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There are many different layers to the arts and cultural cake that we could be discussing here... from mega-funded public art works, that see well-known artists 'respond' to places and people, through to the provincial community-based artists, whose tasks would variously seem to be about stimulating people into healthier ways of living, or active citizenship - either through education, employment or training.

In relation to questions surrounding funding for the arts, during times of economic hardship, it would be appropriate to consider what particular social and economic contexts and phenomena artists might be invited to engage with. Shaken and stirred sufficiently, this could boil down to the political question: Can the arts progress thinking and the human experience, during times of economic hardship?

On this, I want to say YES YES YES, yet I find all too often that there are many people - educated and trained in the technical qualities of producing artistic work, who are unable to convincingly evidence their understanding of the complex conditions and consequences of social and economic problems - of and for other people. This, I find difficult. I am led to wonder about the higher education of artists, and the qualities that are being sought by many arts funders.

In times of social and economic hardship, I believe that there 'should' be a place for sustained arts funding - though this should be attached to a desire to see unashamedly hard-headed, intellectualist, works from the arts. And by that, I don't mean overblown, over-written artists' statements - after all, surely that's what the Turner Prize nominees are there to demonstrate. No, I would appeal to artists to stimulate and to challenge, in broadly accessible forms. This is not an appeal to dumbed-downness, but rather an appeal to allowing egos to rest easy, and to create the space for complex social politics, through the arts.

Always, these discussions will necessitate statements - explicit or otherwise - of values, and valuing.

Should the government use taxes to force people to subsidise the arts?

Perhaps the beneficiaries are mostly high taxpayers. It is their own money. Why not reduce taxes and let people decide for themselves whether to pay for the arts?

There are strong cases for publicly funding street lighting, hospitals, schools and many other goods and services. What is the value of arts beyond private enjoyment. I, and many others, enjoy fish and chips. Should chippies be subsidised? A bag of fish and chips beats the pants off anything either Tracey Emin or Damien Hirst ever produced.

Perhaps Emin could leave the wrapping from F & C on the floor and call it art. Or maybe Hirst could pickle himself and call it a Wally*. If it said "Wally" on the jar, would the viewers realise it was a message to them?

(London slang for pickled gherkins).

It could produce art that is appreciated by the general public - speaking for myself, abstract art is difficult to comprehend, and seems pointless apart from making huge sums of money from gullible people

Spendong money on Art is the very last thing I would do - Art - not the pop idea of it - is the only thing today which offers a hope of a goo meaingful life in the future. At 84, there is not much I can expect - but visiting the Nat. Gallery, Tate or RA gives hope and listening to the new young composers such as Beamisg, Birtwhistle (no longer young) etc makes an exciting evening.
I get depressed seeing the bucket loads of poor modern art unloaded on the unwary - is there no escape from rock etc.

From my now quite bitter, cynical perspective, it seems that it is those "artists" who are most comfortable networking and doing a lot of talking and filling in of funding application forms are those who get the support. Happiest on a mobile phone, they don't necessarily make the best art or even art at all. Artists no longer seem to have any independence from the system which negates their role. There has to be a better way of getting the money out across a wider area of practice. Mainstream art seems very safe these days. The same "artist"-turned-celebrities get the lions share. To get in to teaching is difficult due to longstanding "old boy's (and old girl's) networks. Artists seem to have to justify themselves within some sort of "moral" framework whereby they have to gain some sort of approval from society to get recognition (funding). I

Broadcasting House intimated this week that people just don't give up on buying books, as it is like an 'addiction' that has to be funded somehow... £25 is a lot to pay for a book, but the Dirk Bogarde letters will keep you going for longer than a trip to the rugby.

As for going to the cinema, I did pass up on seeing 'Gomorrah' as it did seem rather bleak for these times, but then again this mood did not stop from going to see 'Hunger' or the excellent 'Waltz with Bashir' - so I guess it is swings and roundabouts.

Although the alarming success of 'Mamma Mia!' does send rather worrying signals of where the 'money men' [and I do mean men; I'm sure women might be more circumspect] will be investing money in the 'arts' next year to minimise the risk of failure in a recession.

But maybe the whole point of a recession is to remind people that the facile obsession with materialism and house prices means zilch if one is not nurturing one's soul with culture. Or indeed 'making one's own entertainment' by, say, learning to play an instrument.

p.s. Is it to late to get John Tusa on to talk about this ? He has given some excellent speeches on arts funding - required more than ever in these difficult times. After all, I am not noticing anyone is suggesting 'tightening of belts' in the amount of spending on the war in Iraq and in Afghanistan -quite the reverse.

TOTAL ACCORD (#2)

Yo 13th! Let's enter for the Turner prize as an installation. 'Two blokes eating free F and C.'

We would need a grant, of course, but that shouldn't be a problem.

PS I see 'vanishingspecies' (#5) was dragged of by a PC PC, when starting the next sentence (no doubt to start a sentence) for failing to put 'and old don'tknows' after 'old boy's and old girl's'. You can't be to careful.

MORE MONEY MORE ART

As the licence fee climbs to ever greater heights, so it is emulated by ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ art (aka news and current affairs).

Mind you, one could NEVER be charged too high a price to watch Nancy of the Laughing Space, outdoing every Mecca Prancing Queen, over decades, in the art of disconnected verbalising.

SURELY L'Olio should be a fixture on Newsnight Review, where the rarefied and exotic discuss the exotic and rarefied and, in the words of Freddie Mercury: "Nothing really matters"?

I would never have set foot in an art museum had this government, not decided to subsidise some of our best known institutions, the V&A the national portrait Gallery etc ,and i would be worse for it.
So i'd say yes to continued support, though I would rather see the money going on traditional forms of art, than the modern art that appears to be a Middle class joke that I just don't get. Emperors new clothes and all that.
I'm now waiting for Barriesingleton and 13th Man to come up with a 15ft statue of a man seated eating a portion of chips. though i fear i'm more likely to see the turner prize winners version, which will probably just look like a man in the process of expelling the contents of his stomach with a beer in one hand and the chip wrapper in the other.

# 3 They are getting to you. RESIST! There is nothing to comprehend.


Quote:

(Re: Italian "artist", Piero Manzonu)

"Like Duchamp's "Readymades", "Artist's shit" questions the meaning of art as both cultural and consumer objects by inviting the viewer to confront a system that venerates cans of shit as works of art."


Source:



(Cans of shit as works of art. Is the other way round?).

for art to be art is has to have some benefit. otherwise its not art. merely decoration, an indulgence. like putting primary school art on the fridge.

the licence fee funds art in as much as some of the bbc is of benefit. some isn't.

money is well spent on things that provide benefit. wasted if not.

beauty is there to awaken beauty in us. the modern perversity is calling the ugly, the unskillful, the inept, the vainglorious, the harmful -art.

if something does not satisfy that criteria of benefit it is not art.

Art for art's sake



Celtic Lion

Speaking as someone who has lost his job in the City due to the credit crunch, in the short term the arts are going to benefit from this... because I'm finally getting the time to go and see all the theatre I've been meaning to see for ages! OK, it's a short-term benefit, but the West End and Fringe are seeing a lot more of me in December and January than in any previous two months this year... If I'm still unemployed in six months time things will be very different...

If there was a function for operationalising the impact on society - raised happiness leading to more luxury goods, maybe - of the arts then there would be a way for governments to justify funding for different arts applications. In this way we could come up with a numerical value as to the impact of different arts, although this in itself would create a less diverse spread of art forms, we could expand on the diversity aims of the government in different cultures and age groups and be able to create a more representative funding structure as a result.

There is no doubt art will change with the current climate, as our imaginations are influenced by our experiences and in many instances our subliminal anxieties, but such a change will create exciting times for all art and a structure for fair representation of different forms should be in place and supporting development through government funding, so long as there is statistical justification in governments using taxpayer's money.

The government should fund the training of talented people in painting "proper" pictures, landscapes, portraits, street scenes, etc. Art that ordinary people can look at, like, enjoy, and buy to hang in our houses. This would benefit artists and non-artists alike.

THE SECOND COMMANDMENT AND HEGEMONY

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Think negative genetic pressure/selection. Think lower spatial and higher verbal cognitive ability and what that portended in terms of equalities and politics.

It is sad, that less art equals less money...