When I hear the word culture, I reach for my wallet
Civitas, 28 October 2010
This has not been a good week for culture. A pincer movement has been occurring, with rumours that the state of Qatar is looking to buy Christie’s, and the decimation of the Arts Council. While of course unrelated, both have the potential to undermine Britain’s status as a cultural standard-bearer, the former through over-emphasising culture as a product and the latter through understating its value. In the so-called ‘Age of Austerity’, it appears that culture has stopped being a priceless necessity and become just another luxury good that can be accrued or done without.
The sale of Christie’s to Qatar is not currently on the cards, but is worrisome nonetheless due to the motive behind it. Qatar’s emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani said: ‘it [Christie’s] has links with the stuff we are collecting for our museum’. Stuff? Such a description belittles the objects passing through the auction house and is perhaps very revealing of mind-set behind the buyout. Qatar wishes to amass its museum pieces through volume purchases rather than the slow accretion of quality our far poorer institutions have to make to with. This bulk-buying of works of art is more reminiscent of Elton John and his words ‘how do I acquire taste?’
The elephant in the room here is surely the conflict of interest such a Qatari-owned Christie’s would create. As stated, the hope is that Christie’s will act as a syphon of pieces into the state and Qatar can hardly act as a neutral middleman if it is going to buy the lion’s share of the auction lots for itself. Commercially, confidence in Christie’s would drop and with this, so would the flow of objects through the House.
In essence, an instant museum is not the solution but for Britain, the concern should be the steady flow of domestic works (old and new) that this would lead to. There are continual reminders of the impoverished state of our museums and the loss of a spectacular Roman helmet is only the latest. The ‘Mona Lisa’ effect of unique artefacts drawing in paying punters is well known and balances nicely with keeping British treasures in Britain. The problem could only be exacerbated by having an effective rival at the reins of Christie’s.
This underfunding of culture is endemic in British society. The latest cuts to the UK Arts Council budget is the most recent but by no means the first or the last. All 800 organisations currently receiving regular funding from it will have to reapply, including obvious contenders like the Royal Opera House. With 100 potentially facing now a funding drought, the other 700 are facing unnecessary stress and bureaucracy. Wasn’t this exactly the sort of thing the Government has been railing against? Yes according to Jeremy Hunt: ‘cuts in administration and bureaucracy will always be considered ahead of decisions that could affect creative output’.
There is a continual ethos of unworthy until proven otherwise in funding the arts and the constant difficulties disincentives many from entering the market. This attitude is perhaps based on the assumption that most arts projects are not self-sustaining and rely on taxpayer money for their existence. Clearly, this is false for the majority of applicants. A crude analogy could be drawn with Enterprise Capital Funds which aim to foster small businesses in the UK. This provides a stimulus from state funds with the expectation of growth and profit – beneficial for all. Arts funding should be seen in the same light, as providing a stimulus in the form of the oft-quoted ‘a hand up not a hand out’ formula. The Arts Council provides a special form of support for where the normal investment market fails but even then, it should celebrate diversity rather than making safe bets. The idea that funded arts are niche and therefore surplus to requirements is a fallacy held by many. By virtue of their outcome, successful projects that break even or return a profit are clearly reaching enough of an audience to justify their funding.
Money may make the world go round and art inevitably is tied to this as well but Britain is now facing two scenarios with too much money in one and not enough in the other, both with negative consequences. At the end of the day, if the Arts Council and wider art subsidies run dry, Qatar won’t have to buy Christie’s to import culture, it will just have to offer more funding than Britain and wait for the applicants to start rolling in. Britain in the ‘Age of Austerity’ may not be able to raise its cultural budget and help all artistic endeavours, but it should certainly not be chasing them away instead.