introduction
This book argues that public funding for art and culture is critically important because a sustained, strategic approach to cultural investment pays big dividends in all of our lives.
I understand that words such as ‘investment’ and ‘dividends’ might be dismissed as economic rather than creative terms. Where’s the art in all this? The point I’ll make is that these dividends flow only when the art excels. Quality and ambition sit at the heart ofLet’s Create,1 the Arts Council’s ten-year strategy for creativity and culture in England from 2020 to 2030, and they are at the heart too of the examples I will share throughout this book of artistic and curatorial excellence. While there will always be healthy debate about what quality means within the artistic community, the public tend to know straightaway when they are being fobbed off with something less than the real deal. To my mind, if you want truly popular, memorable and resonant art, it has to be the best.
Before I joined the Arts Council, I spent fifteen years leading the UK’s biggest classical music radio station, Classic FM, bringing some of the greatest works of art to a mass-market audience, so I have never understood the distinction some make between ‘great’ and ‘popular’. There are works of art that are ahead of their time, but few artists have ever striven not to be read, or to have their work leave people untouched. The greatest art is the most human. Given time it will always find its audience.
“Great art changes people’s lives. Artists must be able to challenge preconceptions, to think differently and freely, and to create great art in new ways.”
That doesn’t mean that all art will be equally popular in every public constituency. Taste, custom and history have to be taken into account – elements intrinsic to the richness of our national culture – and these are every bit as influential as the aesthetic traditions of an art form. Kwame Kwei-Armah, the artistic director of London’s Young Vic, says that theatre, for example, is a ‘catalyst for debate about the big themes’ in society. And I reckon he’s right.
Artists must be able to challenge preconceptions, to think differently and freely, to imagine new possibilities, and to create great art in new ways. Imagination in particular is vital to creativity: if we can draw on our experiences to call up an image of the world in our consciousness, we can create an environment ripe for experimentation. For me, the words of the poet Lemn Sissay capture this beautifully:
‘We turn to art and creativity because it is the greatest and truest expression of humanity available to all. And all things are possible in the eye of the creative mind. To be more is first to imagine more.’2
It’s only by encouraging the diversity of individual artistic perspectives that you can ensure that you are reflecting the lives, loves and interests of audiences – that everyone is getting the best. From a funding perspective, what matters is that you support talent and champion ambition, imagination, innovation and risk. These are integral to creativity. We don’t want to dilute these values.
Great art changes people’s lives. I’d like all our museums, our libraries, our artists and our arts venues to be genuinely popular, to be a part of the lives of all their communities, so that everyone in England can enjoy the Arts Dividend and have their lives enhanced, no matter who they are, or where they live.
Over the past five years, I’ve travelled the length and breadth of England, coming to know and understand how our creative ecology works, and I believe we’re on the way to realising a vision in which everyone everywhere can have equal ac
