Intrinsic Value and Crisis in funding = Crisis in rhetoric
As a recent fine art student i was always self consciously aware of how few big exhibitions and retrospectives I visited whilst at university. But whist having had a far from under-nourished gallery experience the much talked about crisis for arts funding i am worried that the loudest and most conservative voices in the debate (Jonathan Jones in the Guardian, Steven Pollard on BBC Radio 4, the Conservative party et al.) are clouding over the genuinely exciting and vitally analytic art projects, that are supported by government funding, will suffer inordinately.
In spite of what the main debate, which focuses on the merits of large scale and headline grabbing arts events, claims the arts to be, there are large numbers of galleries and projects facing closure, that without which, we would not be offered exciting and cutting cultural critique.
Ironically the exponents of why we should save the arts who focus on larger project fall in to the same ideological position as those who wish to 'streamline' funding. A 2009 paper co authored by Hassan Bakhshi, Alan Freeman and Graham Hitchen titled Measuring Intrinsic Value - how to stop worrying and love economics, argued that understanding the intrinsic value of art could make it economically measurable and by proxy viable. But obviously to make this assessment, a judgment about the intrinsic value of each arts project must be made.
The problem is of course who has the right to make this choice? If the argument offered by Steven Pollard is that we shouldn't be made to pay for the arts which is an issue personal choice therefore not visited by everyone, how then can a decision be made as to the intrinsic value of any project that takes into account everybody in the country's idea of intrinsic value of art. This is of course his point, but then this position clearly forgets that he has made an assumption that the arts have no intrinsic cultural value. Again a matter of taste, while this makes his position some what irrelevant if we are considering how divvy up the funding fro culture, it does again bring up the problem that intrinsic value does not provide an accurate measure by which to measure the success or usefulness of culture, specifically an area as broad and cross-disclipinary as the arts.
This sentiment is not only worrying when espoused by those you would expect to be conservative make their case.
What is far more problematic, is well known arts leaders and commentators and even campaigns such as Save the Arts using this intrinsic value approach to drum up support aping well known touch stones like Picasso, the opera or Beckett that they assume the public will rally around. simply because they're well known.
Firstly, as with Pollard, this is again an issue of taste, and in times of financial austerity these cultural markers are far too associated with bourgeois new Labour selfishness, middle classes etc, to provide any support broader than the expected groups, it is difficult to argue for their financial value when there is no argument about why they should saved, beyond their financial intrinsic value, which is after all taste. why should a Warhol be saved over Walcotte?
But secondly and more importantly it stultifies the notion of what the arts are and provide. Far from the spectacular entertainment that it is celebrated as being, the arts more often than not offer an essential critical dialogue that is of and constitutive of culture and society. this may not have the visible immediacy that an intrinsic, economic assessment might be able to measure but forms a dialogue that without which an economic delivery of society and culture would be the only alternative.
This then is the crisis in rhetoric, on both sides the arts are being condemned and celebrated under a narrow understanding of what they have to offer, that ignores the full breadth and vitality of the arts.
Sport was re-branded as something that was imperative because it was healthy, it's better to have healthier communities, particularly where this might, amongst other things, help alleviate other problems associated with social deprivation. The arts however, are still seen as an indulgence, this ignores their capacity to improve mental and intellectual health. this is both empowering, giving the under-privileged access to a broader range of cultural and vocational options (i am not implying that everyone will be able to work in the arts, but that the arts offer a different way of thinking to the predominantly standardized, sciences-centric curriculum offering) and a wise move, if we take the same tack as sport, given rising cases of dementia and Alzheimers in the elderly.
The crisis in funding will affect, small, experimental, community projects hardest. This is not to answer whether disrupting the large number of conventional galleries, venues and spaces, especially in the major urban arts centers, is entirely to the detriment of the arts or interaction with them: it cannot really be said other than in hindsight. But if these funding cuts are as swinging as promised only the block buster exhibitions which can already rely on corporate sponsorship will remain, albeit even further out of the reach of people on without the money to make the indulgence: those who are not in the position to be the authority on taste.
