Alan Davey, Liverpool, 2008. Credit: Piers Allardyce
It may seem strange to be publishing a document with the ambition 'Achieving great art for everyone' when, at the time of publication, central government funding for the arts has been cut, reflecting wider pressures on public spending says ALAN DAVEY, Chief Executive, Arts Council England.
It is not strange, it is vital.
This year of writing, 2010, is a golden one for the arts. Investment in theatres is paying off, with producing theatres all over the country making challenging work that is engaging audiences everywhere. Last year we had two great Hamlets from David Tennant (and his understudy Edward Bennett) and Jude Law, this year two more from Rory Kinnear and John Simm – all very different, with different insights. Some young and already great choreographers such as Hofesh Shechter and Akram Khan are producing work that really does get to the heart of humanity.
The eight symphony orchestras that we fund for less than the public subsidy of the Berlin Philharmonic are pushing the boundaries for classical music, bringing curious audiences with them, with a collection of conductors who in individual ways are exploring different artistic avenues to the benefit of musical life in this country. Our opera companies are also challenging themselves artistically, and English National Opera in particular has come through a period of turmoil to something great, with rigorous musical excellence led by Edward Gardner at the core of its achievement. Traditional musical forms that go deep into the roots of the country are enjoying renewal – artists like Sam Carter mining a future by exploring forms from the past.
New galleries such as Nottingham Contemporary are attracting audiences to experience the best of contemporary visual arts for the first time. Their opening David Hockney exhibition was intelligent and popular and I am proud of our association with numerous ground- breaking shows from the astonishing and moving Wolfgang Tillmans retrospective at the Serpentine Gallery to Bridget Riley in Birmingham and elsewhere. And poetry goes from strength to strength, from our collaboration with Faber and Faber which produced pamphlets with a new generation of poets, to several collections from poetry publishers we support being shortlisted for major prizes.
So much more could be said – but in 2010 we have the conditions for excellence in the arts in this country that are quite simply working. We want to keep this golden age alive, for the long-term good of the arts themselves, for their place in society, and simply for the fact they make this nation rich in intellectual, spiritual and economic terms. They are part of our collective soul and common wealth. As President John F Kennedy said, quoting Robert Frost, ‘The nation that disdains the arts...has nothing to look back on with pride or forward to with hope’.
Key to these conditions are two things: the mixed economy of funding from public and private sources, where public investment is made to work hard; and the arm’s length arrangements for providing central government funding for artists through an independent expert Arts Council. This latter ensures that decisions are made for reasons of artistic merit and not short-term political instrumentalism. What Keynes described in 1946 as a uniquely British arrangement, that has been copied and admired the world over, has resulted in particular success in this country.
Sustaining that success is going to be very challenging. Overall, we will have less public money to spend. Less from the Arts Council, less from local government. The fiscal elements of the successful mixed economy of the arts will have to work harder. We will work in this period to try and deliver more from the private sector, by improving fundraising skills and the overall culture of giving to the arts, but this is not a quick job or a quick fix. And in the meantime the bottom line is that the Arts Council and our funding partners will have to make tough decisions, exercise judgement, and try to do what is best for arts and culture.
We must do so not with a view to the short term, but the long, looking to support artistic aspiration across a period of time that bridges current austerity into better economic times. Hence this booklet. It is a manifesto for ambition and a framework for getting there. It distills in very short form the results of many conversations with artists and arts organisations, with audiences and other people who are interested, about the kind of ambition the Arts Council should have in the job it does over the next 10 years. We hope the ambition set out here matches that of the arts leaders, artists and audiences we have been talking to.
It begins with excellence, because without that what we do does not work. It is imbued with our collective ambition to realise our full potential – to respond to technology, to widen our international perspective, to instill resilience and build sustainability. Running throughout is the need for collaboration – an ambition in which the Arts Council will lead by example. For us to do our job well, requires a clear sense of the needs of the artists and audiences we serve. That is a sobering responsibility, one not be taken lightly. In the dark hours before the dawn I am frequently awed by the responsibility we have but equally determined we will do it well. Everyone in the Arts Council shares this ambition – we need you who work in the arts to continue to help us. Thank you for your help so far.
At a time when the arts are at their best, we need to hang onto the fact that we really have found a way of supporting the arts in this country that works – combining money from local and national government, from the National Lottery, and from private and corporate giving, delivered at arm’s length from political expediency. We need to keep that, it is in itself a precious national treasure.
A precious thing that provides the means to admit the marvellous and the beautiful into our lives and into the fabric of our nation.
That is what Achieving great art for everyone is about. That is why it matters.
