The State and the Arts
Matthew Taylor is hoping that the State of the Arts conference will become an annual forum for the arts, mirroring similar shindigs in the worlds of broadcasting and film (p6). The event was an interesting experience, generating an immense buzz among the 500 delegates and giving us an opportunity to hang upon the lips of our elected representatives (p2). Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has been praised for speaking without notes, but in fact he didn’t say much that he hasn’t already said many times before, dating back to a speech in June 2008 (AP173). Despite what has happened to the economy since then, he is still touting the US philanthropic model as the way forward for the UK, and responded weakly to a question from Alistair Spalding, Chief Executive and Artistic Director of Sadler’s Wells, who pointed out that three or four arts organisations are closing every week in the US, thanks to a heavy reliance on philanthropy and endowments. That’s not to say that philanthropy doesn’t have a place in the UK arts funding scene, but we need to proceed with caution. Ben Bradshaw was given a fairly easy ride, suggesting that the arts world generally votes Labour, even though it thinks it’s going to be dealing with the Tories before long.
The conference was built around a series of panel discussions – a deeply traditional model which future events must get away from. Apart from the difficulty any chairperson has of keeping a bunch of artists on message, there are myriad
models of interesting and innovative conference formats available, of which the arts should surely be taking advantage. Talking heads have their value, and we must have a chance to question the leaders of our funding bodies and our Government departments. However, that huge roomful of creative, intelligent and feisty people should have been given more and different opportunities to contribute to the event.
Continuing vigilance
It’s part of our job at AP to keep an eye on what arts councils are doing with our money. In the case of Northern Ireland (p1), they’re desperately trying to make the Assembly keep to its promises of increased funding and a move towards parity of spending with other UK nations. In the case of England, spending cuts imposed by Government seem to be causing a counter-intuitive splashing of the cash in order to make the necessary redundancies (p2). It will be interesting to count up just how much Arts Council England will have had to lay out to cover the costs of so much reorganisation over the years, and how much it will actually prove to have saved in the end. It was heartening to note that senior staff didn’t receive bonuses last year, in recognition of the financial situation. The implication that those bonuses would at least in part have recognised deeds which won’t be achieved until 2010/11 must sweeten the pill.
This week Catherine has immersed herself in the fabulously rich prose of Michael Chabon, master of the layering of metaphors, and has plunged into the swirling waters of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony with a feeling that she just might not make it to the other side.