Artists and policy-making: the English case

The 1980 UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of the Artist emphasised the importance of including artists in the policy-making process. However, 30 years later, evidence suggests that artists often have only marginal involvement in the policy-making of UNESCO member states. This paper explores how visual artists in England relate to arts policy-making. An overview is provided of how artists fared in arts policy during the 50 years following the creation of the Arts Council of Great Britain (ACGB) in 1946. A more detailed account is then given of how visual artists featured in the policy-making of Arts Council England (ACE) and the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) during the period of the New Labour government, 1997–2010. The conclusion is drawn that, despite an official rhetoric which claimed artists occupied a priority position within English arts policy during this period, in reality artists continued to lack visibility and influence.     

The nonprofit arts organization concept and its transformation in Korea

ABSTRACT

After the Korean War, both the autocratic and later democratic South Korean governments actively fostered the development of Korea’s arts sector, in part by emulating the organizational and legal structures of U.S. nonprofits. Yet, in this policy transfer, Korea has taken a different path, notably rearticulating the U.S.-style hands-off facilitation model to reflect and accommodate Korean political, institutional, and cultural exigencies. We analyze the effects of the resulting cultural policy on Korean public arts institutions, using documentary evidence and narratives from our case studies of two national arts organizations restructured by the government: The National Theater Company of Korea and the Seoul Arts Center. We employ the concept of cultural statism, conditioned by "culture as glorification," resource dependence, and path dependence, to understand the development of Korea’s public arts sector. Specifically, we consider: the government’s desire to use the arts to enhance its image on an international stage shaped by western liberal democratic values; arts leaders’ desire for reliable support (resource dependence); and the tendancy of Koreans to want to be associated with the stability and prestige of the government (path dependence).     

ADMINISTRATIVE DEFINITIONS OF ARTISTS IN THE NORDIC MODEL OF STATE SUPPORT FOR ARTISTS

This article considers the role of public arts policy in producing societal definitions for “art” and “artists”. It examines administrative definitions generated and used by the Nordic system of state support for artists and reflected in its administrative categories and structures of decision‐making. Using the concepts of “artistic field” and “artistic classification system” as starting points, the article focuses on the regulated and institutionalized interaction of the state and artistic fields in decision making, and on the administrative categories emerging from this interaction. Through this interaction, professional and administrative definitions of “art” and “artist” are closely intertwined in the four countries discussed. The administrative categories examined show considerable variation between the countries related to differences in the nature of this interaction. The definition power involved in state support for artists is related to the nature of this interaction, as well as to such factors as the legitimating arguments, objectives and criteria for the support.     

THE THERAPEUTIC STATE

State subsidy for the arts in Britain has been determined by a variety of political and social factors over the last two hundred years. This article examines the recent emergence of a therapeutic ethos that has come to shape arts policy in the United Kingdom. It begins with a survey of existing literature describing a shift in Britain’s arts policy since the 1970s. It examines the limitations of existing explanations and suggests another explanatory factor – the growing valorisation of the arts as a therapeutic tool to address social problems. This can be seen in two historically convergent trends: the challenge to cultural authority through the emergence of a therapeutic understanding of creativity, and the reorientation of political activism around issues of culture and wellbeing. Finally, the article considers how and why these ideas became institutionalised in Britain’s main arts policy body – the Arts Council.     

‘The problem with permanence is that you’re stuck with it’: the public arts centre building in the twenty-first century

Dedicated arts centres were a common outcome of the great expansion of the public sphere in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the early twenty-first century, however, many of our arts centres present a challenge to cultural policy-making. Expensive to maintain and operate, they are often ill-equipped to host the increasingly diverse range of communities and arts practices that have emerged with each generation. The article outlines the difficulties that the presence of such arts centres present to cultural policy-makers, using case studies of four Australian centres. It argues that the ‘mobilities turn’ in sociology provides a useful framework for considering the challenges posed by a static building and its array of highly mobile stakeholders. The study focuses on the perceptions of arts centre managers as cultural intermediaries – giving voice to the opportunities and constraints for the arts centre building and to the needs and interests of public policy-makers, artists and audiences, and juggling the tensions between the ideological, political, demographic and cultural forces that define the field in which they routinely operate. The managers negotiate distinctive challenges that arts centres face within the context of decentralised and fluid understandings of creative spaces for contemporary leisure practices.     

Putting the “art” back into arts policy making: how arts policy has been “captured” by the economists and the marketers

Abstract: This paper explores the current discourse about arts policy and funding and its placement within an economic paradigm. The models of “cultural industry” and “creative industry” are explored and how they affect arts funding discourse. Similarly the impact of the introduction of the language of industry and business to the arts sector is considered. If bottom-line arguments are used by funders, governments and critics to argue the merits or otherwise of arts activity, how does this affect arts practice? In recent times arts funding agencies have been restructured to reflect a market-driven agenda rather than an arts-driven agenda. The impact of all these issues is considered in the context of Australian arts' models in particular, but with reference to examples in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The paper concludes with suggestions for a reassertion of core cultural values in future discourse.     

Keynes’s legacy: an intellectual’s influence reflected in arts policy

As Western governments re‐examine the economic policies of John Maynard Keynes to solve a global financial crisis believed to be almost as severe as the Great Depression, this article examines his influence on arts policy. The article articulates and examines the central assumptions that underlie the arm’s length policy model, such as Keynes’s preference for semi‐autonomous non‐governmental bodies, and locates the sources of those assumptions and ideas in Keynes’s political philosophy and his involvement in higher education. Knowing this history enables policymakers and arts administrators to recognize how contemporary policy still reflects this thinking.     

‘Missing’ from policy history: the Dartington Hall Arts Enquiry, 1941–1947

Largely undocumented in the published accounts of cultural policy history in the UK, the Arts Enquiry was a privately funded survey of the arts in wartime England. It was launched in 1941 as an initiative of the Arts Department at Dartington Hall and funded by the trustees of Dartington Hall, who spent £19,000 on the study over its six-year history. The Enquiry brought together artists, intellectuals, philanthropists and arts professionals in specialist committees to examine the visual arts, music, drama and documentary film. Three book-length studies were published: The Visual Arts (1946), The Factual Film (1947) and Music (1949). This article examines the history of the Arts Enquiry, its entanglement in the cultural politics of the period and what it reveals about policy formation in the UK, as well as the historiography of cultural policy.     

Counting eyeballs,soundbites and ‘plings’: arts participation,strategic instrumentalism and the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad

This article examines cultural participation, its metrics and ‘drivers’ as they are defined through cultural programming for the London 2012 Olympics. The meanings and interpretation of these terms are considered by examining the development of an evaluation framework for the We Play programme in the North West of England, an initiative funded by Legacy Trust UK and part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. It argues that in spite of the dissonance between arts and sports within Olympics programmes and claims of the deleterious impact on arts funding, particular within the regions, London 2012 has engendered creative programming which strategically deploys the Cultural Olympiad to satisfy local cultural policy objectives as well as meeting broader interests in ‘legacy’ from the Games. Such ambitions require the development of appropriate methodologies for understanding arts participation and engagement for the purpose of evaluation and evidence-based policy making, a particular challenge for such a complex range of activities, sites and settings for arts participation.     

Artists and policy: a case study of the creative industries in north-eastern Australia

Artists play a major role in the cultural fabric of society. They operate within the creative industries, a sector of activity widely accepted as significant to developed and developing economies. While there is a substantive body of literature relevant to the nature of policy-making as applied to the arts, research that explores the views of practitioners at the grass roots level is limited, and particularly so in regional north-eastern Australia, an area with significant challenges caused by isolation and distance. This article contextualises the issues of relevance in relation to artists’ engagement with policy, after which it presents survey and interview data obtained from those working in the field. The findings reveal the influence of isolation in north-eastern Australia, not only in a geographic sense, but in terms of the number of artists who see themselves as disconnected from policy, arts and cultural strategy.     

Cultural planning in Ontario,Canada: arts policy or more?

Cultural planning is often explained as a strategic approach to urban cultural development; an approach that involves the ‘mapping’ and leveraging of a wide range of ‘cultural resources’ (arts, culture, and heritage). However, it is increasingly being questioned whether cultural planning is anything more than a fairly traditional arts policy with a different name. In particular, it has been observed in Australia that cultural plans usually fail to address more than arts sector concerns. The objective of this paper is to investigate whether this assessment applies to cultural planning practice in Ontario, the province at the forefront of the current ‘municipal cultural planning’ push in Canada. An examination of all cultural plans in Ontario’s mid‐size cities and interviews conducted with municipal staff members overseeing these initiatives shows that whereas several municipalities do follow an arts‐driven policy agenda, this is not the case with most mid‐size cities in the province.     

Behind the scenes of public funding for performing arts in Italy: hidden phenomena beyond the rhetoric of legislation

This paper focuses on how Italian performing arts organizations were funded between 2003 and 2005. How does policy regulate the financing system for performing arts? What are the underlying logics that govern financing choices? In this paper the authors move beyond the simple examination of formal policies by analysing the funding data and organizational routines of the ministerial offices responsible for the allocation of grants. The authors implemented a multi‐method research methodology consisting of document analysis, in‐depth interviews, and quantitative analysis of funding data. The main findings can be summarized as follows. First, funds are continuously allocated to the same group of organizations. Second, although rigid, the system is imbued by a ‘rhetoric of the project’. Third, the system does not reward innovation. In conclusion, only by studying how the law is actually implemented can one capture the choices that underlie financing actions, and thus unravel unanticipated outcomes and inconsistencies between rhetoric and conduct.     

The art of nationalism: Artists' perspectives on the Latvian Centenary film programme

In the aftermath of several decades of neoliberalism in Eastern Europe, the social fabric of post-socialist societies is frayed. In this context, nationalist cultural policies and everyday displays of national belonging have emerged as key instruments of social solidarity. There has recently been a drive of state initiatives in Latvia in the field of cultural policy aimed at strengthening national identity. In this paper, we focus our attention on one particular cultural policy initiative, Latvian Films for Latvian Centenary. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 16 film directors who participated in the Centenary film programme, the paper explores how artists and cultural operators involved in this programme are mobilised as national(ist) subjects and how they see their work within such a framework. We argue that nationalist cultural policy can be successfully implemented because the artists, themselves formed as responsible political and moral subjects in the tradition of Latvian cultural nationalism, share a regard for culture and the arts as a resource for sustaining the political statehood and the national community. However, the artists also recognise the limitations of their work as a source of social cohesion and solidarity in a society that is ethnically divided.     

Arts and culture in an era of austerity: key stakeholder views on the current and future Australian context

The arts and culture sector in many countries faces major challenges, as a consequence of ongoing austerity measures and changes in the ways in which the arts are experienced. In major nations such as the United States, the United Kingdom and in several European countries, there is considerable pressure to look for new ways of surviving in an age of consumerism, accountability and rapidly changing technologies. On the other hand, many Asian countries have invested heavily in building their arts and culture sector as part of the new twenty-first-century economy. The arts and culture sector in Australia faces serious challenges at present, including ongoing fiscal pressures, an absence of any national cultural policy and disruption as a consequence of changing governments. In order to explore these issues, interviews were held with 22 key leaders from a range of Australian organisations associated with arts representation, funding, policy and advocacy. The findings highlight both the challenges and opportunities facing Australia towards what may be considered the next wave of innovation and change.     

Fiddling for outcomes: traditional music,social capital,and arts policy in Northern Ireland

Arts development policies increasingly tie funding to the potential of arts organisations to effectively deliver an array of extra‐artistic social outcomes. This paper reports on the difficulties of this work in Northern Ireland, where the arts sector, and in particular the so‐called ‘traditional arts’, have been drawn into a politically ambiguous discourse centred on the concepts of ‘mutual understanding’ and, more recently, ‘social capital’. The paper traces the recent history of these policies and the difficulties in evaluating the social outcomes of arts programs. The use of the term ‘social capital’ in the work of Putnam and Bourdieu is considered. The paper argues, through a rereading of Bourdieu’s articulation of the ‘forms’ of capital and Eagleton’s ‘ideology of the aesthetic’, the concept of social capital can be released from its current neoliberal trappings by imagining a reconnection of the concepts of ‘capital’ and ‘the aesthetic’.     

Parties,promises and politics: exploring manifesto discourse on arts policy in Westminster,Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections 1945–2011

This study addresses a key knowledge-gap by exploring the role of electoral politics in shaping public policy on the arts. Analysis of the prioritisation and use of language in party manifestos in state-wide and regional elections in the UK reveals that over recent decades there has been a sharp increase in the attention parties give to arts policy as they compete for the political centre-ground. It also shows how the framing of arts policy has broadened from an initial concern with social policy objectives to emphasise economic benefits and boosting international standing. However, parties have generally failed to advance comprehensive arts strategies raising accountability issues in relation to future government policy. Against the backdrop of a global trend of state restructuring, the analysis reveals how devolution is leading to the territorialisation of policy – as framing is contingent on ‘regional’ party politics, including nation-building by civic nationalist parties.     

The 2010 Cultural Olympiad: playing for the global or the local stage?

Increasingly, local cultural communities are called upon to support global mega‐events such as the Olympic games with the promise that this global occurrence is a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’ for an urban artistic community. What evidence exists to support the premise that hosting a Cultural Olympiad provides a professional arts sector with positive and substantive legacies, sustained material and financial benefits, or increased national and international profile? Data collected on the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad suggest that the local arts sector did not enjoy any of the claimed global benefits. However, it is also clear that some arts organizations, by virtue of the artistic and operational decisions they took, were able to exert influence over and upon the outcome; this outcome ultimately depending on whether they elected to play for a global or a local stage.     

The process of privatisation of cultural heritage and the arts in Italy: analysis and perspectives

During the last decade, institutional changes in the cultural heritage sector triggered some fierce debate in Europe. This paper analyses the complex process of privatising cultural heritage and the arts in Italy, showing how the relationship between this process and urban regeneration policies is tacitly legitimising it, despite the harsh controversies it previously provoked. From a perspective of ‘territorialisation’ discussed in this paper, this policy process could enhance the involvement of the private sector, bringing to light new fields of research and application in the international heritage debate.     

Fad,fetish or fixture: contingent valuation of performing and visual arts festivals in Singapore

This paper analyses how much culture is valued in a newly-developed economy with a distinct dichotomy of an arts-appreciating population segment and a less-culturally aware mass. An analytical framework weaving together the intrinsic, business and societal benefits of arts and culture is applied to explore whether arts festivals – a popular tourism event in many countries – are a temporary fad, an expensive governmental fetish or a naturally-evolving fixture. This has implications for government funding and cultural policy. Empirical evidence supports the notion that the long-running performing arts festival is a not a fad but a fixture with some fetish elements while the visual arts festival appears to be a fad but has the potential to be a fixture. Of particular concern, however, is the evidence from both festivals that the perceptions of community benefit, business benefits as well as bequest value from the arts are not significant determinants of willingness to pay for these events.     

The question of national identity and the institutionalisation of the visual arts in Grenada

ABSTRACT. This article argues for a close relationship between national identity and the institutionalisation of the visual arts in Grenada. Art, which is intrinsic to all humans, predates its institutionalisation: it is only institutionalised in societies with a strong sense of national identity. In order to explain the role of national identity in the formation of national art, the article begins by examining the period following World War II, when Grenada – still under British colonialism – was undergoing intense social and political changes. To understand these changes, the analysis of the stratification system is paramount. The article delineates three groups on the basis of the value systems developed historically: the elite, the masses and a small, growing middle class situated between these two groups. The works of three prominent Grenadian artists illustrate the argument that institutionalisation of art requires a strong sense of national identity, and through this process the artistic development of a society occurs. Furthermore, understanding this process requires a focus on the ways in which social and political groups or classes impeded the development of a national identity, preventing the institutionalisation of the arts.