Author: grahamh

Economics and the arts again

by grahamh, posted in Economics and the arts

“Decisions have to be made by real economists who can recognise the value of our cultural assets at a time of financial, technological, environmental and cultural change, not by number-crunching accountants looking to make a quick saving.” Lyn Gardner in today’s Guardian.

Not much to disagree with there, but the real danger for the arts is the assumption that “real economists” will come out on the side of the arts. What’s needed is a dialogue – as clearly spelt out here – and that might require a little more humility on the side of the arts, as well as a more intelligent approach to cultural economics.

Is cultural regeneration classless?

by grahamh, posted in Cities, Economics and the arts

I’m grateful to Triston Wallace and his blog here, which has prompted this short reflection on culture and class.

Some years ago, Richard Florida’s concept of the Creative Class was all the vogue – the idea of a whole stratum of society, a ‘class’ of artists, teachers, and a mix of other very broadly creative professionals, which was beginning to congregate in a number of US cities and generating economic growth and urban regeneration.  Florida made much of the tolerance and diversity which characterised this group.

I’ve always harboured an anxiety that Florida’s thesis is innately ‘classist’ – celebrating the values of an educated middle-class, while implicitly denigrating the values of traditional working class urban communities.

This doesn’t undermine a core part of his thesis:  that the economic and social dynamic in many of our most successful cities is being shaped by a new group of creative businesses and individuals.  But Florida’s approach stikes me as worryingly straightforward, failing to engage fully with the tensions and community conflicts which cultural regeneration butts up against.

Triston’s piece, referred to above, cites Hoxton – frequently referred to as an example of cultural and creative-led regeneration on the fringes of the city of London.  Hoxton was traditionally a very poor white area of town.  And, the chances are the locals are not as tolerant and diverse as the new creative types moving into their neighbourhood. The transformation of Hoxton into a buzzing creative district will have generated some trickle-down benefits for the local community, in their poor quality social housing.  But to what extent are they, or have they, been involved in the changes taking place.  Are they now setting up their own cultural enterprises, or hanging out in the cool cafes and bars?  Or, more likely, do they continue to experience high unemployment, and shop at places like Iceland?

Too often the ‘creative class’ which transforms neighbourhoods does so at the expense of local people, and sometimes local values and culture.  And, by implication, the values underpinning that cultural transformation are far from tolerant and appear only to engage with ‘diversity’ so long as the diversity does not include the poor (very often white) communities left untouched by the gentrification of the area. That’s the challenge, by the way, in places like Hackney Wick, where it is planned that there will be a creative and digital cluster post-2012.

There are, of course, examples of a more integrated – if not indigenous – cultural-led transformation, and I am certainly not arguing that cultural regeneration, and cultural and creative development are harmful for communities.  Rather, my beef is with Florida and with others who push the importance the concept of the ‘creative class’ but who appear not to have much of a concept of ‘class’ at all.

I’m not sure who it was who once said that ‘urban regeneration begins with poetry and ends with real estate’.  While simplistic, there’s something very profound in here about the disempowering force of urban development which most ‘poets’ would want to resist.

Poetry and Economics

by grahamh, posted in Economics and the arts, Reading and writing

In among a fantastic piece of programming by the BBC this morning, was a reading of a wonderful reflection on the economic crisis of the last couple of years.

The poem, by Catherine Brogan, can be heard here (beginning at 2.40.40), or seen on YouTube here. We thought we were rich but were just digging this ditch.

The initiative by the BBC to invite a range of people to edit the Today programme has demonstrated how innovative and inventive arts-led programming can be – with PD James’s grilling interview with Mark Thompson getting most publicity, and with today’s programme by Robert Wyatt highlighting the way in which the arts can provide alternative reflections on social and economic issues.

The strange and heady relationship between art and commerce

by grahamh, posted in Economics and the arts, Uncategorized

A great story about Hugh Grant making £11m on a work of art he bought while drunk appears to highlight the uncomfortably fickle link between art and money.

The suggestion that the financial gratification, associated with neo-liberalism, in the 80s and 90s has undermined accepted notions of artistic value is both right and wrong. Of course it’s somehow immoral that the otherwise pure world of the arts should be tainted by the dark-deals of philistine city folk (or in this case, Hollywood celebs). But it’s hardly new, and it would be naive to think that the art world is not complicit in some way.

Serge Guilbaut made a very explicit link in the content and title of his book ‘How New York stole the idea of Modern Art‘, referring to the transformation of arts practice, and in particular the rise of abstract expressionism, in the middle decades of the 20th Century. Elsewhere, John Berger made the link in relation to established greats such as Gainsborough, painting the ‘wealth’ of the slave-trade. And, of course, the connections between financial wealth, patronage and the arts can be seen most obviously in renaissance Italy.

The best analysis of the more complex inter-relationship between arts practice, arts consumption, and commerciality realities of both is in Ken Worpole’s brilliant ‘Reading by Numbers’. Get hold of a copy if you can. It’s an entirely disinterested analysis of the way in which literary styles in the early 20th Century developed in response to technological and educational changes which were making ‘reading’ a much more popular pastime – and how the development of reading and writing influenced the wider political and financial economy, both directly and indirectly.

But, it does seem somehow fitting that, in this age of user-led creative practice, it should be the drunken purchaser, rather than artist, who should be challenging some of our assumptions about art practice!

Chancellor to cut funding for jokes

by grahamh, posted in Uncategorized

The Tories have, apparently, agreed to overturn the Chancellor’s recent decision to cut the Arts Council’s humour funding.

For those who think that the development of the Arts Council’s recent ‘humour strategy’ is not appropriate, I would cite a strong case recently made by Matthew Taylor at the RSA (a former head of the no.10 Policy Unit, and rumoured to be responsible for pushing the humour strategy across Whitehall). As Taylor puts it, joke-telling is an important, albeit minor, art form:

“A well told, well-timed joke is a minor art form. It can create a bond of subversive intimacy between teller and hearer. It can be a harmless release from constraints of identity and taboo. The exchange of jokes can be a special form of gift in which you keep the gift you give and appreciate it even more.”

Art for Christ’s sake!

by grahamh, posted in Uncategorized

“There is no government metric or policy report that can ever fully capture this basic truth: that art matters for its own sake.”  So said a leading political figure this week.  Can you guess who?

I thought it might be fun to gather together a series of quotes from different, high-profile, individuals, and to set a little quiz for any readers who care to drop in.  Call it a little early-Christmas quiz!

See if you can match the following quotes to the list of names (sadly, all men at this point) which follow at the end…..

“Museums are lighthouses of utopianism and social well-being”

“The Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

“The time has come to reclaim the word ‘excellence’ from its historic, elitist undertones and to recognise that the very best art and culture is for everyone; that it has the power to change people’s lives, regardless of class, education or ethnicity.”

“Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas.”

“Art for art’s sake is a philosophy of the well-fed.”

“The cause of art is the cause of the people.”

“The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems — the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behaviour and religion.”

“All art is quite useless”

“Thinking about political and social matters ought to be done by minds of some real literary education, and done in an intellectual climate informed by a vital literary culture.”

Robert Kennedy

RB Kitaj

FR Leavis

Frank Lloyd Wright

Stalin

JM Keynes

William Morris

Oscar Wilde

George Osborne

Sir Brian McMaster

Today and Tomorrow

by grahamh, posted in Design, Economics and the arts, Reading and writing

I have recently been introduced to an absolutely fascinating series of pamphlets written at the end of the 1920s on the theme of ‘Today and Tomorrow’ (being re-catalogued here, as part of a major research project).  And I’ve been wondering about its modern equivalent.

Published by Kegan Paul, more than 100 pamphlets were written between 1924 and 1930, by a range of leading thinkers and commentators, addressing themselves to ‘the future of…’ their various areas of interest and investigation.  A dedicated and serious look into what the future held across a range of scientific and arts disciplines.  Imagining our future in order to better understand today.

It’s a fascinating period in our literary and cultural history, during which artists frequently took on the challenge of anticipating, projecting, or even predicting the future.

Think of Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), Wells’s The Shape of Things to Come (1933), Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927).  The self-acclaimed Futurists were addressing similar issues slightly earlier.  A period of 10-15 years during which there was an extraordinary interest in the future.

Perhaps it is not surprising that this inter-war period which saw massive changes in technology and in global politics should become transfixed by what the future held.  A mix, perhaps, of fear and excitement.

There are interesting parallels to be drawn with the history of the world over the last 10 years or so, and the next.  The fear and excitement of technological change, climate change, and the ongoing tensions in world politics.  Where is our future being foretold?  Where is our ‘Today and Tomorrow’ series being written?  Where are our modern-day equivalents of Huxley and Wells – projecting into the future in order to help think through the challenges of the present?

Initiatives such as TED provide space for discussion and debate, not unlike the Today and Tomorrow series;  but the focus of discussion rarely moves beyond the world of the known.  TV would be an ideal space to explore some of these challenges, but there appears to be more of an interest in our past (whether Andrew Marr, David Marquand, or the genuinely interesting ‘Who do you think you are?’ series) than in our future.  What of the written word?  Science Fiction does not have the mainstream acceptance that writers like Wells, Huxley and others had.  And our obsession with Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings over recent years suggests a longing for a magical other world, rather than a genuine look into the future.

Which brings me to film and, in particular, to James Cameron.  He, perhaps more than any other artist over the last decade or so, has sought to think into the future.  The first Terminator movie – though set in a contemporary LA – is played against the backdrop of a future state in which there is an ongoing battle between the machines and humans.   That future scenario is one which shapes and politicises the film’s main female character.  By implication, it’s by imagining the future that we can begin to understand and re-think our relationship to the present.  The Alien series takes on a different theme, but with Avatar, Cameron has moved back into that space which deals with the future and the present.

Avatar is about the battle between the US Army and the natives of a future, far-away land, for the exploitation of the planet’s scarce resources.  Although more obviously a product for a contemporary special effects-and-adventure-loving market, the film nonetheless takes on that ‘Today and Tomorrow’ theme.  Indeed, as in the Terminator, it’s that tension between the present and a possible future which creates a certain feeling of discomfort on which the fear and excitement in the film can be generated and sustained.

Perhaps, as The Terminator and Avatar suggest, looking into the future is too frightening a prospect to take on in anything more than mass consumption movies such as these.  But, as I read yet another newspaper article about the anticipated failure of our world leaders to strike a deal in Copenhagen, credit to Cameron that he’s willing to give it a go.

The art of management theory

by grahamh, posted in Reading and writing

A previous boss of mine once gave me, and the rest of her small team, a small book on the theory of management and organisational change which was told in the style of a long fable.  Written by two leading “marketing consultants”, the book was entitled ‘Good Luck’ and purports to be a “whimsical fable that teaches a valuable lesson:  good luck doesn’t just come your way – it’s up to you to create the conditions to bring yourself good luck”.  By choosing a book in the form of a story or fable, my boss wanted to show that she was an imaginative manager, providing a thought-provoking and creative approach to management theory.

I duly read the ‘Fable’ but found it deeply frustrating and uncreative.  Granted, fables can often be deliberately didactic and sombre in tone – but this one was just too simplistic, substituting bland assertions about organisational and personality types in place of the complexities and subtleties of human behaviour.   Rather than being stimulated by the book, I was left with a deep sense of disappointment.  Rather than being thoughtful and inspiring, the book seemed naive and unimaginative**.

My thesis is not that books on management theory cannot be stimulating and thought-provoking.  Nor am I suggesting that the quality of the art is diminished because of an intended artless message (all sorts of examples of powerful political statements come to mind – from Gullivers Travels,  to Picasso’s Guernica).

The point is not that art and management theory don’t mix.  It’s just that sometimes the most powerful understanding of change and its potential comes from the originality of art directly.

I came across this quote from Yann Martel recently which is relevant here: “The originality of fiction addresses the individuality of its reader. How that reader then acts with others—in other words, becomes political—will involve a dilution of that originality, a regard for the conventions and sensibilities of others. And that’s all right. We have to get along with others. But the cost of an artless life is that in being fed no originality, the person’s sense of individuality is eroded. Which is not only sad, but dangerous, since the citizen whose precious individuality is not nourished is more subject to the claims of demagogues and tyrants”.

 

 

** As it happens, I gave my boss a book in return – a group of short-stories by DH Lawrence, drawing her attention to ‘You Touched Me’, which tells the story of a woman whose future appears pre-destined by a mistaken ‘touch’ between herself and a male friend.  But which paints a disturbing picture of the chauvinism and sheer poverty of opportunity and choice in an early twentieth century mining community.

The BNP and Jonathan Swift

by grahamh, posted in Reading and writing

I resent giving the BNP more air-time than they deserve, but I was so amused by a great post on a ‘Comment is Free’ debate, which was brilliantly reminiscent of Jonathan Swift, that I feel moved to acknowledge and reproduce it.

The post was in response to a terribly earnest article, which set out a list of 20 questions which David Dimbleby or the audience might pose to Nick Griffin on BBC’s Question Time. Writing under an assumed pseudonym, CourtneyLove suggested the following question: “How hard would you stab a grey squirrel in the face, on a scale of one to ten?”.

This reminds me of Swift’s A Modest Proposal, in which – as I’m sure most people know – the poet and essayist suggested that an appropriate response to the famine in Ireland would be for people to eat their children.

I’m not suggesting any correlation between squirrels and babies, or indeed BNP members with the British establishment (which was the intended object of Swift’s critique).  But, in the context of literally hundreds of posts in response to the original article, I was struck by the sheer power and force of satirical humour.

Swift would eat Griffin for breakfast.

Economic impact and humanities research

by grahamh, posted in Design, Economics and the arts

Much debate in the education and, sometimes, mainstream press has been given over to the government’s new focus on demonstrating the ‘economic impact’ of university research.  Arguably not enough though.

According to HEFCE, it is not just ‘economic’ impact that needs to be more clearly emphasised when making the case for research funding, but impact on ‘public policy, culture and quality of life’.  But, diluting the nature of the measure is unlikely to make the task of arguing the case of the value of in-depth arts and humanities research any easier.

Why should the state support a 21 year old undertaking research for a PhD on, say, the use of rhyme in early medieval poetry?

Assessing the worth of cultural endeavour has never been a straightforward task. The AHRC and DCMS are about to advertise for a research fellow to undertake work on this theme. This blog has highlighted research and other contributions on this issue.

But it won’t go away.

Maybe we have got the terms of the argument wrong.  The contribution said 21 year old can make to our economy is likely to be little different from a 21 year old studying, say, nuclear physics.  What further ‘impact’ or value might that research have on the wider economy?  What will it tell us that we don’t already know?  It is not the ‘research’ which has an impact, it is the ‘learning’.  The value, surely, is in the activity of research – not the focus of that research. Human endeavour is what might push the boundaries of our knowledge, generate new ideas and innovations, and expand our economic (and human) potential.  Whether it be in medieval poetry or nuclear physics.  The latter is likely to have a more obvious and identifiable impact, but it may not be more important.

However – so long as the inspiration and fascination generated by Anish Kapoor or the Matthew Passion (or Chaucerian poetry) outweighs our ability to articulate it in quasi-bureaucratic ‘economic impact’ language, then the quest for alternative measures will go on.