From Simon Kensdale, Wigan Creative Industries Officer
Heather Newill?s rhetorical question ?Why can?t artists be more like businessmen?? (ArtsProfessional, issue 72, April 19, p7), reminds me of the phrase ?Why can?t a woman be more like a man??, and it is not necessary to take it seriously.
Artistic activity is similar to other human activities like teaching, playing team games, and even doing business, but it is only superficially similar to these activities. Really, art is not the same as anything else, which is why we have a special word for it, and for those who practice it. This point needs to be constantly re-stated because art is as insecurely positioned in this society as it has been in most, and even art?s defenders constantly have to dress it up as if it were something other.
An analogy I am working up is that Art is a country, with its own language and practices. I think it has a long and fairly open frontier with, for example, Education but it has had troubles with the region known as Commerce. Thus, artists can go and work in teacher territory and teachers can pay visits to art land and be very creative, but individuals usually return to one preferred community. A category of artists has operated effectively in the commercial region, too, but it is not safe to say that this category represents the best artists. Too many have been corrupted by the process of working away and have defected ? losing all their originality, or whatever it is that defined them as natural-born artists in the first place.
Along the frontier with Commerce, foreign habits, such as accounting systems, market research and employee appraisal have been imported, whilst spontaneity, creativity and self-expression have been exported ? to the considerable benefit of business people! Similar gains have been made along the frontier with Education.
Or is this just the result of my reaction to the enlarged EU?