A rather revealing complaint by Labour MP Gloria de Piero during the week. She had a go over how much the government is spending on purchasing artworks. If her complaint had been that a time of large deficit the government should be cutting this area of spending even more quickly than it is, that would have been fairly common for political debate with the usual for and against arguments on each side. Or, if her complaint had been about the choice of artists, that too would have been the trigger for a fairly common debate about whether modern artists are brilliant or talentless, mould breaking or rude etc etc etc.
But no, her complaint was that, as Paul Waugh reported, the government is spending money buying artworks that will then be displayed in public buildings and visible to visitors rather than giving money to arts organisations.
Yup, the complaint was that rather than directly supporting artists by buying their work, the government should be giving money to organisations. Not complaints about the sort of art being purchased, who it is being bought from or on what terms; just complaints about buying art rather than giving grants to organisations.
Support for individuals bad, support for organisations good. Rather a touch of the New Labour love of the client state there – get people dependent on organisations, make organisations dependent on public funding and bingo, you’ve got a coalition to support your view of what the state should do.
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15 Comments
oh! Quite a lot of artists have been doing “big society” for years…on the back of work that they can sell. admittedly probably further up the ranks less voluntary work. but artists support art organisations and the publics’ experience of art – often out of their own pocket. Galleries in theatres and similar often recieved some public money to make their gallery then rely on artists showing work in it for nothing… No art galleries without artists…
there I was thinking I might be turning a bit socialist…hmm might think again
So in your view Mark, only government approved art should be able to recieve government money?
That’s a disturbing position to take.
You don’t think that government should provide the canvas, and the artist the idea?
Of course, what she actually said was she didn’t think money should be spent on art for minister’s and MP’s offices. I guess a minister’s office is a public building but how many of us expect to see the inside of one? I expect most people would agree with her if they read what she said rather than rely on your gloss. That such a sensible and reasonable view prompts such dark suspicions in you and mutterings about labour’s ‘client state’ (a phrase invented by the hard right in order to suggest that any left leaning govt is in some sense illegitimate) reveals rather more your politics than it does hers.
AndrewR, yes the mutterings about a ‘client state’ are disturbing. THis is a hypothesis that Labour maintain their share of the vote by giving the unemployed and disabled benefits, support a national health service and fund local government. It’s an argument that doesn’t even come from the Tory Right, almost all of whom support to some degree the concept of benefits, universal healthcare and local government. It’s a Libertarian argument, not something one expects to hear from a Liberal.
I wonder why Lib Dem Voice has been spending so much energy attack Labour of late? Rattled and looking for a scapegoat come the 5th is my guess.
Her point is a trivial one: £298,000 is not going to make much of a difference to very many libraries and cultural organisations facing cuts, whereas a small proportion of this sum to a number of artists is going to make a significant difference to their lives, not to mention the fact that they will be able to put on their CV that their work has been bought by the UK government and the filip that gives to their careers.
The other point you have missed Mark is that organisations can be used to help up and coming artists and purchasing artwork only helps a single artist. The truth is that both are probably needed and that in times of austerity perhaps helping the many rather than the (usually) already successful may be a better option.
Also it does appear she was refering to art purchased for what are, in effect, private offices of public figures. the Lib Dems wern’t too happy when Speaker Martin spent a Kings Ransom on his apartment (technically a public building?) as I remember it….
@tonyhill
actually £298,000 would make a huge difference to those organisations that have lost all their funding, such as http://www.acta.f2s.com
£298,000 might a difference to ONE organisation – so how would you choose which one?
@tonyhill Do you think the aesthetic preferences of government officials are the best determinant of which artist, or artistic community, should be the target of government funds?
The point I was making was that this is a trivial amount of money to be making a fuss about. One of my daughters works for a community arts organisation that has had its funding axed by the Arts Council. From what I could see it did a lot of valuable work in schools and the community, and our national cultural life will be the poorer for organisations like that no longer being able to operate. How you allocate scarce resources is always going to be debatable – we could have a really pointless argument about whether any government money should be spent on the arts when the health service needs anything available.
I think the client state argument is a very legitimate one and a very Liberal one. This MPs point is a trivial cheap shot but if hundreds of thousands are being spent on art for ministers and MPs when the government owns quite a lot of art already then it is perfectly right for her to raise it.
@neil bradbury, the client state argument is an argument that certain voters should be punished because they vote for Labour by having benefits removed, job securities diminished and pensions destroyed.
THat is not Liberal, is it?
G – you’ve got the wrong end of the stick completely. I think there is considerable evidence that Labour politicians, unitentionaly or not, have kept the poorest in society in a poverty trap. By setting up benefits and tax regimes that mean that you do not earn much more as you move into work, they have ensured that it is much harder for people to change their lives. Co-incidentally these groups of people in this trap often vote Labour. Labour worked hard to include as many people as possible into the benefits regime and to employ people in the public sector so they were dependent on public sector largess.
This is not an argument in favour of cutting benefits for the poorest in society and certainly not in favour of cutting pensions for those in work, which is a separate issue. It is an argument for reducing work disincentives in the benefits system. That costs money and involves moving benefits spend from the better off to the poorer in society.
We also need to get the boom industries of Manufacturing and R&D moving so we can transition the economy from a public sector and services dominated one to one that generates wealth.
@neil bradbury
what evidence do you have that people vote Labour because they are on benefits? The clinet state argument relies on a causative relationship between the two, not just a correlative one.
Support the arts industry or support the arts bureaucracy? You decide.
This is a question of real and meaningful jobs.
Obviously the talent to create quality product is a higher bar than simply shuffling paper, so the answer you give depends on what form of employment you think individuals actually prefer and where you think the real productivity gain is found.
In a straight choice between using taxpayer funds to pay for subservient functionaries or independent artisans and craftspeople for me there really is no contest – it comes down to your political ideology: liberals of all shades will emphasise support for the artists, social conservatives will support an expanded bureacracy, and economic conservatives will say professional art should be a matter of private patronage (I’m certain the Guido’s of the world would suggest the ‘radical’ idea of ministers furnishing their offices out of their own pockets).
As for the arts economy, support for an artist also entails implicit support for the whole production chain, which is everything from materials, curating and cataloguing down to teaching, training and ensuring there is a viable career development path.
So rephrasing the question might clarify matters – provide basic support to the workers (artists) or give extra support to the managers (bureaucracy)?
As for any debate about prioritising health over art, you can always question the actual amounts spent, but from a humanistic perspective an active cultural life is a vital component of a healthy society – so you can’t have the one without the other.