We need some cuts - but don't starve the arts

12 April 2012

In the year 2110, it is just possible that one of our grandchildren's children will mount an exhibition looking back on our funny little epoch. They'd find a common theme in the artworks made just before the comprehensive spending review of 2010 - which our future spawn may just recognise as the event that tipped humanity towards famine, war and those miserable decades of submission to the rat kingdom.

There'd be Cornelia Parker's image of the Angel of the North, its wing sadly clipped; Mark Wallinger's Turner landscape with a hole in it; David Shrigley's cute animation for the Save the Arts campaign.

The future art critic will pause. Was their own funding really the most pressing concern for these artists? Did no other injustice provoke such creativity? And why oh why did no one see the coming of the rat overlords?

Arts cuts may seem a parochial issue in the grand scheme of things but back in the present day, the urgency is understandable. Kept afloat by a delicate combination of public subsidy and independent revenue, the arts benefit us by encouraging commerce and, less tangibly, by "helping to bind people together and create real social value", as the arts minister himself, Ed Vaizey, once put it. They civilise us.

The mooted 25 per cent cut would unbalance a fragile ecosystem where, for instance, a play like War Horse may begin in the publicly funded National Theatre and run for years in the West End. "You don't prune a tree by cutting at its roots," as Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate, warned yesterday.

Between artworld paranoia and George Osborne's axe-wielding mania, it can be hard to find thinking room. While no one doubts the damage that random chop-choppery would cause, few in the arts world ask if it is healthy to be so reliant on government funding - or how, for instance, the Royal Academy or Kings Place put out good stuff without any.

There are alternatives. According to this week's report by Arts & Business, a body charged with bridging commerce and culture, only two per cent of "philanthropically active" individuals give to the arts, accounting for just eight per cent of the sector's income. Our own millionaires could learn from the American tycoon, Andrew Carnegie, who gave away $4.3 billion in his lifetime, according to his excellent motto: "The man who dies rich dies disgraced."

Artists can be suspicious of the corporate shilling, but pop musicians have realised that licensing a song for an advert can fund more experimental projects. Other avenues include friends schemes, such as the Royal Academy's, or funding models such as WeFund.co.uk, launched this week - artists make their pitch, micro-donors give fivers and tenners if they like the look. Again, that's an American idea.

For all this, however, as Arts & Business make clear, simply removing subsidy would undermine, rather than encourage, attempts to build fresh commercial streams.

True. But only the worst kind of cynic would suggest that, as a publicly funded organisation ... well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

* Now we've all worked out our alternative routes, the disruption caused by the RMT strikes doesn't seem so fraught. In fact, there was a weary kindness at work on Monday. "Get up, stretch your legs, I won't go without you," said our Victoria line driver as we stopped for 10 minutes at Euston. Later, a number 22 bus driver gave a tender smile as he revealed he would indeed go to Green Park. It's the little things...

You couldn't wish for better bad luck

Jonathan Franzen's publishers must be rubbing their hands with glee. I went along to the Southbank Centre last week to hear the author read from his new novel, Freedom. Speaking with restrained anger, Franzen revealed that a publishing error saw the uncorrected draft of Freedom, rather than the final version, end up on the shelves.

Bad luck? My immediate thought, seeing the botched edition in my friend's hands, was: get that puppy signed! It will surely become a collector's item. And think how many of Franzen's fans will now buy the book twice.

This week the author fell victim again - some rotter stole his glasses at his launch party and jumped into the Serpentine. Humiliation? Hardly. A police helicopter was reportedly called in to catch the thief. A helicopter? They never did that for Tolstoy.

Bring on the singalong-a-samizdat

I was in the small Devonshire town of Seaton at the weekend, celebrating my friend Tom's 30th in a seafront pub. As the storm lashed outside, the karaoke night was in full swing.

Into the pub walked a dreadlocked Jamaican man named Steve, one would guess the only rasta in the village. He asked the karaoke master for UB40's Red Red Wine, only instead of singing, used the backing track to launch into a display of dancehall MC-ing that would have impressed Buju Banton himself. It was magnificent.

Later, Steve recounted how he'd once used the karaoke night to perform a self-penned diatribe about "George Bush an' Tony Blair in 'elmand Province" (he described stony faces). Now who'd have thought a karaoke machine could be put to such subversive use? Every community should have one.

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