The Arts Are An Industry

Great Moments In Socialism 41 Comments

It’s time they grew up and started acting like one;

I’m a prairie photographer who maintains his own Web site (neutralhillsstills.ca) and tracks referral traffic to it. In the past several years I’m lucky if I’ve seen more than 4 unique visitors come to me from the recently deceased culture.ca. In the same period I’ve had many thousands of visitors sent to me from photoblog tracking sites like photoblogs.org and Canadian Weblogs such as smalldeadanimals.com (the latter generating many hundreds of dollars in print sales). Neither of these two sites receive any government funding, yet they’re consistently among my top referrers. Culture.ca won’t be missed, except perhaps by those who drew a salary from it.

41 Replies to “The Arts Are An Industry”

  1. “Culture.ca won’t be missed, except perhaps by those who drew a salary from it.”
    Makes me think of pretty much every other federal and provincial government program.
    Capitalism works unless you are the Lowest Common Denominator.

  3. David Warren’s magazine “The Idler” could not get any government support. Best magazine ever published in Canada, I’d say. That says it all about gov’t support for the arts …

  4. Having seen what happens in a small community with a BIG arts funding bank account – this outfit ‘fund friends’. The ‘friends’, who are not often talented, of the bureaucrates in control of the cash; will be squawking but the rest of us will be spared the horrible, tasteless productions we have been taxed for in the past.

  5. I wonder if I could get a Canada Arts Council grant for the piece of Canadian art that I’ve envisioned. It’s a headstone made of feces, with Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s name on it. Standing on one side is a statue of a farmer (made of wheat, beef, and oil) who is urinating on the headstone, and on the other side are statues of two naked males (one white, one black) holding hands, and ‘showering their love’ on the headstone. It symbolizes the truly Canadian aspect of how Western Canada feels about our most controversial P.M., and the love that the gay and ethnic community feel for him for espousing minority rights.
    Do you think I could get a couple of million for it?

  6. Something I have noticed is that according to the Left and often MSM, the Harper Conservatives are not allowed to cancel ANYTHING. Cancelling anything results in a great cry of outrage — whether it’s National Litercy stuff (which was a big bureaucracy that never had much to do with actual people who needed literacy training), or Court Challenges (originally designed to test the Charter but twisted into an entrenched leftie slush fund — you could not get funded if they did not like your politics — or information access databases that 13 people used. EVERYTHING the Harper government has cut — even where cuts are totally justifiable as poor value for money — the Conservatives have been attacked. I understand that the media typically seeks out issues that will cause people to become angry, but by not taking time to look into the background of changes that are being made, they are once again short-changing Canadians who deserve to know the full story on things like the “National Literacy Secretariat”. Quite frankly the MSM has not bothered to look at the sham projects that get funded with many of these arts grants. I have heard publishers talk about how there is a temptation to publish even very poor writing because you can make more by getting a government grant for publishing a previuosly unpublished author than you ever hope to get on sales. I don’t know about you, but I think this is a sellout of Canadian culture, rather than a support. But according to the Left and MSM Canada was perfect under the Liberals and there is no need EVER to make any changes to hundreds of programs and special interest groups. The fact that the latest cuts are being made after a thorough program review seems to be irrelevant.

  7. grok
    “”””Do you think I could get a couple of million for it? “”””””
    you under value your talent:-))))))

  8. Anyone else notice that dan leger is a pompus, snooty asshole with all kind of baseless, ignorant assumptions about the “unwashed masses” he seems to think he’s above?

  9. The “Nova Scotia News” column is pathetic, but it shows the all-too-common belief that everything comes from the GovaMint and that the sun shines from the PM’s … .
    Probably the most important factors in developing the visual arts in English Canada were the firms Massey-Harris, and Grip Ltd.
    Massey-Harris [a profitable manufacturer of farm implements – ooooh how untrendy] provided the money for Lawren Harris, who was
    a) a member of the Group of Seven
    b) a discrete provider of support for the Group of Seven
    c) a great advocate of Canadian art in general and the Group of Seven in particular (not to mention Emily Carr);
    and also for Vincent Massey, who was a patron of the arts whose purchases of David Milne’s works provided niggardly
    but probably essential support for Milne, and have also given the National Gallery of Canada a remarkable collection of Milne’s works.
    Massey’s patronage was not confined to Milne – Varley’s portrait of Massey is well known, for instance.
    As for Grip – well, it was an advertising firm that was the cradle of the Group of Seven and Tom Tomson.
    Yes, kiddies, most of the Group of Seven were working stiffs, commercial artists who painted their famous works in their spare time.
    Grip was founded by J. W. Bengough, a remarkable cartoonist. When you call up an image of Sir John A. it is most likely that
    Bengough was responsible for that image … but I digress.
    But I will pose the question: what have gov’t funded artists accomplished in the past twenty years
    that comes anywhere near the work of the Group of Seven, or David Milne, or even J. W. Bengough?

  10. Oh, and anyone notice that all the best Art, Literature, theatre, music, etc. were all produced BEFORE there was government “support” of “Artists”?

  12. John Lewis said”: “Best magazine ever published in Canada, I’d say. That says it all about gov’t support for the arts …”
    Hear, hear.
    …-
    “Ode to the Idler
    by Judi McLeod
    September 16, 2002
    There was something strangely indefinable about The Idler Pub that made it a winter kind of place. Howling winter winds somehow make a tunnel at the juncture of Davenport and Avenue Roads. Winter-whipped winds blew many people into the Idler, and as long as Manny Drukier was there, you felt you had arrived home.
    Manny, the most genial of hosts, was usually there. It’s difficult to believe that he won’t be after Sept. 22.
    The bar was named after The Idler, a literary and political commentary magazine that Drukier published upstairs from the pub he ran for 15 years. A spiral staircase led to the upper floor offices, and they threw fabulous parties there when the magazine, which wound down in 1993, was in its heyday.
    The amusing David Warren, who edited the magazine, came down to the pub from his loft to quench his thirst.”
    http://www.canadafreepress.com/2002/edesk91602.htm

  13. The site is a 7 on the Google Pagerank. I wonder what the monthly traffic was for the site? The government should definitely sell the site and domain name for some cash.

  14. “So with pratfalls like those to work with, the PM and friends see easy pickings in attacking the effete and sensitive ranks of the artistic community.”
    This sounds alot like how the Liberals see the west as “easy pickings” WRT to the Green Shaft.
    “Culture.ca won’t be missed, except perhaps by those who drew a salary from it.”
    FIRE.THEM.ALL.

  15. Thanks John Lewis! (re Milne & Massey, Grip, Harris, etc)
    I live in Calgary, and there are at least three art galleries with a component directed towards the sale of works from historical Canadian artists. It is always wonderful to wander into these establishments and check out the latest acquisitions – notably the works don’t stay on the walls for long – Calgarians are avid collectors.
    I was just in Ottawa recently – there is only one gallery that I was aware of that had works from historical Canadian artists – and they had TWO PAINTINGS on display. (In our national capital no less.)
    I have heard on the radio that Calgarians spend more on tickets for “the arts” than “sports”.
    So, Dan Leger, a big raspberry to you!

  17. “Harper knows he is going to get zero per cent of the cultural vote”. I guess only Liberals have any culture.
    A dress made of meat.
    More than one display of disgust directed at suburbanites,-just because they’re suburbanites. Reference to some artist’s belief that “regular folks are too stunned” to appreciate art.
    Peter MacKay is a “arse licker of Satan”.
    If this guy is typical of the “cultured folk”, then “artists and their brilliance” sure won’t have to travel all the way to hell to find an arse to lick. They can sure kiss mine.

  18. Hey DDT – you are right! Let alone the fact that other organizations such as the National Arts Orchestra are so so so heavily subsidized – live in Ottawa – you barely have to pay for any of your own entertainment! I guess Calgary is just the suburban Canada to urban YOW/YYZ

  19. Some local artists here, e. g., Michael Forsberg Photography, install small, portable kiosks at the airport. It seems silly but if an artist is good, the work itself stops even a weary traveler dead in their tracks. The kiosk is stocked with flyers that point you to his website. Even with the famous Bemis here in Omaha, no one around here waits for the government to fund the arts. One would starve – and that’s how it should be.

  20. Except for a few notable exceptions–and the rest have moved to the U.S.–Canadian “art” is nondescript and decidedly unmemorable. This is especially the case with the plays that have been churned out by Canadians-on-a-grant over the past 40 years.
    When I lived in Ottawa years ago, I went to a lot of Canadian plays, heavily subsidized by Canada Council and Ontario Arts Council grants and they were LOUSY. They were ponderous, self-important, self-conscious, deeply psychological, boring, twaddle.
    None of them have survived, that I know of…just water down the drain…taxpayer dollars down the black hole of government subsidies.
    I’s little wonder our “arts communities” haven’t turned out much of distinction. When you’re sucking at the government teat and slurping from the government trough, you’ve no reason to be cutting-edge. The only thing you’re cutting is the envelope open that’s got your government cheque inside.

  21. I was thinking before about feces and a copy of W*rman’s CHRC complaint…
    Do I go with corn or peanuts???

  22. Real artists don’t need handouts.
    Real artists are those who can produce real art out of their own resources and sell their work in the private sector.
    Like Kate McMillan, for example. Her art is actually art and requires extraordinary talent, concentration and patience to produce.
    On the other hand, those who depend on taxpayer-dollars handouts tend to be those who have no talent and only seek attention, usually by being as offensive and obscene as possible, like, perhaps, taking a dump on a piece of canvas and calling it whatever and claiming it symbolizes whatever.
    Human beings with rational minds can tell the difference between art and nonsense. They don’t need some “sophisticated”, “urbane”, flamboyantly pretentious big-city liberal moonbat to tell them what is and isn’t art, for they can see for themselves instinctively.
    Just look at ancient art. You can tell that it took real talent. In ancient times, only an insane person would consider moonbat-extremist nonsense as “art”, and this is why there wasn’t any back then, why non-art “art” is actually a relatively new phenomenon, a fad, if you will.
    I’d say, let the marketplace decide what will and what won’t succeed as art. The fakers and fraudsters peddling nonsense belying their talentlessness will pretty much go away, no longer able to get easy money for producing easy crap.

  24. Conservatives have a long uphill battle to turn Canadians away from the thought that it is the government’s job to step in and fund everyones wants. I mean the government does a lousy job of fulfilling citizens true needs in areas that are actually within the feds responsibility. I know the CPC is doing this incremental conservatism thingy but I fail to see how increasing culture spending while trimming the edges accomplishes that goal.
    Anyway, the critics of these cuts have the lamest and most see through arguments – CPC’s are mean, the public are philistines, better to spend on culture that Afghanistan and now the false GDP argument. I mean the Conference Board of Canada criteria lumps in very profitable commercial ventures in with floating bananas and sending Avi Lewis to Cuba for a working holiday. Then the media interprets (spins) this into a story about how the GDP of the whole industry justifies taxpayers funding the crap art and socialist junkets.

  25. Sentinal …. YES they will … but the moaning and groaning we would be forced to endure from the proponents of entitlement would be awful.

  26. Most of what he says about the “arts community” is true. “Voice of Fire”, however, was money well spent. It’s now worth much more than the National Gallery paid for it.

  27. The arrogance of transparent Liberal shills like Leger never ceases to amaze. They constantly assert, without ever coming out and saying in plainly, that the creations that plop out of a particular self-righteous, progressive clique are synonymous with Canadian culture; everyone else, everyone who sees clearly how ridiculous that entitled mindset is, everyone who doesn’t feel like bankrolling a twee little engine-room full of Lib/lefties crafting self-righteous paeans to themselves is not only un-Canadian, but also opposed to *culture*.
    Incroyable.. Lawren Harris, Emily Carr, Wade Hemsworth (“Log Driver’s Waltz”), Joni Mitchell, Stompin’ Tom Connors, Glenn Gould — they must have been imitating Americans, or something. Their work wasn’t government-funded, so it couldn’t be “art”. Whereas “Bubbles Galore,” “Young People F***ing,” “Sophie,” and David Cronenberg’s execrable “Crash”, just to cite a few examples, are no less than fundaments of the collective Canadian identity, yes, an absolutely integral part of our nation’s fabric, powerful Canadian-identity touchstones that are now in grave danger from all those undiscerning, non-Liberal proles who wish to rip from our national heart such all-Canadian expressions of our 416-mindse…er, our all-Canadianinity.
    Dan Leger: “Potential voters…have the right to be wrong in believing, as the federal Tories evidently do, that Canadian culture is insignificant.”
    Nooo, we believe — some of us — that if individual Canadians choose which art they wish to support, the resulting products will, in sum total, look a lot more like true Canadian art than if some Lib-connected remora decide on everyone else’s behalf, and then tax them to pay for it.
    If Dan Leger and his ilk believe that funding cuts from twee to twee means there’d be no Canadian culture, who, exactly, believes that “Canadian culture is insignificant?”
    The answer is entirely obvious.
    Nice try, Danny Boy. Give us another song-and-dance.

  28. I am happy to drag my knuckles into a movie theater or video store than have my money extorted from me to support arts that I largely either disagree with or outright hate.
    Thank you … Thank you very much.

  30. Mark: “It’s now worth much more than the National Gallery paid for it.” How do we know that if it is not up for sale? Has someone offered to buy it for more money? If yes — then by all means sell!

  31. “Easterners buy art too. They just do it with someone else’s money. ;>)”
    Would you mind explaining how that works? Because I’m an easterner, and nobody has bought any art for me. Or was it just some ignorant, dumb*ss remark?

  32. Art is making something out of nothing for no one, basically, anything you can get away with.

  34. “Voices of Fire” … If it’s worth that much sell it … I lived in Ottawa when that was bought. It’s three stripes down an extremely large canvas, and adding insult to injury it was painted by and AMERICAN artist … thank-you National Gallery of Canada … Hanging near by is something called “11” what it really lookes like is a blurry white “8” on a red canvas (if they’d called it “2” everyone would have been in on the joke!!!) In the same room a very large canvas entirely black … I suppose the direction of the brush stokes is important. And yet another black canvas with a thin Yellow line down one edge … I hope you begin to see my point … this room was a total waste of money. It’s almost like the buyers went out looking for ways to fill in very tall walls. None of this was deserving of the name art. I’m pretty sure my money can be better spent than on those acquisitions.

  36. But they do fit into the gallery, which has an alright — not great, but alright — collection of all types of art. Voice of Fire is an example of one type of modern art, and Newman’s pieces have increased in value. The whole Voice of Fire discussion is a red herring, anyway. Newman didn’t get money from taxpayers, he sold his work.
    Canada’s National Gallery has far more serious problems than its choice of art.

  37. David Milne’s works provided niggardly…
    Oh no, he said niggardly, off to the re-education camps…

  38. Culture.ca is nothing more than a collection of over 20,000 LINKS to ‘cultural’ sites.
    Pages and pages and pages of links is their contribution to the “Canadian Culture Online Strategy”.
    Their funding ‘partners’ included:
    Canadian Heritage
    Library Archive
    CBC Radio
    National Art’s Centre
    Virtual Museum
    Historica
    Tax-funded Arts groups funding other tax-funded Arts groups funding other tax-funded Arts…
    In mafia circles it would be considered money laundering.

  40. Artists (real and wannabe) have a peculiar take on economics. A weekly newspaper publisher tells me that art galleries are extremely loath to buy advertising space, instead sending out press releases and demanding the newspaper publish them for FREE. His response is, ‘Well, you don’t GIVE away your artwork, do you?’ Of course, they don’t; the paintings and sculptures sell for thousands of dollars.

  41. Posted by: Canadian Sentinel at August 26, 2008 6:29 PM >
    “Real artists are those who can produce real art out of their own resources and sell their work in the private sector”.
    Great point. It’s amazing the perverted and indecent crap the Canadian “multicultural” arts foundation tries to shove down our throats as art and we are supposed to believe it. Anything truly worthy of appreciation will stand on its own!
    We are paying for a re-education as to what we should appreciate as entertaining and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. The visions of depraved sexual predators who would otherwise be incarcerated if this were not Canada.

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