[curatorial.net] Should the visual arts receive public funding?

[Joasia]

I want to follow on Bettina and Sophie's comments:

> The European Community introduced a new agenda for culture that could be quite
> interesting for the whole discussion. In this agenda they describe the
> importance of culture for Europe especially in economic terms.

Linking culture with the economy in quite explicit terms is not new - for
instance in 1940s the Frankfurt School used the term 'the culture industry'
to provide a critique of an increased commodification of culture at the
time.

More recently, this has been exploited by the 'regeneration' agendas in the
UK. For example, Paul Domela's talk in the first CN seminar back in April
provided an interesting account of how Liverpool has been shaped by
'cultural regeneration' and the role curators play in this system.

And there are other interesting examples too - such as the so-called 'Bilbao
effect' in Spain.
 
This goes hand in hand with what is happening in the education sector in the
UK at least where enterprise agendas are replacing the core mission of
Universities. There is an excellent paper 'The Cognitive Capitalism and the
Contested Campus' by Nick Dyer-Witheford (attached) that discusses this in
US context.
And there is a timely issue of MUTE magazine that also deals with this to
some extent: 
http://www.metamute.org/en/Mute-vol-2-6-Living-in-a-Bubble-Credit-debt-and-c
risis

Perhaps the cultural sector could learn from this example.

I realise, I am not giving exactly a straightforward answer to Sophie's
question but at least  this is an attempt.
 
Best wishes
joasia

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