community that is the trigger which enables bureaucrats to tighten the reins on what can or can’t be done. But for all that it does seem like they are trying to do what they think is in the public’s and artists’ interests.
The bureaucrats are in the ultimate Catch 22. In the past Mirza has argued against ‘affirmative action’ when it comes to arts funding for ethnic minority artists and groups. But the NEA was lambasted when it made the decision not to fund popular black artist, William Pope L., who alleged racism could have been the reason why his $42,000 grant application was rejected.
So what is the solution? Calling for a cancellation of government funding for the arts would be like the community electrocuting its body to spite the head.
Art critic John Haber writes: ‘Government support for the arts does indeed come with strings attached. But myths of a free market leave more than just lovers of the arts in chains.’
And yet the myth that great art and artists will struggle in spite of all the obstacles against them, whether they be financial, emotional or physical, persists. Great artists don’t need to starve to produce work that moves and inspires, they just need to be.
Professor Michael Munger once asked the question: ‘…how many great works of art have been lost because artists have tried to pursue creatively dead, but politically correct, themes in the pursuit of public funding?’
Two of the greatest living public artists Chisto and Jeanne Claude have self-financed their entire career. They have managed to raise millions of dollars to realise their vision but have been able to do so because the public was willing to pay the price. Same public, same funds, but no bureaucrats and no strings.
