IS THE ART WORLD BIASED?
Part II of II
Why is the “art world” of prizewinners, press darlings and highly visible British artists so unrepresentative of the ethnic make-up of the country, given that we have a lot of diversity in the art school intake?
In my previous post I wondered why the “East London” prize is so unrepresentative of East London’s demographic.
Obviously this is a culture, and those who perpetuate it are completely unaware that what they’re doing is actually perpetuating inequality of opportunity. That what they are also doing a stifling the creativity of London. It’s like they’re closing the window in a room which is already stuffy and unbearable. The fact is, let us say it, that the art world does not admit art that does not fit neatly into a very culturally circumscribed matrix.
This is the “international” style, which is a tight compendium of Anglo-American, French and German aesthetics. Ergo, not actually international at all. If an artist who wants to express aesthetics outside of this sphere, he or she is relegated to making work “about” their ethnicity.
Now, toeing the “internationalist” line does not mean that you yourself have to be from this “Anglo-American/ French/ German” background. You just have to accept this aesthetic. Which probably means having studied at one of the Big 5 art schools and imbibing their aesthetic and cultural rules. There no prizes for creating art which somehow, consciously or unconsciously, expresses an alternative aesthetic. My friend is from an ethnic minority and this is reflected in his work but his work is not “about” being ethnic, it’s more about his aesthetic vision.
I recall one gallery rejecting an artist with a background from the Mahgreb because “we already have an African” – this being a Nigerian-background artist they represented. (Both artists live in London). No doubt this was a ‘business decision’, but think about what it implies.
Let us not forget, that the history of art is not universal. What we accept as art history is a colonial programme. If we just look at modern (20thC) art we have to accept that there are alternative modernisms. Modernist Persian, Egyptian, Latin American, African.These artists are judged however, by how they adhere to the Western modernist programme. Just as an example, the recent show at tate of Ibrahim El Saheli. Of all the African or Arab artists they could have given a solo show to, they have to choose someone who was “approved” by a spell at the Slade, or the Beaux-Arts or somewhere, that teaches the Internationalist curriculum in one of the core Western centres of dominance.
Back to the unrepresentative demographic of the art prize.
There are people who would really celebrate this and say “Why should we open up our art world, our art fundings and our art prizes to immigrants?” The answer is really obvious, which is that art is always been an itinerant practice, and the artists have always moved around from place to place looking for opportunities. This is what made the Renaissance, made the Baroque. English painting wouldn’t have existed without Dutchmen like Holbein and VanDyke turning up here to set the standard. And how could we have has Gothic without Fuesli?
But anyway, I don’t think actually people in the art world, are particularly racist. After all, we are quite happy to embrace those art stars from abroad who made it big and then turn up in London. And the art world has occasionally allowed minority artists to slip in under the railing. Yet I now see how how difficult it must be for them, how much harder you would have to work to get there.
I don’t think they’re racist but I do think that they tend to choose people like themselves, who look like them, who talk like them, who been to the same schools. Who subscribe to the same ideology, and who don’t shake their coveted ideology. It’s a problem at the national level because that’s how the government is run, and it’s also how the art world is run. It’s bad, it’s wrong, and it can not go on.
Gillian McIver May 2014
