What’s This Business about Culture Part3
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Audiences and Accountability
The motives of an identity-adopting arts institution are not simple. As well as attempting to offset shortfalls in government funds, they are also trying to meet the demands of a twenty-first-century audience. There is a pragmatic assumption that culture must compete with other forms of entertainment (an assumption shared even by those who don’t believe that culture is entertainment). It is generally accepted that an institution with a smart identity and some snappy advertising is in the best position to hold its place in the ever-expanding line-up of contemporary entertainment. Also pertinent is the question of accountability. Institutions receiving public funds must prove that they are able to attract audiences — preferably new, more diverse audiences — to culture. The value of money spent on culture is calculated in an increasingly exacting manner and a highly visible identity is viewed as evidence of a will to compete for visitors.
In spite of the growing range of alternative activities, there seems to be an increased appetite for the arts. In Britain this is particularly true of the visual arts, with visitor numbers for institutions such as Tate Modern reaching all time highs. These visitors are, however, arriving with raised expectations. The 2003/2004 Olafur Eliasson Weather Project installation in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall set the bar for the kind of experience that new art audiences demand.
Events like this become part of a cycle in which spectacular shows generate large numbers of visitors, which in turn generate the need for more spectacular shows, which in turn generate larger audiences and so on. The more success an arts institution has in behaving like a corporation, the more it is required to continue behaving that way. It is not possible to adopt business practices in the short term, as a one-shot means of appeasing the accountants. The corporate model requires a wholesale institutional and philosophical shift, a transformation that brings both gains and losses. The benefit to artists of working in well-run, popular institutions is obvious, but smooth professional practice will always curtail a degree of idiosyncrasy and flair.
Levels of public funding for culture vary widely from country to country. In 2000 a survey found that the United States government spent $6 per capita on culture, where the German government spent $87, the French $57 and the British $27. There are a number of problems with these figures, not least that these countries place very different things within the category of culture (for example, Britain is the only nation to include zoos in the cultural count), but they do reveal a broad picture of varying attitudes toward cultural spending. What they disguise, however, is the converging acceptance of a business model for culture. The German government may spend a fortune relative to America, but the embrace of corporate culture in the arts is becoming near universal. In Britain the current administration loves to talk about the achievements of the cultural sector and the for-its-own-sake need for the arts, but behind the scenes it is slowly chipping away at the edifice of public support. These days only the most efficient institutions are being rewarded with funds. Whatever its absolute merits, these days culture is obliged to prove itself in market terms.
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