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Art, Culture & Cultural Policy Anwar Tlili Department of Education & Professional Studies Kings College London Module: Art, Culture & Education 01 October 2013

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Outline of Contents Arts/Cultural Policy; Historical Overview of UK Cultural Policy Art as we know it; Art in relation to competing concepts of culture Culture and the arts as part of the field of public policy in the UK The shift in post-war Britain from private patronage to state patronage as part of the welfare state ethos; then New Right and New Labour policies Tensions, contradictions and challenges Points for discussion: Implications for artistic creativity and the democratization of culture and the arts How arts/cultural educators can/should relate to cultural policies?

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But why Policy? Culture and the Arts are now part and parcel of public policy The need to understand the broader policy context, its impacts and its implications for what professionals value and see as their mission Understanding history is an attempt to understand the present and foresee future trends The different moments of policy: its causes; its initiation; its writing and framing; its documenting; its prescriptive meanings; its dissemination; its individual/organizational/local interpretations; its implementation; its impacts and effects (intended and unintended); its evaluation

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Art as we know it Art as we know it is essentially a modern thing; an aspect of modernity Art as: - a social institution - a professional practice - a category of thought (a mode of thought); a mode of meaning-making - A distinct value sphere (Weber) underpinned by a set of criteria for what counts as art for aesthetic judgement/experience - as a field of study (aesthetics and art criticism: Baumgarten the first to use aesthetics; Kant key in founding it as a coherent area of study in its own right) - as a field of government/policy intervention

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The relative autonomy of art -Five arts came to be recognized as a sphere of human activity: painting, music, sculpture and architecture added to the more established poetry now valued as ends in themselves (rather than seen as signs of prestigious aristocratic lifestyle or as an aspect of religious practices) Art developed into a separate domain, with own relatively autonomous criteria

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Art comprises above all the five major arts of painting, sculpture, architecture, music and poetry On the other hand, certain additional arts are sometimes added to the scheme, but with less regularity, depending on the different views and interests of the authors concerned: gardening, engraving, and the decorative arts, the dance and the theatre, sometimes the opera, and finally eloquence and prose literature this system of the five major arts, which underlies all modern aesthetics and is so familiar to us all, is of comparatively recent origin and did not assume definitive shape before the eighteenth century. Kristeller (1965, pp. 497-98) The Modern System of the Arts in Renaissance Thought II

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The assertion of formalism: art no longer seen as an extension of the beautiful in nature, nor an accessory or function to religious ritual, nor as a copy of a perfect reality/truth/Idea outside art (based on mimesis criteria art judged only on how faithful/close it is to nature, or the original in general) The standard aesthetics approach: the value of art came to be determined in terms of the contrast between the content (the message) of artworks and their forms: Art is essentially about the creative manipulation of form The aesthetic element in art associated with formal attributes e.g. with painting: colours, lines and space; for music: sounds in time; dance: body movement each art form has its peculiar formal properties and formal constraints/possibilities

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Adorno & Form Precisely when form appears emancipated from any pre-established content, the forms themselves acquire their own expression and content. Aesthetic success is essentially measured by whether the formed object is able to awaken the content sedimented in the form. Incontestably the quintessence of all elements of coherence in artworks, is form The difficulty in getting a grasp on it is in part due to the entwinement of all aesthetic form with content; form is not only to be conceived in opposition to content but through it As little as art is to be defined by any other element, it is simply identical with form. Form is the artifacts coherence, however self-antagonistic and refracted, through which each and every successful work separates itself from the merely existing. In artworks, form is aesthetic essentially insofar as it is an objective determination. Its locus is precisely there where the work frees itself from being simply a product of subjectivity.

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Art and the Capitalist Market Contrary to some idealistic understandings of the social history of art, the market under capitalism helped the development of art in many ways; art as a good on the market However, art remains in a contradictory/ambivalent relation to market values/circuits a relation still very visible today It is precisely its distance from market considerations, its non-economic value, that gives art its social meaning and its value (Bourdieu: the logic of the artistic field is an inverted economic logic)

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Art going public to some degree Art thus to a great degree goes public and becomes social: no longer simply something meant to act as beautiful accessories to the private space of the rich and powerful Art in that sense becomes culture art thus becomes a public thing, though public still in very exclusive sense (elitist): not very public

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The Idea of Culture Culture as the best which has been thought and said in the world (Matthew Arnold) The best and most highly valued outcomes of human creativity: i.e. the best in what counts as art, and more precisely high art (as opposed to popular/mass art; popular culture) Elitist definition of culture can be shared by both Left and Right: the case of Adorno and his Culture Industry (2001/1944). Edward Tylors famous founding definition (1871) of the anthropological concept of culture: that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. Echoed by Williams (1952): Culture is ordinary a whole way of life.

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A Policy for Culture? Prior to WWII, the UK state tried to remain uninvolved with the arts: the laisser-faire approach The only intervention was restrictive (to uphold standards of public morality/decency): essentially censorship without proactive support or patronage for the arts. With a few big exceptions: -its involvement in engineering and supporting national museums and local museums to civilize the masses (Bennett 1995); to construct a narrative of nationhood and national grandeur (Anderson 1991) -the BBC (1927): combining education as well as entertainment with a purpose to educate/cultivate the nation; the voice of the nation (above divisions and factions) - subsidies to support orchestras and operas (from the 1930s) - British films (to compete with the all-powerful Hollywood) - The Poet Laureate contest/position

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The turning Point: CEMA The turning point occurred around 1940 during the adverse years of WWII. 1940: setting up CEMA the National Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts To defend British national culture Help heighten a sense of national identity and grandeur Raise morale in times of adversity Funded by the Board of Education

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The Arts Council coming onstage Keyness initiative (John Maynard Keynes). Building on the CEMA precedent The Arts Council of Great Britain 1946 The initial intention was to set it up based on Royal Charter In effect it has functioned as a quango: quasi- autonomous non-govt organization Sir Ernest Pooley: a very important experiment state support without state control.

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The Post-war settlement State patronage for the arts formally started in 1946 with the Royal Charter The post-war settlement helped stabilize the role of the Arts Council within the arms length governance framework: funded by government but not directed by govt Agreement among all politicians that state support for the arts should continue The ethos of the welfare state Principles of social democracy: interventionist state and redistribution The example of the Southbank Centre emerging from the 1951 Festival of Britain.

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The Royal Charter Overall aim: to develop knowledge, understanding and practice of the fine arts inclusively, and in particular to increased accessibility of the fine arts to the public and to improve the standards of execution of the fine arts and to advise and co-operate with Our Government Department, local authorities and other bodies (p. 3)

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Fine arts vs. what? Fine arts remain undefined: vague remit; vague criteria for allocating funds Differences compared to CEMA: -Excluding some art forms; a narrow conception of art; less regional/local focus (CEMAs regional offices were phased out, but re-introduced later in the 1960s). -Perceived as more about allocating grants than promoting arts and making them accessible

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Major Developments mid-60s - Arts Council now under Dept of Education and Science (DES) - Under DES: creating Office and Arts and Libraries (AOL) - Treasury = DES = AOL = Arts Council = Arts/orgs Gov rep for the Arts (but not a full minister) speaking on behalf of the arts sector in Parliament Thus: Gov moved closer to the Arts Council, whilst still formally upholding the arms length principle: now the independent but accountable formula 1967: Amending the Charter: Arts replacing Fine Arts (but still no definition what the range of these Arts looks like) Inconsistency and nervousness about appearing as regulating the Arts (or as dirigiste)

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Post-60s Effects Significant increase in the public expenditure on the arts (especially the earlier part of the 1970s) Debate around what forms of art should be funded and why. Traditionalists vs. anti-elitists championing alternative and broader range of art forms The spirit of 1968: art activism; egalitarian ethos among artists and art professionals Politically conscious art practitioners taking advantage and enhancing the role of community arts and arts centres)

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The Thatcher/Tory Years Rolling back of the state and anti-welfarism Public sector restructuring and cuts in public spending Cuts in state subsidy for the arts The Arts Council in no win situation Encouraging and mainstreaming private sector support for the arts via sponsorship 1992: creating the Dept of Heritage Culture as an industry or set of industries that can help economic growth instrumentalism

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The Rise/mainstreaming of Sponsorship Offering tax concessions to sponsors Creating ABSA (Association for Business Sponsorship for the Arts now Arts & Business): a coordinating role between sponsors and arts organizations; founded in 1976 (on the Rockefeller model): the figure raised from business sponsorship from 600,000 in 1976 to 686 million in 2009; 1988 opened offices in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (http://artsandbusiness.org.uk/)http://artsandbusiness.org.uk/

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The New Labour Years The vision came out in Creative Britain (1998) The creation of DCMS Dept of Culture, Media and Sport (taking over from the Dept of Heritage created in 1992) Brought under its umbrella a wide range of dispersed policy areas: the salience of the concept of the (popular) creative industries: emphasis on linking culture to the economy, promoting national forms of cultural expression (especially British cinema); the social value of culture, creativity and social inclusion: access and excellence go hand in hand (Chris Smith) Thus the claim/ambition/principle: artistic value, cultural (and even social) inclusion, economics are not at odds with one another, but complement another.

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The Creative Industries Turn The New Labour Govts push to harness culture to an economic agenda as well as social policy agenda (e.g. culture-led urban regeneration) An explicitly instrumentalist approach to culture Focus on the cultural activities and products that can have an immediate and tangible economic benefit/impact Commodification of the arts (Gray 2007) New managerialism and performance management brought into the cultural sector

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New Labours Vision Create the Future (Labour Party 1997) states that the cultural industries are vital to the creation of jobs and the growth of our economy. The creative and media industries world wide are growing rapidly we must grasp the opportunities presented. Chris Smith (in Creative Britain): given the levels of growth already experienced in these fields, given the flow of changing technology and digitalisation, given our continuing ability to develop talented people, these creative areas are surely where many of the jobs and much of the wealth of the next century are going to come from (Smith 1998)

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Questions/scepticism around the creative industries Came under criticism from various angles (e.g. Garnham 2005; Galloway & Dunlop 2007; Gray 2007; Oakley 2009) Delimiting creative industries: their distinctiveness? Creative industries: areas of artistic and cultural creativity to be supported for their cultural and economic impacts; or areas of creativity expected to make a creative input into other sectors: the innovation-driven economy The knowledge economy argument: more about revenue from creative activities and intellectual property within an innovation regime (Oakley 2009), than about harnessing the social and civic values/uses of the culture and the arts

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In the Mapping Document, the term creative was chosen so that the whole of the computer software sector could be included. Only on this basis was it possible to make the claims about size and growth stand up. However, this inclusion had two valuable policy consequences for the interests involved. It enabled software producers and the major publishing and media conglomerates to construct an alliance with cultural workers, and with small-scale cultural entrepreneurs, around a strengthening of copyright protection. (Garnham 2005, p. 26)

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Dilemmas in Cultural/Arts Policy Aesthetic value vs. social value Professional vs. amateur Regulation vs. creativity Catering for the best or for the most: a long standing dilemma for the Arts Council and for approaches to cultural policies in general To give people the chance to be creative and experience vs. appreciate the creativity of others Harness that creativity to economic ends quite a different matter

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References Cited Adorno, T.W. (2001/1944) The Culture Industry. London and New York: Routledge. Adorno, A. (2002/1970). Aesthetic Theory. London: Continuum. Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities. London: Verso. Bennett, T. (1995) The Birth of the Museum. London and New York: Routledge. Bourdieu, P. (1995) The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. (Translated by S. Emanuel). Stanford, California: Stanford University Press (originally published 1992). DCMS (1998) Creative Industries Mapping Document. London: DCMS (revised 2001). Galloway, S. & Dunlop, S. (2007) A critique of definitions of the cultural and creative industries in Public Policy, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 13(1), pp. 17-31. Gray, C. (2007) Commodification and Instrumentality in Cultural Policy, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 13(2), pp. 203-215. Kristeller, P. O. (1965) Renaissance Thought II: Papers on Humanism and the Arts. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Labour Party (1997) Create the Future: A Strategy for Cultural Policy, Arts and the Creative Economy. London: Labour Party. Garnham, N. (2005) From cultural to creative industries: An analysis of the implications of the creative industries approach to arts and media policy making in the United Kingdom, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 11(1), pp. 15-29. Oakley, K. (2009) The disappearing arts: creativity and innovation after the creative industries, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 15(4), pp. 403-413 Smith, C. (1998) Creative Britain. London: Faber & Faber. Williams, R. (1952/1989) Culture is Ordinary, Resources of Hope. New York: Verso, pp. 3-18.