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The Forum > Article Comments > The Arts, and Government > Comments

The Arts, and Government : Comments

By Don Aitkin, published 15/11/2010

The urge to create comes from individuals, not from the community, let alone from the state.

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Don
Arts policy inevitably involves government 'interference' in the Arts.
If policy is not simply to be a duplication of the markets/audiences independent choices, policy must inevitably play favorites.
The number of possible 'arts things' is infinite, funds are not. Thus policy comes down to what we don't fund. The use of peer review processes and arms length to answer this curly question has resulted in academic circularity. ( And an awful lot of management costs).

The most productive time in french art in the past few hundred years was exactly when the peer review academy collapsed and was replaced by a free market free for all. The independent representative agent for example, Volard was very important reason why Picasso and Matisse became very well paid.
Gustave Courbet once said 'The one and only thing a government can do for an artist is, leave him alone.'

Cultural policy always risks turning culture into an 'artifact'.
Posted by pedestrian, Monday, 15 November 2010 3:19:52 PM
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Don

" ought to be a whole-of-government matter"
culture = the whole country, every thing we do from cheese making to VFL and to which side of the road we drive on is Australian culture.
Art can be anything.
An integrated approach to cultural/arts policy = the Government of the commonwealth of Australia.
Posted by pedestrian, Monday, 15 November 2010 3:25:48 PM
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Don

Institutions are not culture, institutions regulate they maintain standards. culture is not an area that needs regulation for 'public safety' reasons. Culture is meta it is literally change.
Australia is littered with hundreds of expensive over managed cultural white elephants.

Of the 15 million in annual VACS funding all but 1.5 million is paid to managements. Are you seriously advocating paying them even more money to "Look after their artists".

The publicly funded Visual arts sector has been managed to death, how many more 'phantom employees' do you want?
Posted by pedestrian, Monday, 15 November 2010 3:42:58 PM
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Far too much money is into things that only a portion of the population wants. Most people are too realistic to be humbugged by so called art.
It's a minor value and should not be funded.
Posted by 579, Monday, 15 November 2010 4:26:40 PM
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Which art funding policies created The Colossus, Guernica, or Starry night?
Posted by hugoagogo, Monday, 15 November 2010 5:31:44 PM
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Don makes some good points. Art has always been an integral part of societies but has generally, until modern times, been sponsored and instigated by individuals other than the odd funded Art College or Gallery. Arts funding has gone much further than this with many questionable grants over the last 20 odd years.

It is individuals that make art and music and while I agree the money spent on the justice system is high in stark comparison to arts, what would be the alternative other than to let prisoners free. (Although, perhaps art and music art could be encouraged in the prison system to soothe ths savage beast.)

Having been involved in a local theatre group many years ago we did it without any input from government, just a concerted effort by a group of people with costumes borrowed, sewed or bought in Op shops as the roles demanded. Same with sets and all the work was done for the love of the theatre. The end result was not the poorer for it but the reward in fact was enhanced by personal effort.

Governments don't have to be across everything cultural nor endeavours that come into the gamut of personal interests. There is much room for private sponsorship and volunteer efforts and to a large extent this is still the case.

It is bemusing that funding for the Arts has taken a turn upwards when it is hospitals that are now seeking volunteer labour and private donations for various essential machinery.

Other than the bare necessities (ovals, galleries and the odd college), leave the arena of arts and sport to private individuals.

As an aside, there has been much controversy over roadside art purchased by state governments - some of it dubious (although art is subjective) and stuff that my old grandma could have whipped up with some bits of old metal and a welder.
Posted by pelican, Monday, 15 November 2010 6:45:09 PM
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I have to come up with the goods to get paid. I fail to see why we should support those who chose an art from which they can't make a living. When Governments "give" funding to those who aren't capable of selling their expertise, they hand over money that was taken from those of us who work. If we could stipulate as to how our tax money is spent we'd have wall to wall quality art, not the nonsense we see around us.
Posted by individual, Monday, 15 November 2010 7:20:20 PM
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pelican- its not the art that gets the money, virtually all of the money dissipates into a swamp of management.

Just three examples -
The Australian Business Art Foundation, (ABAF) was created to 'encourage' private philanthropy support for the arts. ABAF annually receives 1.5 million in direct government funding of its operations. (ABAF's CEO alone gets- $250K+). ABAF annually generates about $500K in private donations to arts projects that ABAF has 'verified'. At a 40 cents in the dollar rate of tax deductions, these donations cost the government about $200K in forgone tax collections.

Second example. A few years ago the Australia Council management blew the entire Venice budget on travel and expensive hotels for themselves , they then got private philanthropy to pay for the artists.
In short ABAFs generation of $500K in payments to arts projects came at cost to the public of 1.7 million Dollars- Nice, no?

Third example. A regional gallery offered an funded 'artist in residence' position, on closer reading the 'residency' was in the galleys office helping the administration do administration.
"Phantom employees" were a big problem in the Australia councils management from the very moment it got going . The first public scandal and auditor general investigation was in 1974 and a year later it was still going on. The problem has never really stopped.

These are not aberrations, they are typical of the massive costs and mismanagement that is "the funded sector".

The idea of the arts as "welfare" is quite typical. Welfare is distributed according to need, not according to a self description as an 'deserving artist'. There is something deeply moraly wrong and offensive about the funded sectors deep belief that it is entitled to recognition and has a right to control anything at all, most of them could not run a chook raffle.

Pelican -If you were to blow up the funded visual arts sector you would kill a lot of managers ...... you would kill very few artists.
Posted by pedestrian, Tuesday, 16 November 2010 6:56:16 AM
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pedestrian
Yes much of the funding for arts (and other areas including even disability) is siphoned into the administrative realm never to be seen again.

There was an article in today's Canberra Times declaring the Territory arts budget to be nearly dry having spent $8M on public art structures over the last five years, including the latest one for which the taxpayer forked out $66,000 approx.

The arts are an important part of cultural life and I don't want to appear to diminish its value, but it is an arena that is easily supported by individuals and private enterprise with only minimal input by governments (certainly not to the disadvantage of more essential infrastructure).

If we are going to push for taxation reform we should also be looking at what governments should and should not be involved, you can't do one properly without reviewing the whole system, because taxation and expenditure go hand in hand.
Posted by pelican, Wednesday, 17 November 2010 1:52:26 PM
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pelican

largely agree.

The funded sector was set up in 1972 in great haste. It was strongly based in a top down view (mostly from Coombs and his circle) of what constituted 'advanced' art/culture. It was a very poorly thought out design - very vulnerable to abuse, circularity and cronyism.
Ever since it has very successfully resisted change.
By now it is largely a hall of mirrors; signifying stuff all.
Posted by pedestrian, Thursday, 18 November 2010 7:36:34 AM
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So how can whatever funding is available be used more effectively.
I've alway's favored minimal government sponsorship especially as they tend to sponsor different sports/ different activities to the one's I'm interested in.

Support for non-vocational training eg adult short term tafe classes is one possible way of making different forms of art more accessible for people to be doing it rather than watching it. I've done a few over the year's, never been particularly good but had a lot of fun along the way.

If they really want to get direct and cut out the middle man I'd really like a good quality macro lens for my camera. I could buy one myself but given how much government funding is about funding what people won't prioritize for themselves I'll stick my hand up and nominate that as a worthwhile use of public money to help access to art.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Thursday, 18 November 2010 7:52:03 AM
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Robert
I think that a lot less regulation and management would be a start ; Things like making it easier for small venues to have live musicians. Making it easier for individuals to open small art galleries without all the excessive (and often catch 22 ish) DA/ OHAS , insurance costs that have been loaded on in the last twenty years. And we really need to look at the amount of money spent on Tertiary Qualification art training as apposed to Skills orientated training. It Is absurd but also simply true- most graduates of the tertiary art-school system need remedial help on how to Be a professional artist.
Posted by pedestrian, Thursday, 18 November 2010 9:10:50 AM
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