I recently read an article on the East St Arts website about why people in general are so negative towards the arts. There was a lot I disagreed with. Most in fact. Here’s a series of interjections, reflections and objections to that piece in the form of a dialogue… of course it’s not a genuine conversation given I’ve just copied and pasted my words into bits of the original text, so I’d invite the writer of the original piece, James Cullen, to respond as fully as he wishes. I’m always up for an argument about the arts.
James Cullen: Change of Heart: Why The Arts Can Be Viewed Negatively By Those Who Aren’t Involved
Phil Kirby: Or, why can the arts view those who aren’t involved so negatively?
JC: As the saying goes ‘All the world’s a stage and all the men and women are merely players’, but unfortunately, as you like it or not, not everybody wants to learn the script and stand in the spotlight. Shakespeare aside and instead invoking a quote from an equally influential source: when it comes to the arts you either love it or you hate it. But sadly for the arts, unlike Marmite, a lot of people decide they don’t like it before they’ve even had a taste.
PK: Have you ever noticed how the mention of Marmite only serves to close down the conversation? Love it or hate it you never change your mind about Marmite, it’s just not a matter that’s up for discussion. As those old scholastics were fond of saying, “de gustibus non est disputandum.” But surely the point about art isn’t that it can be likened to a personal taste for a foul-tasting, sludge-textured, conker-coloured beer by-product? I never shall be convinced that Marmite is fit for human consumption. Personally I wouldn’t use it to fill a crack in the garden wall. I am though always open to an experience of new art and a discussion about its meaning and value. And I can be won around to liking something I originally hated the sight of. But this doesn’t mean I necessarily love all the arts all the time, every bit of it.
JC: Why is the arts derided sight unseen more so than any other facet of society, and how can this be remedied to allow the arts to become more inclusive to convert the disparaging masses to a life they didn’t realise they were missing?
PK: They aren’t. I think you are thinking of bankers. Or estate agents. Perhaps even Nazis? I don’t think you could get away with saying you wanted to punch an artist in the face, even if they deserved a good thumping. And maybe the disparaging masses don’t want “converting” for very good reasons? Isn’t it odd that the imagery is straight out of Boys Own Conquest and Colonize? Notice “the arts” have all the benevolence, intelligence, taste on their side, the masses are just grunting idiots merrily rolling around in their own shit. Happen it’s the arts who deride the masses “sight unseen”?
JC: Anyone remotely involved in the arts – whether through a career, academically, or even as a ‘hobby’ – will have come across people whose noses turn up when they hear what you do.
PK: And anyone not in the arts will be familiar with the patronising attitudes of the cognoscenti… What’s your point?
JC: Likely you’ll have been faced with cries of: ‘Get a real job,’, ‘that’s a Mickey Mouse course’, ‘that’s just a hobby though.’ While these flippant remarks are taken on the chin, the sting in the tail remains. But could it just be that people don’t consider the arts real because they don’t get it?
PK: Perhaps artists just don’t get people with real jobs either? I’ve never met an artist who grasped the glories of traffic management.
JC: They understand what a play is, or a painting, or a book, or a song, but unless you’re Mondrian, Stanislavski, JK Rowling, or Morrissey you’re not a real artist.
PK: This is mind reading. Who the hell knows what a Stanislavski is?
JC: To be paid for something you have created seems to stem the cries of disdain. Monetising the arts seems to make them somehow more real in the eyes of the masses.
PK: Opera? The masses see how much that stuff costs, and it doesn’t seem to have much of an impact on the disdain.
JC: They understand being paid for something, they understand clocking in and out, and by amalgamating what artists do with what they do, they understand it better.
PK: Erm… right. So an artist by say acting like a factory worker (amalgamating what the worker does with what they do) understands factory work better too?
JC: But the case often is that the arts aren’t a get-rich-quick scheme, but an unbridled passion coursing through your veins. And you can’t put a price on that.
PK: I’ve never met anyone who thought the arts were a route to power and wealth. And I’m not sure the arts have cornered the market in “unbridled passion”? I’ve met a lot of laid back sculptors and loads of incandescent accountants. As my mum says, it takes all sorts.
JC: Perhaps the derision the arts faces by those not included stems from the belief that artistic pursuits don’t contribute to society.
PK: Perhaps. Perhaps not? Included on whose terms? And what does “contribute” mean exactly? A lot of art criticizes society, a lot of the art I like best. Should art always have a positive impact on inward investment decisions?
JC: Society, especially in today’s culture, places heavy emphasis on those who contribute and are ‘hard working’.
PK: Tell that to lottery winners, celebrities and designer villains, who seem to do just fine in today’s culture.
JC: But spending hundreds of hours on a painting, or rehearsing for a show, doesn’t seem to constitute ‘hard working’.
PK: Why is Panto so popular with the working masses then?
JC: Hard working, to many, means getting your hands dirty, doing something you don’t enjoy, and paying your weekly dues. But unlike many other jobs and pursuits, being involved in the arts often does contribute something tangible once the hard work is over.
PK: Except when it doesn’t. See next sentence. What about performance?
JC: There is an end product that withstands the test of time and remains as a portrait of the values imbued into it. What many don’t realise is that the arts really is all around us.
PK: I think many do. Most in fact.
JC: Whether it be the song embedded in your head on the way to work, the latest series to binge-watch, or even the photographs used on the news. Art comes in many shapes and sizes, and often these packages go under the radar. Maybe people only consider it to be the arts if they don’t understand it.
PK: All those examples are of stuff people like and freely pay for. Maybe most people only consider it to be art if it’s subsidized? And imagine if instead of saying they “don’t understand it” you said, “don’t want it.”
Not all work is unenjoyable. Not all art produces something valuable. Most people understand that art is all around them (so is science, so is design, so is technology, so is organisation… art isn’t special in being all pervasive.) Maybe artists only consider what they do as art if people don’t understand it?
JC: The arts being the first casualty of any governmental cuts doesn’t help the reputation that we can do without it. Sport receives the love early on in life (why don’t we have an Arts Day at school to showcase artistic talents?) and those who are good at sports are often heralded as heroes. Footballers are never asked when they’re going to stop getting paid to do their hobby and to get a real 9-5. They do something that others do as a hobby and enjoy it, just like those in the arts. So enjoying your job can’t be the bugbear that the anti-artists hold against the arts.
PK: Only someone with a tenuous grip on reality – that is, an artist – could think that they are especially picked on by government cuts. Try talking to someone who works in an old people’s home (if you can find one open that is.) Elite sports stars get paid vast sums because vast numbers of people pay to watch what they do, not because they enjoy it vastly more than the goalie of a local 5-a-side pub team. Nobody cares if they enjoy it or hate it, that’s totally irrelevant. Ordinary people would however protest if they had to subsidize the footballer’s fun. And if under-performing artists were criticized half as harshly as top sports teams maybe we’d get better art? No section of the population is so insulated from criticism as the art world. Which is why they get away with utter nonsense, and why people dismiss them, perhaps?
JC: Miscommunication of what people are like in the arts could also be working to prevent people from venturing into the artistic community. The stereotypes of divas and starving artists, and even the societally constructed opinion of masculinity shunning the male dancer, all go some way in formulating negative opinions of the arts. Had those with the negative views bothered to watch Billy Elliot, for example, they’d have these views blown out of the water.
PK: My dad watched Billy Elliot, twice, and enjoyed it. I never got him to Yorkshire Dance though. He also loved ET but didn’t waver in his fixed opinion that an alien invasion would be on balance a bad thing. And I once watched a film called “On Golden Pond”, which made me want to blow Henry Fonda out of the water… An argument from film is the worst argument there is.
JC: But, alas, the whole point of this is that they wouldn’t have watched Billy Elliot – because it’s about a boy who does ballet. There will be a segment of society who are just not interested in the arts.
PK: Maybe a segment of the arts (a bloody great big fat chunk) just don’t know how to relate to the rest of us? They have no real experience of our lives, concerns, interests? Is there a film about a kid from Doncaster who longed to go “down’t pit”? Of course not, artists make art about arty subjects for other art lovers…
JC: And that’s fine, as that diversity keeps the world alive.
PK: Oh come on, this diversity twaddle just means you think anyone who disagrees is a moron but it’s not nice to be so forthright.
JC: But a greater segment just don’t feel like the arts is accessible enough to them, a regular working Joe or Joanne who has no real artistic experience.
Perhaps it is as simple as those who aren’t outwardly artistic haven’t had the opportunity to find what they are good at in the expansive world of the arts.
PK: And perhaps it’s that artists don’t take the opportunity to represent what’s great about the expansive world beyond the narrow borders of art?
JC: Maybe they’ve ventured into an art gallery, glanced around at the installations, muttered ‘I don’t get it, I prefer landscapes of horses’, and shelved any ideas of dipping into that paint pot themselves.
PK: And maybe the artists ventured into the world outside the gallery, muttered “I don’t get it,” and went back to knocking over paint pots and submitting the result to the Turner Prize?
JC: Maybe they do consider themselves a theatrical virtuoso, but upon seeing the product of hours and hours of hard graft on the West End have deemed themselves nowhere near as good and resigned themselves to doing impressions of Phil from EastEnders down the pub.
PK: And maybe that’s fun, and nobody expects critical acclaim for a drunken skit of a soap star.
JC: Although the blame cannot solely be placed on those who don’t understand the value of art in its many incarnations.
PK: Well, maybe not “solely”, but those who don’t understand the value of art do need teaching a lesson!
JC: Dancers can feel daunted heading into a group of sculptors, and the greatest singer can be sprung when faced with a rabble of writers. Maybe this esotericism, this ‘club’ mentality, can deter people from even dipping a toe into the arts. But the club mentality that often clouds the artistic scene is a necessary defence mechanism dating back centuries. Think of the Cromwell era of no singing, no dancing, and how those involved in the arts had to do it secretly.
PK: I think the people singing and dancing in secret during the Great Revolution didn’t realise they were “involved in the arts”. Government cuts back then meant a bit more than losing ten percent of your budget…
JC: A necessary safeguard to a comfortable life is flocking together with birds of a feather, even at the expense of a new hatchling wanting to join in.
PK: Some hatchlings are cuckoo.
JC: So maybe it’s a question of meeting halfway. If those who believe that art is valueless to a hard-working society, or that a painting can’t bring a group together like cheering on a sports team can were to dip into their hidden artistic talents with the help of those who may have previously branded themselves inaccessible, maybe the gulf can be bridged.
PK: Is this bridging a gulf or simply erecting a bridgehead?
JC: Maybe with an open mind and a willing teacher, everyone can have a slice of the ever-expanding artistic pie – and the world can never have too many artists.
PK: Who will teach the artists? Do they not need to learn anything about what’s on the other side of the bridge? And maybe the world could stand to be an artist or two lighter?…
