When did the Arts Council change its tune?
NewsThe Arts Council was founded in 1946, in the words of Maynard Keynes, ‘to encourage the best British national arts, everywhere, and to do it as far as possible by supporting others rather than by setting up state-run enterprises.’
The arts, said Keynes, ‘owe no vow of obedience.’
The Arts Council, he specified, is no schoolmaster or regulator. ‘How satisfactory it would be if different parts of this country would again walk their several ways as they once did and learn to develop something different from their neighbours and characteristic of themselves.’
Today, Arts Council England defines itself as follows:
‘We are the national development agency for creativity and culture. We have set out our creative vision in ‘Let’s Create…’
How was that unconstitutional overthrow allowed to happen?
ACE needs urgently to be reverted to its founding purpose.
John Maynard Keynes – Maynard was his middle name and he would sign himself as JM Keynes.
Keynes was partially right, but it is worth remembering he was living in and talking about a pre-digital, post-war society and would probably have quite different things to say of today’s.
I do think on the most part ACE does a good job of fostering the creative industries, they’ve made screw ups from time to time, but the responsibility for many of those lie with DCMS and the Treasury. (I would even recommend the department switches its name to DMS as it cares so little about culture, it’s embarrassing).
Yes it’s important to get back to an independent ACE, and perhaps dial back the bureaucracy by 25%, but let’s not catastrophise something that could be fixed relatively easily with the right people in charge.
Couldn’t agree more….. organisations have to change with the times and digital and soceital expanstion, even the Arts Council of England. If ACE didn’t change with the times, people would be complaining that they’re stuck in the past, goes to show that you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t………….
“ACE needs urgently to be reverted to its founding purpose.”
But if you work for ACE and consider yourself an expert on everything, that’s no fun, is it?
Same for the National Trust and numerous other organisations.
Can’t help wondering what Serota has been doing during his tenure. Did he jump when some Conservative clicked their fingers? That’s not the way to do it.
When I worked there, only three of us had ever worked in theatre, I had to explain to someone what a get out and a get in was. Too many penpushers!
To quote the description of just one ‘event’ taking place in July, in the South West of England, (Signal Festival, Swindon) it seems that ACE is actively discriminating on the grounds of age, when it trumpets the fact that – this particular event – “led by six early career producers, artists aged 28 or under, will showcase their creativity……….’.
There’s nothing wrong in showcasing and supporting young talent in the early stages of their career, who would otherwise not have had an opportunity to perform elsewhere, due to a percieved ‘lack of experience’. Plenty of funding sources specify that money can only be spent where it benefits a certain group of people, by race/gender/age and I’d imagine it’s through a similar way that the Signal Festival obtained their funding through ACE. I don’t see how that’s discrimination.
‘How satisfactory it would be if different parts of this country would again walk their several ways as they once did and learn to develop something different from their neighbours and characteristic of themselves.’
That allows support for certain perhaps under-represented groups THAT FORM THEMSELVES. But is seems to me that what the ACE has been doing for several years is dictating to existing, and varied, groups, how they will compose themselves.
I think initiatives like Chineke have taken a view that an orchestra like theirs might draw to classical music those members of minority groups whose taste lies than way. It’s an open position, and deserves some ACE support. What nobody deserves is ACE dictating how the populations of orchestras and opera companies and any other artistic groups will be formed based on racial and sexual issues.
They need to remember what the A in their name stands for. It’s not the same as the second A in NAACP. It denotes artistic merit, the only criterion for employment in a just world. I’m not sure they should even have a “vision.” It certainly is not social engineering.
To simplify, the Arts Council was set up to be independent of government dictat. It has become the mouthpiece and vehicle of government policy.
From the introduction above, it would seem that Keynes’ view as Chairman of the Arts Council was in favour of regional development of the arts. My understanding is that his view was virtually the total opposite! He and his successor Sir Ernest Pooley poured more money into just two institutions – the Royal Opera House and Sadlers Wells – than to other parts of the country. He believed in excellence and that London was where it could – and should – be found.
He was an autocratic leader who had been head of the wartime CEMA from 1942. There he would not permit anyone other than himself to chair the three main committees – music, drama and art. Nor did he wish these committees to have any real authority. He considered committees in general as “the death of democracy” (according to Roger Witts in his book Artist Unknown). He even barred Vaughan Williams from the music committee! CEMA committees were merely there to provide him with advice. Yet he himself had no idea how to treat opera and ballet (even though his Russian born wife wife was a prominent ballet dancer), suggesting that they come under the drama committee!
I suggest the Arts Council did not truly come into its own until the Wilson Government in the 1960s under the visionary Jennie Lee as Arts Minister abetted by Lord Goodman as the Arts Council’s Chairman.
It’s all just words, meaningless vacuity spouted silently to those that hardly take note anyway, in a vague attempt to make ACE seem more ‘current’ and ‘relevant’. Don’t lose too much sleep over it.
Got it in 1.
It’s not. It is costing people jobs.
Correct. It’s cost me mine.
” let US create ” states the ACE: US
Since when US and not YOU the Artists,Writers,Music…..etc etc
Straight out of Stalinspeak !
Exactly. They have no business creating anything. Nor any business telling music directors who they shall hire, or theatre directors who they can and must cast. Or writers what they can write, or artists what they can paint or sculpt.
They ought to listen to representations judged by peer committees and write cheques. End of.
CHOIR ?
It was at La Boucherie where in the lat 50s and 60s…3 doors down from Librarie Mistral…now Shakespeare et Co….facing Notre Dame á Paris that Marcel Marceau
et son Frére… used to late evening ‘snack’…I was occasional kitchen staff or front terrace if there were
English only speakers seated and later on joined in the late evening Marceau circle…untill I suggested that he Form A CHOIR !