Art of being radical
ENGLISH arts organisations are digesting news of how they are to be funded until 2022 by Arts Council England. The most striking trend in last Tuesday’s announcement was a welcome one: for the four years following 2018, an extra £170m (R3bn) is to be funnelled out of London in an attempt to redress the sharp disparity between arts provision in the capital and beyond it.
Since the publication of reports suggesting that public spending on the arts amounted to £68.99 (R1 180) a head of population in London, and only £4.58 outside it, this shift has been urgently needed. Welcome, too, is the news that 183 organisations are to be funded regularly for the first time, from Wise Children, theatre director Emma Rice’s new company in the West Country, to the inventive and inspiring British Paraorchestra, based in Bristol, which draws members from those with disabilities.
The organisations that have taken a cut are, by and large, big hitters such as the National Theatre and the Royal Opera House, whose loss of about 3% of revenue funding each is not a slight, but rather a recognition of their superior ability to generate income, often through private fundraising – always easier in wealthy London than elsewhere. The leaders of Britain’s arts organisations have spent years working to prove the public value of the arts to their various administrations, either in Westminster or in the devolved nations. By and large this effort has paid off. Creative solutions, however, will only get you so far. The arts will need more resources if they are to fulfil their promise.
The Labour manifesto talked of an extra £1bn over three years – which is the kind of sum that could really rebalance the national cultural infrastructure, making possible proper regional rivals to London. The Arts Council needs to be even bolder in its decision-making, supporting the creativity of the best and most radical artists, and working to bring the great cultural riches England has to offer to everyone. Bridging all the nation’s great divides, reaching those who are sidelined or socially excluded: this must be its true calling.