It was a moment of high farce that seemed to sum up the cavernous ideological divide that exists when it comes to the funding of the arts in the UK.
The economist Philip Booth of the Institute of Economic Affairs had just dismissed Katharina Fritsch’s fourth plinth sculpture as “pornographic” – well, Front Row presenter John Wilson did rather mischievously describe it as “a giant blue cock”. You could almost feel the heat of Booth’s red face through the radio. “It’s a cockerel, not a penis,” Wilson helpfully explained.
Booth was one of five panelists on this 40-minute debate, rather provocatively titled ‘Are artists owed a living?’, the first in a series of discussions as part of the BBC’s year-long Get Creative strand.
Joining Booth on the panel at Hull Truck Theatre were the playwright Richard Bean, former ICA director Ekow Eshun (also chairman of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, hence the blue cock reference), cultural sociologist Tiffany Jenkins, and Deborah Bull, director of cultural partnerships at King’s College, London.
Bean set the record straight from the off, answering Wilson’s opening question – “As a working artist, does the state owe you a living?” – by saying: “With respect, it’s the wrong question – we wouldn’t ask a hospital porter, or a teacher or a doctor that question because they make a contribution to society, and I think artists are entirely in that same group.”
While the economist’s view throughout was essentially that state funding was a bad thing, full stop, concluding that Britain would be “culturally richer if it cut all state funding to the arts”, the discussion was rather more nuanced than a battle between those for and against state funding.
Eshun made the point that “when you get private money [in the arts] you get private taste [and] an invidious narrowing of culture”. He was politely reminded by Jenkins that we need to be “equally critical of the state’s involvement” in funding the arts.
Jenkins stridently argued that much of the blame for the current climate of arts cuts should be laid at the door of the arts sector itself. She said: “There has been a failure to make a case for the intrinsic value of the arts… If you’re competing with hospitals, you’ll lose.”
There needs to be more talk about great art and less about the economic benefits, how art can improve your health, and its impact on social cohesion, she said. “The arts can’t do any of these things – they do something very special that nothing else can do…”
Eshun, echoing this view, said: “The purpose of art is not to please everyone, it is to ask questions about the world we live in.”
Views from the floor
As well as the panelists, the audience also included a selection of people primed with contributions. Perhaps most significant of these was historian Robert Hewison, author of Cultural Capital: The Rise and Fall of Creative Britain.
Tracing state support of the arts back to January 1940 during the Blitz, when the Treasury agreed that for the good of the nation the performing arts needed to be kept alive in Britain, he cautioned against the presumption that funding of the arts was a given.
“I would say that our current government isn’t interested in funding the arts… we’re seeing a neoliberal attempt to shrink the state and dispense with funding of the arts,” he said, adding that it was a mistake to presume that supporting the arts was something natural to every government.
Hewison’s other important contribution addressed the issue of funding cuts at a local, small-scale level: “The arts is suffering from frostbite,” he said. “We’re dying at the grass roots.”
Also talking from the audience was the playwright John Godber, the former artistic director of Hull Truck Theatre. (“I only ran it for 25 years,” he quipped).
Arguing for, above all else, the intrinsic value of the arts, he said: “Of course the arts need funding – they’re frightening, challenging… What do the arts do that maths don’t? The make us feel.”
Listen to the full debate on the BBC website
