MEASURING THE EXPERIENCE – 11
Are artist-led organisations more successful at attracting or retaining audiences?
Quantifying ‘audiences’ as regards visual arts activities is not easy because although it is possible to cite how many children participated in an residency, it is less easy to say how many have been ‘touched by art’ because there is an artists’ studio group in their area. The following, however, is one example of the latter. Because of its location in an industrial part of the city, Sunderland Artists Group gained the respect of other professionals and artisans who worked there, creating a common ground partly because of shared tools and techniques. These people became a day-by-day ‘audience’ for the work of some 15 artists and had no problem in regarding them as ‘professionals’ regardless of any comparison between income levels. These people also came along, with their friends and relations, to the artists’ exhibitions and events thus the audience for gallery art was also increased.
More specifically, groups such as Rochester-based Art for Life, set up in 1988, has provided 40 people with learning difficulties with effective ways of gaining fulfilment from the visual arts through classes, joint projects and open exhibitions. Many other groups within the ‘community action’ category also bear witness to this.
By holding their events outside normal gallery situations, artists in groups like Fine Rats International have to ‘sell’ what they do to everyone from Department of Transport and police officials, to prospective sponsors as well as to art funders. The 1994 event held at a disused coal-mine now used as a museum, contained a piece by one artist which deeply offended the former miners who staffed the building. But because the artist ‘mediated’ his own work, he could address the criticisms immediately, set out his intentions, and by discussion turn his critics into supporters. Although situations like this do not necessarily create ‘audiences’ for art galleries, they do help to shape a particular group of people’s perceptions about a particular set of artists, and by doing so, create new audiences or supporters for the arts. Fine Rats was also cited in the Arts Council of Great Britain’s 1993/94 report as having “attracted many people [to Under Spaghetti Junction] who had never attended an art event before. “
Space Explorations, which also makes exhibitions outside galleries, is similarly interested to have more people see their art work. They described the audience for their 1994 event ‘One Million Cubic Feet’ as a total of 1,300 people over 17 days. This was broken down as “8% from the local community including members of the public interested in the history of the building, ex-workers, ex-users of the space and local business people, 25% from educational establishments through group visits, 2% tourists and 65% from the art-going public.” For them, using buildings such as an old power station, the Royal Observatory and Holborn Town Hall suits their needs to have “freedom and time [to] make a piece of work in a space” and also it “works well as a community thing. People who live around there and have seen the building can look in. You are learning something from the people around you, not just imposing yourself. You pick things up from them…”
Note that Space explorations and Fine Rats International were selected for detailed case studies for this research project.
