[curatorial.net] Should the arts be publically funded?

[ray white]

I thought I'd chip in my thoughts, such as they are...
I think the discussion and debate around worth is a hotly contested one at the moment - and has been for a good while. People that want to 'prove' arts 'worth' point to education, social cohesion, regeneration etc. as tangible benchmarks against which art can be judged. The dangers of these approaches are legion.
But to maybe bring it down to the individual case, I feel that recently-graduated or emerging artists would have a mammoth task if they had to work with no funding or with whatever privately-acquired funds they could access. Likewise many artist-led enterprises (who are likely to be giving exposure to artists at the outset of their career) couldn't all operate successfully on a commercial model and only survive because of public funding. So my feeling is that established artists and venues should attempt to operate without major public funding, but a main way that the arts industry manages to reinvent itself and bring new artists through is by having a supporting structure.
It could also be argued that institutions that aren't purely relient on commercial success can take risks.
Such is the complexity of the issue however, completely polar opposite arguements could be made...
Ray
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