Readers will note that the artistic projects deemed exemplary are somewhat uniform in their default politics, which seem unlikely to differ much, if at all, from those of the typical Guardian columnist, or the typical Arts Council employee, or indeed the typical beneficiary of Arts Council largesse.
When “exploring different views” means quite the opposite.
This is a civilization-wide phenomenon these days. Lefties are hilarious in their efforts to pretend that this is all as it should be, nothing to see here, move along.
I think this part is the best one though:
“The leftist lockstep of the arts and theatre establishment, and of recipients of Arts Council subsidy in general, does, however, produce moments of grim and inadvertent comedy. As, for instance, when the Observer’s Jay Rayner noted the “baffled silences” and the “almost total failure of imagination when it comes to working out what a play from the right might actually look like.” When pressed on this point, the suggestions by leftist directors were hypothetical productions that celebrate racism, sexism and rape. Because, clearly, that’s all that a non-leftwing play could possibly be about.”
I have seen countless Lefties make this precise argument. Anything not overtly, obviously and LOUDLY political is racism, sexism, homophobia and/or rape apologist.
Example: https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/2018/11/22/ye-olde-skull-lobster-reading-vox-day-so-you-dont-have-to-part-n1/
“On the one hand, we have Jordan Peterson: transphobic right-wing purveyor of semi-coherent self-help books for people frightened by women going to university. On the other hand, we have Vox Day: a man who regards the terrorist child-murder Anders Brevik as a hero and who pushes a violent nationalism based on pseudo-scientific race theories.”
This is what passes for “deep thought” in some circles.
There’s a profound, but largely unrecognized, irony in that the “arts community”, which (largely) loudly proclaims itself to be at the advent of freedom of thought and expression, should so easily suckle at the coercive and corrosive teat of government. Odd, that.
The other problem with the public funding of arts is that it will always lead to an ever increasing distance between the art itself, and the forced patrons of said art. The committees in charge of art funding will always be afraid of one thing- the appearance of being stodgy and unimaginative. Thus, they will always lean towards funding the most avant garde funding requests that come across their tables. This accelerates the trend. The artists will see that the more “out there” artists are the ones getting funding, leading to them proposing increasingly bizarre art projects in the hopes of getting funding. If the buyers are buying the craziest stuff being offered, then only crazy stuff will be offered. Even in a marketplace that is designed specifically to avoid the supposed corruption of the commercial art marketplace, and eliminate so-called “commercial” art, the marketplace will simply evolve to match sellers with buyers.
The real problem lies in that the real buyers are increasingly offended by the art that they’ve been compelled to purchase. Inevitably the decision makers have to defend their funding decisions, which almost always comes across as painting the taxpayers as ingrates for not being appreciative of the gifts they’ve bought for us with the money they’ve taken from us.
Right on Bill
The “arts community” are simply a welfare dependent lobbying appendage of the institutional left employed as artists and entertainers addicted to the taxing of Joe Sixpack to subsidize those who own tuxedos.
It’s certainly not limited to the UK. An author/publisher of my acquaintance applied for a Canada Council grant and was denied due to “the prospect of commercial success”. It appears that only worthless leftist crap is worthy of government subsidy. If I recall correctly, only a recipient of a Canada Council grant is eligible to sit on the council, thereby guaranteeing continued grants to friends of like political persuasion.
I asked my stepdaughter who is a lefty art professor, why all the different artwork labels describing contemporary/post modern art say the same thing using the same words, rearranged. She doesn’t like being challenged but is a non-confrontational Gen-Xer so it’s difficult to build up any heat. The reality is the left won the culture wars so they have to make stuff up in order to be offended or to offend.
Very interesting; have friends who say the same thing – if you’re not spouting the narrative, you don’t get the free money.
When I did my first book, I pretty much hit the websites of every single Canadian publisher. Now, there are a handful of small commercial shops that cater to a couple of commercially viable niche markets (and niche may be the wrong term). More power to those guys, and the writers who generate the words. The overwhelming majority of the rest make it very clear that they are looking for feminist, aboriginal, LGBT, or immigrant-centric literature of a non-commercial nature, that will come with some form of publishing grant, or is at the very least eligible for a grant. Many make it very clear that they do not want commercially viable works.
“Our culture is a diseased ulcerated boil of subjectivism and relativism, and modern art is the scab.”
https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/modern-art-and-the-dearth-of-culture.html