Since I was accepted on my Arts Management MA back in May, I have been explaining to people, when asked, what my course entails. Being in a studio at the time and in regular contact with fellow artists, I had an interesting array of responses to my course.
I would like to elaborate further, but not in the same manner that I planned to last week.
Let’s start with the course. The background experience of my fellow class mates ranges from economists, English Literature students, experienced arts administrators to name a few. Personally, I think this range of scope and differing interests is absolutely fantastic. Being in an eclectic cooking pot of experiences has meant that your perspectives are challenged and widened. However, it was a discussion in a Manchester pub with a few of my classmates late last week that really put this blog post in context.
Back to the responses. During the last six months, the range of emotions that my news generated from my artist peers when I divulged my plans have included;
‘You’re going over to the dark side?’
‘Why?’
‘So you’re stopping being an artist?’
‘HA!’
‘Sounds exciting!’
Needless to say, I have received lots of support which I am naturally grateful for. However it was the negativity and even suspicion that intrigued me the most. These responses prompted a trail of thought and I have wondered what has been said when I am not around. So why have a few artists been uncomfortable with the prospect of an artist studying a non practice based arts course?
Hans Haacke has written extensively on the relationship between arts managers and artists. His analysis of a new breed of American arts manager is worth noting;
Trained by prestigious business schools, they are convinced that art can and should be sold like the production and marketing of other goods. They make no apologies and have few romantic hang ups.’
Haacke in the same rhetoric attacked the Harvard arts management courses for churning out cold professionals that lack any emotional engagement with the arts. The discussion also filters down to an attack on British Institutions ‘adopting half baked American notions of management.’
Nonetheless, I feel that we could have arrived at the position where we could identify a less than perfect relationship between the two positions. It is the pub conversation that opened it up for me.
Over a beer with fellow classmates, I discussed how they found working with artists. The general consensus among the handful from my course who were present, was that my classmates found artists equally difficult to grasp. The attitude was one of how to engage artists outside of the course and future career? It dawned on me that, while distrust is an incorrect term, a cautiousness was present in their reception towards artists.
While I half expected to encounter this from artists, the flip side has taken me a back slightly. Fascinating. I am going to be exploring this in this blog over the next couple of months.
One final thought. Sometimes I feel like a spy in each camp (a bit like a rather less exciting Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.) I go to private views, art fairs, exhibitions and go home and draw. Other days I go for meetings at the Arts Council offices and then to Cultural Policy lectures and then go home and write. Going to leave it at that today.
