THE ONLY WAY CULTURE CAN SAVE US
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THE ONLY WAY CULTURE CAN SAVE US
“The arts cement our reputation abroad, are crucial to our smart economy, provide employment at home, fuel cultural tourism, and help form the nation’s psyche – they are vital to our national recovery, writes GERRY GODLEY”
"All art is quite useless." Oscar Wilde
The Irish Times is running a 'laudable' propaganda campaign in opposition to An Bord Snip Nua with regular articles that aim to demonstrate the 'VALUE' of the ARTS and CULTURE. The thrust of these articles is exemplified by Gerry Godley's piece: "5 Ways the Culture Can Save Us". Godley's piece is the first salvo from the "National Campaign for the Arts,…[supported]… by many of our most significant institutions and best known artists". It is a strong and real analysis of CULTURE’S ECONOMIC benefits with a brief mention of those values that have "no measurable output".
Godley begins with a rallying call: "IRISH ARTISTS, your country needs you.” Indeed it does. It also needed them in the previous decade. “…A roll call of totemic figures, including financier Dermot Desmond, philanthropist Loretta Brennan Glucksman, film-maker Neil Jordan and a forthright Minister for Arts, Martin Cullen, all avowed the importance of culture in the economic heavy lifting to come." An unholy alliance of a Stock Broker, a Widow of a Lehman Brothers CEO, a ‘Bright Spark’ turned Hollywood Hack and er… a ‘forthright’ Politician tell us CULTURE will help leverage the country out of a debt it didn’t create. The ‘real’ ECONOMY comes to the rescue of the ‘false’ ECONOMY.
Godley uses his first four points to show 'concrete' ECONOMIC benefits generated by the ARTS [viz: Marketing the Nation, Creative Productivity/Innovation, Employment, and Tourism]. Benefits that promise to bring 'net' returns above the costs of SUBSIDY. It is a well articulated and familiar argument. Is this a 'winnable' argument? Is this where ARTISTS need to put their efforts? The answer to both is resolutely and unfortunately: No. When one engages in defending the ECONOMIC value of ART one devalues the whole enterprise. ART'S VALUE is how it communicates and not how it 'SELLS'. The greatest endorsement for ART is Oscar Wilde's: "All art is quite useless". CULTURE on the other hand; well maybe that’s a different matter.
Godley could have argued that access to ART and ART making should be a ‘right’. Instead he avoids this tactic and derides a “[myopic] sense of entitlement”; while he pragmatically acknowledges “the solidarity [duress] asks of the collective”. He then destroys his whole proposition by declaring: “The arts community is not afraid of thrift and austerity; it has always been our modus vivendi.” The ARTIST chooses a ‘way of life’ that is, frequently, ECONOMICALLY unrewarding. This is disappointingly true and an inevitable consequence of the true VALUE of ART. Godley sees no irony in wearing a ‘badge of honour’ based upon either pre-CELTIC TIGER funding arrangements or a scarcity of funding per se.
Godley expresses “…the hope that when the smoke clears the ecosystem that supports [CULTURE] remains intact.” and “…culture is inevitably identified as a pillar of national recovery…” Here he begins to show the ‘real’ agenda and the ‘real’ travesty. The future envisioned is an ECONOMIC ‘recovery’. Somehow the bargain to be struck is: maintain the QUANGOS and reap an ECONOMIC reward. He makes a plea for the infrastructure and not for the ARTIST. CULTURE is the composite of all our activities. ART should play a part in the ‘national health’ and there is only one way that it will.
Godley's fifth point tentatively attempts to stake a claim for VALUES "for which there is no metric, no measurable output". Again the language of ECONOMICS and accountancy. He states: “Our artists ...are a catalyst for us to heal and resonate, understand and reconnect..." At last the spectre of a ‘national health’. There will be lots of pain when the ‘SNIP’ comes. This pain will be felt by many people in very real ways. The country is already rife with the ‘heartburn’ of a decade’s over-indulgence. ART and ARTISTS need to work in these places. They need to take the pulse and diagnose the symptoms. Sometimes they need to tell the patient some bad news.
Where I strongly disagree with Godley is his assertion: "Our artists steer a course for shore when the waters around us became uncertain… [Does the odd change of tense reflect anything?]... the citizenship of the artist is always active." Was this TRUE of Ireland in the last ten years? Did ARTISTS demonstrate a desire to 'twist' the CELTIC TIGER'S tail? The answer to both is resolutely and unfortunately: No. The ARTS world was as rife with a PROPERTY obsession as the rest of the country. The CELTIC TIGER era was a time of ‘Bread and circuses’ and we are guilty of 'abdicating our duties'. Aristotle predicted that when storytelling declined [became ‘untrue’] the result would be decadence. As a NATION of STORYTELLERS we betrayed the truth.
There is ONE way the CULTURE can save us: It can tell the truth. IRISH ARTISTS, your country needs you; and as Alasdair Gray says: “work as if you were living in the early days of a better nation”.
