From boycotts to renaissance? Threats and opportunities in the arts
The arts seem to be reaching a breaking point. As demonstrated in The New Boycott Crisis, a recent report by Freedom in the Arts, cultural boycotts threaten every festival or exhibition with empty seats, political gatekeeping stifles artistic expression, funding orthodoxies prevent new talent from emerging and institutional fear of ‘controversial’ works has left many artists asking whether the current system can be saved at all.
The arts establishment isn’t just in charge of who gets to create art, but the content of that work and, increasingly, what its social and political purpose might be. Art may always have had rich benefactors with instrumental interests, but some argue that the politicisation of art today is not just having an effect on artists, but on the public. Public art, museums, prize lists, critics’ choices all now seem to come with a motive other than simply making new and interesting works – and it seems to be turning people off.
On the other hand, many ask who cares if the old ways are crumbling? For some, the future of the arts lives outside the realms of officialdom. Pop-up galleries, indie films and even DIY publishing houses have sprung up in response to criticism of a stifled art establishment. Some artists are turning political constraints on their head, making subversive works to challenge current orthodoxies – be they related to gender, the environment, Israel and Gaza, or other hot topics. Are we perhaps seeing an artistic renaissance in play?
Accusations of elitism in the art world are longstanding, with many arguing that only a ‘burn it to the ground’ policy will do to create space for a new way of supporting and producing artists. Should the arts establishment be defended, reformed or dismantled? Can there be an ‘establishment’, which decides what is good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable, without the biases that plague contemporary politics? Are today’s censorship battles a plague on artistic freedom or a necessary corrective to years of ivory-tower attitudes? And if there is an exciting, bold new generation of art out there, how can we promote it?
