Why the art sector cannot justify its continued existence

The idea that societies could be reformed (modernized) through general access to culture, also high culture, was part of the modernist project for Western societies. These ideals were stated most forcefully in the 1920s and 30s by the avant-garde. They became mainstream in the post-war era, when the leaders of the Western world were looking for social-political models that could prevent the recurrence of the devastating world wars while avoiding a communist insurrection of the masses.

The social democracy that was adopted in all Western countries as a response to the deficiencies of the old social order and the threat of communism incorporated many of the modernist ideals. Society had to advance rapidly and, as the history of the early 20th century had proven, artists played an important role in reconnoitering the future. In addition the general affluence of the social democratic West made support to artists feasible.

As a result artists came to work for the state, as they were to contribute to the general reform of society by breaking new ground and creating modern awareness among the general public. Almost the whole artistic sector came to depend on state subsidies, thereby weakening horizontal links (and solidarity) within the arts community. The Western social democratic state, in the spirit of Popper’s open society, was loathe to predetermine the outcomes of its support to artists, thereby letting all kinds of artistic practices flourish.

The more traditional patronage of art, whereby power supports arts as an ‘investment in symbolic capital’ – art as a kind of aristocratic wrapper for power – did not disappear completely during this period, but its foundations were shaken by the avant-garde assaults (particularly the Bolsheviks, but then again in the 1960s and 70s celebration of counterculture). Beautiful painting and sculpture, perfectly performed classical music, timeless theatre plays – the kind of ‘ennobling’ arts powerful patrons support – nearly disappeared in the second half of the Western 20th century.

The political-economic shift away from the social democratic model started in the late 1970s and the 1980s. As Soviet communism was perceived to be failing, the modernist project also lost its urgency. The rivalry with the Soviet Bloc that had encouraged social democratic policies, including in the field of arts, lost its sway over policy making. Thus the leaders of the Western world could resist the demands of their societies – for more welfare, more freedom, more equality – that became so powerful during the 1960s and 70s. These demands were curtailing the power of the elites. They responded through the gradual introduction of neoliberal policies. Simply put, the idea was to reduce the wealth flowing to society through the State in order to make citizens compete more for their share of wealth, thus breaking class solidarity, while allowing more concentration of wealth at the top, well out of reach of the public realm. This ‘liberated’ capital could be used to conquer new ‘markets’ and resist the challenge posed by emerging economies. The Western world is still, and increasingly, locked in this logic, as the immense transfer of public wealth to private capital that occurred during recent crises confirms.

Although the modernist project with its prominent role for artists was shelved with the proclamation of the ‘End of History’ and the inauguration of the ambiguous post-modernist phase, the ideal of the open society still remained, providing the logic to continued state support of artists. Artists, always challenging established truths and exploring the boundaries of our open society, were essential to the self-representation of Western liberal democracies. In the spirit of the times they were made to compete more and more for increasingly scarce public funding, but the principle that the State should support artists in order to retain some kind of creative edge and provide cultural prestige to itself (or the ‘nation’ it represented) was not really challenged.

The post-modern Western artist felt that it was still his role to break open new terrain, but the question why and for whom became impossible to answer in the absence of a collective project; as a result he retracted into his private world and his personal quest in art and avoided taking a stance in public debates. Thus he stopped responding to the expectations of his patron, the State.

The rapid accumulation of wealth in private hands allowed however for the reinstatement of the more traditional kind of patronage – the modern art with which a bank could impress its customers or an investor sway his relations. As a result the global art market boomed from the early 1990s onwards. However only the artists that played into the expectations of this market benefitted from this boom (the cute violinist or the orchestra with the famous conductor, the spectacular theatre company, the witty painter or the movie director that knows how to manipulate his audience in a pleasant manner). The other artists or artistic institutions, who for whatever reason would not engage this market, remained dependent on public funding.

Now the democratic process in the Netherlands, as in other Western countries, has come to question the rationale of continued public funding of the arts sector. This process has slowly gained speed. Initially pressure was applied on the dependent art sector to find funds from other sources: cultural entrepreneurship. Those artistic institutions that clearly confer symbolic capital to their supporters – the ‘red carpet’ sector, where the rich and famous are gladly seen and are honored to be on the board of directors – had less trouble in accessing private funds than the experimental art sector, which does not appeal to the powerful. This sector relied on downsizing, economies of scale (sharing programmes) and funding from other public sources. But now, in the Netherlands as elsewhere, the scarce public funding that they still received will be withdrawn. The question is whether this sector will survive.

The drama within this experimental art sector is complete, not least because its protagonists cannot formulate any meaningful answer to the question: “What do these arts (we) contribute to society?”. The answers they come up, mostly drawn from the ‘creative cities’ concept, are utterly unconvincing and ultimately self-defeating: ‘we contribute to a good investment climate’ (does China need artists?), ‘people who consume art also spend money on other consumption articles’ (but the experimental art events hardly draw a public), ‘artistic research has interesting spin-offs in other economic domains’ (examples please?). Really the artists that cannot please the rich and powerful cannot justify their own existence. Therefore this whole art sector, built up over decades, is incapable of putting up a fight as it is being slashed away. It cannot even organize negative resistance (like labor unions of disappearing industries) because artists, long used to compete for state funding, have lost the reflex of mutual solidarity, a basic prerequisite for collective action.

We are witnessing the end to the last remnants of the modernist dream. What makes this so poignant is not that this dream was so beautiful (it has rightly been much maligned) but that there is no other project for Western societies, no new horizon to which the arts could contribute.

As long as we (the artists) cannot formulate this new horizon, this project for the future of our societies, we will not be able to resist the neoliberal onslaught. The situation is hopeless because the whole concept of a collective project, immediately assimilated to totalitarian ideologies, has become suspect.