Reasons Not to Move To British Columbia
POST BY: PADDY JOHNSON
Edmund Haakonson, Slapshot
Tyler Green cast a throw-away line this morning, lauding the Canadian government for funding a nude bronze sculpture of a gay hockey player. “If that isn’t enough to make us all move to British Columbia, what is?” Green asks. It’s tacky as all hell, but I get the point: liberal minded funding should be applauded.
You won’t find any such praise for the Canadian government on this blog, and it’s because the country will be lucky to see any such funding a year from now if its leaders aren’t forced out of office. Prime Minister Steven Harper prorogued Parliament over the holidays (this means shutting it down for two months) in a transparent attempt to cool the media shit storm brewing over the alleged cover-up of Afghan detainee abuse. This follows a long line of deprived actions while in government including force-able and clandestine attempts to slash arts funding, limiting media access to parliament, and failing to attend committee sessions investigating the torture cover-up scandal so, under house rules, the meeting could not convene.
Given these actions, I’m not particularly concerned about the qualifications of the opposition; I would just like to see Harper voted out of office. For the better part of my life I felt privileged to be Canadian, but thanks to Conservatives, these days, I’m usually just embarrassed.
Something like that piece makes it much easier to feel negative about Canadian arts funding in general and strengthens the argument that the Canadian arts establishment deserves a reality check. Regardless of how bad Harper is.
I share your pain.
But what I really wanted to say is that right now all I want to do is touch the nude gay hockey player bronze.
that’s hilarious as recent throws to nudity in sports for charity while still not much remains towards the arts (that sometimes feel like a charity case) whereby much like a bad wig can be proffered and it passes muster beyond a parochial and pedantic brow…yet, the closing reminds me of “yes, it was torture, and illegal.” - a piece separate from the grimes’ obituary.
It does make it easier to feel negative about Canadian arts funding, though I’m not sure it’s a particularly pointed argument visa vi the reality check. Inevitably bad work will receive funding. The point is that it’s available.
I feel, based on my experiences growing up in Vancouver and now living in New York, which was, to me, a pretty serious ‘reality check’, that there is an institutional bias in the Canadian arts towards themes that can be easily justified as ’serving the public good’, themes like “tolerance of difference” and “multiculturalism”. These kind of themes seem unexciting, non-challenging, ‘behind the times’, unnecessary, etc. I think this occurred to me most strongly when reading Dave Hickey.
I found that too, though I don’t think my involvement in the Canadian scene was ever enough to have more than superficial understanding of its mechanics. I’m working to fix that.
ditto my ‘involvement’
somehow I doubt photos of ice skating toned derrieres will make your readership LESS likely to want to move to british columbia
Is there any evidence that art funding produces better art?
Seriously, “evidence that art funding produces better art”? Measured how?
The most important thing produced by public funding of culture is public access to culture. Without public investment (or, to be fair, substantial philanthropic spending, on a level rarely seen in modern times), art will still get made, but relatively few people will be able to see it. Without public support, access to culture — especially to a diverse range of experiences and voices — becomes a privilege belonging to the rich rather than a right belonging to people in general.
save your breath
K Higgins:
“Without public investment (or, to be fair, substantial philanthropic spending, on a level rarely seen in modern times), art will still get made, but relatively few people will be able to see it.”
Do you mean the totem polls in the atrium at YVR?
I would argue that publicly funded art is not accesible / viewable to more people than privately funded art, or art that requires no funding, that art is not a public right, that ‘culture’ refers to something much larger than what you are referring to, and mostly that art is not something that is always beneficial to the people who view it.
“Without public support, access to culture — especially to a diverse range of experiences and voices — becomes a privilege belonging to the rich rather than a right belonging to people in general.”
Which is basically what has happened, so the question of whether public funding of the arts is necessary or does any good actually is a valid question. Has that book “What Good Are the Arts?” by John Carey been discussed on here? I assume so, since it’s five years old. But it brings up legit points until it goes off the cliff at the end.
In fact I would argue that less funding produces better art. Tons of masterpieces in various forms of art were produced by people who were poor, desperately trying to survive. There’s something to be said about the emotion that’s put into a piece of work that if you don’t sell it you’re out on the street. This versus the mentality of “oh we got a couple grand of free money! Let’s find some random stuff to throw together just so that we get it!”
Having just moved back to Vancouver after a decade in New York I will admit to not having fully grasped the results of the radical public funding differences between these two contexts.
But as the Executive Director of an institution that has produced critical, thoughtful and historically significant work since the 1970s, and that gets the majority of its funding from public funding bodies (federal, provincial, municipal) I will hotly contest the statement that “less funding produces better art.” It plays into a totally outdated perception of the artist as a starving, struggling genius and does a major disservice to the millions of artist who produce highly significant works of art with public funds.
As for the point about publicly funded art being watered down by the need to justify “serving the public good” - I think it’s truly a valid one. But again, many artists have managed to make critical and controversial works with the benefit of public funding.
As far as I’m concerned, any funding structure (be it government or foundation based) is better than having art beholden to market values and private patronage.
In Toronto, there is a city by law that requires developers to dedicate 1% of their gross construction costs to public art, as long as the building/condo exceeds a certain size/height. It’s resulted in artists such as Tom Otterness, James Turrell, Barbara Astman, Anish Kapoor, Fastwurms, and Douglas Coupland, among others, having large public works in the city for anyone to enjoy/hate/be indifferent to. In terms of funding, I guess it kind of falls under both umbrellas, in terms of being publicly- or privately- funded, as the money for the art itself comes from private hands but the impetus to do so was put in place by the city government.
As for Vancouver, they let a fucking condo board decide to get rid of a perfectly nice Claes Oldenburg, which was then moved to Calgary…That last point served no purpose other than to bash Van city.
I think Caitlin Jones did an excellent job at outlining the problems with the idea ‘no money = better art’ from an institutional stand point.
From an artist’s standpoint — i can say that receiving public money doesn’t make you rich and it doesn’t make you lazy.
Regardless of who/what funds it, i find that typically people making art still usually want to make it as well as they possibly can. Also, one usually only receives enough to pay for materials, studio, assistance, etc., meaning that an actual income is still required to live/pay rent blah blah.
When this system is functioning properly, the end result is that one is able to make work that isn’t beholden to the market if they so choose. I see this as leaving the possibility for better work to occur as it can be what it wants / not fit some fleeting notion of interest.
This starving do or die mentality usually only leads to desperation, desperation to bad ideas/choices and voila, some pretty shitty art.
Anyways, in terms of being publicly- or privately- funded, as the money for the art itself comes from private hands but the impetus to do so was put in place by the city government.