Learning to share

Arts organisations feel vulnerable. This is no surprise for a sector that is used to living on thin and unreliable resources, and being valued for our instrumental impacts rather than the intrinsic value of what we do. One of the ways the sector has countered this impression is by developing extremely high levels of professionalism. We’ve developed ourselves as viable businesses, our plans, policies and procedures providing evidence that we take ourselves seriously, and that we expect to be taken seriously by others.

While I applaud organisations that are run properly and efficiently and which are effective at advocacy and meeting targets, I do wonder whether we should re-appraise how this approach can affect our relationships with audiences. Recently it seems that the brands that are doing well are those that allow their audiences to take some ownership of the values, activity and approach of the organisation. This is antithetical to traditional brand theory which has regarded fierce protection of every aspect of the brand to be crucial.

Led by new technologies which have enabled all of us to be able to have choice over aspects of our lives that we wouldn’t have dreamed about a few years ago – audiences want to be involved. And if they like you, there’s a chance that they will want to use your brand, share your video or comment on your work. This raises a challenge to arts organsiations, stuck in the rut of providing a glossy, untouchable outward face, a professional veneer to disguise our fear that others will see our vulnerability. That our audiences might know that we are not perfect, that we are struggling, that we sometimes get things wrong.

It’s a major shift, to let our audiences share our brand, admit their ideas into our planning, in effect, to see them as much a part of our organisation as our buildings, our staff, our brand. the world is changing quickly though, and it seems likley that those organisations that are prepared to let down their guard, and enjoy our audiences desire to share and be part of what we do, will be the ones thriving in the future.

 

Artistic accounting

In the last year or so there has been an increased focus amongst policy makers on the need to value the arts for their own sake. Yet, while many people agree that it would be great to be able to make a case for the arts on the base of it’s ‘intrinsic’ benefits (the way it makes us feel or the importance of it in itself), it is still difficult to articulate these things. Often we fall back on describing the benefits of our work in more ‘instrumental’ terms, such sad the social impact or the role of the arts in education. (See John Holden’s Capturing Cultural Value for detailed discussion of these ideas.)

I feel torn between excitement at the idea of developing a framework that can genuinely assess the value of the arts, and reluctance to further formalise an area of life I value for its creativity, spontaneity and compulsion to innovate. However, recently I was working on social accounting frameworks and wondered whether there was a mechanism there that could be adjusted to our needs.

Has anyone got experience of monitoring and evaluating the arts for it’s intrinsic values? I’d love to hear.

 

Is the recession good for the arts?

Over the last few weeks I’ve heard several stories in the press that suggest that the recession is good for the arts. The argument usually goes along the lines of arguing that the arts thrive in challenging situations, the implication being that we’ve had it too good for too long: the recession is shaking artists out of their complacency-funded comfort zones and leading to better, more challenging, more interesting work.

My first reaction to this is to shout – Nonsense! (or something ruder) – and leave it at that. However, the more I’ve heard this argument the more I think it is important that the sector refutes it strongly. Yes artists are resilient, and yes, artists will continue to produce great work in the face of adversity but that doesn’t mean hardship is good for them – anymore than it is good for the rest of us.

Some great art projects are riding the wave of the recession, for example artists in Stroud are using the empty shop units now found on the High Street to present work and run workshops. Exceptions like this project do not prove that the arts, and artists benefit from the recession. There is no doubt that financial hardship will no doubt affect the variety, diversity and quality of artistic experiences available. The impacts will range from fewer individual artists having enough resources to focus primarily on their creative work to large institutions have to make safer programming decisions to ensure they can cover building running costs.

I value the resourcefulness of artists and admire their response to the current financial difficulties. This shouldn’t be mistaken for the ability of the sector to sustain itself in the long-term, without proper funding and support, on the mistaken belief that the sector is better off when facing a crisis.

PS On this blog I have written several articles about the recession and the arts – which can be found below. Toby Young has also pulled together some facts about the impact of the recession on the arts on his blog. Although his facts seem to indicate that the audiences are currently holding up, it seems to me that this evidence holds little comfort when we consider how quickly the situation seems to be heading downhill – while figures might be good for 2008 I doubt they will sustain for 2009!

 

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Garden of Earthly Delights - Hieronymous Bosch

We’re beginning to see what can be achieved when arts organisations think creatively about integrating technology into the way they bring art to their audiences. Such initiatives are often developing not only the nature of the delivery of the artistic experience for audiences, or diversifying  who can connect with the arts, but significantly affects the natrue of the experience itself.

I am particularly excited by the new initiative from the Prado in Madrid which has photographed some of it’s finest works in a very high resolution and made the images available through Google Earth. Remarkably, you are not just getting closer to the works that you could in a book or a usual online reproduction, you are actually able to get closer to the works than you could even if you were in the Prado right in front of it.

It strikes me that technology is now allowing us to look at these works in a completely new way, and encouraging us to focus on the micro rather than the macro. Through this presentation style we become fascinated by brushwork and technique, the depth, luminosity and character of the colour, and the representation of detail. We are used to looking at the whole. Each image comes with the baggage of the painted wall, the images chosen to hang alongside, and a little white card that tells us about the artist’s life, his birth and death dates, his daily concerns and erudite opinions a bit the work. These are all elements of looking at art that I love, but this new way, allowing me to focus on just a few details, is also intriguing, shocking and moving – all the things that I want from art.

 

What impact will the impending recession have on the arts?

Radio 4 ran a report from the Frieze Art Fair earlier today, discussing the impact of the recession on the contemporary art market. While the dealers were bluff and confident in their assertion that sales are robust, commentator Louise Bluck was more believable, saying that attendance was high but people were looking at not buying. Damien Hirst’s solo auction at Sotheby’s may have raised £111million only a month ago, but he is an exception, and no conclusions can be drawn about the contemporary art market as a whole.

Some commentators are suggesting that art is a particularly attractive investment right now. Like gold you own something with an integral value, and you’re not at the mercy of fat cats or having your funds frozen, lost or disappeared by some bank’s mishandling your investment. However, all but the biggest collector’s have little chance of making a significant profit from owning art, and the buyer’s should still beware of investing for profit rather than love. An article from The Independent, written in 2002 titled, Beware art for profit’s sake, seems as relevant today.

I have been searching the internet to try and find some research that gives an indication on how arts attendance, might fare during the recession. I must say I can’t find much, except that recession seems to be good news for cinema. During the depression of the 1930s, cinema attendance grew hugely. The assumption seems to from the 30s to today, that cinema attendance is cheap, and therefore becomes more attractive when money is tight. Some commentators add that cinema is escapist entertainment and so it’s exactly what people are looking for when they are finding their day-to-day difficult. Across Wales cinema attendance has been up this summer, and while they agree that people look to cinema to cheer them up during gloomy times, the gloomy times in this instance could also be the terrible, washout we experienced this summer. 

What I can’t find at the moment is more detailed information about theatre or music attendance during recession, and I think this informaiton would be really useful right now. Arts organisations need to be preparing for the next few turbulent years, and the ones who take a measure, strategic and planned approach will have the best chance of flourishing through the recession. If you have any relevant research you can share, or links to useful publications on this matter, please leave them as comments and if there are enough I’ll create a set of links bringing the research together. Please comment with your thoughts and comments too.

In the meantime I thought I’d leave with another resource form my new favourite Arts Marketing blog, ArtsMarket. This ones entitled Audience Development in a Recession Economy and is full of tips for successful audience development in time so economic uncertainty.

See my new post, The recession starts to bite, for ongoing dicussion of this topic.