The Cultural World Has Fundamentally Changed

The question hangs on the meaning of the word ‘lead’. There are many styles of leadership: at one end the Scottish model, where the chieftain runs in front of his clan as they charge into battle; at the other the English, where an aristocrat sits on a horse and attempts to direct the fighting from a safe distance. Not that long ago, leaders in the arts world adopted one or other of those positions: the avant-garde charged ahead, leaving the rest of us struggling to keep up, while Lord Clark made lofty and mystical pronouncements about what the hoi polloi should do and think: “What is civilization? I don’t know…But I think I can recognize it when I see it.”

The leaders of the avant-garde and the scholarly tradition often argued, but it was a false battle, because they shared one thing in common: they both wanted to use their exclusive cultural knowledge to affirm their social status and distinguish themselves from the mainstream. In turn, their ability to do that depended on the assumed existence of a benighted and ignorant mass of people who they could place themselves above. Both positions were, and are, anti-democratic. As Schoenberg put it: ‘If it is art, it is not for all. If it is for all, it is not art.”

Although not everyone working in the field of culture has realized it yet, the cultural world has fundamentally changed, over a very short space of time, and we need new models of leadership to operate in new circumstances. The first big cultural change that has happened is that millions of people now have in their hands the things they need (such as cheap but good quality instruments, cameras, editing software and so on) to achieve high technical standards when expressing themselves in meaningful and enjoyable ways. People have always made their own culture through music, dance, poetry and craftwork, but the relative passivity of the twentieth century – encouraged by TV and radio – is now giving way to mass cultural expression: do you know anyone under the age of 25 who isn’t in a band, or writing poetry or dancing or making films?

The second, and even more radical, change is that, because of the internet, people can communicate, collaborate with others, and monetise what they produce. This has led to, among other things, the destruction of business models in the commercial cultural world and an explosion in cultural activity that is reflected in the growing economic importance of the arts, and in an increasing tendency for people to define their identity less through work and more through what they watch, read, and listen to.

The democratization of culture has happened not because power has been given away by the avant-garde or the cultural aristocrats; instead it has come about – as democracies always do – through people taking power for themselves. In this cultural democracy, artists – and all of us can be artists – are free to do what they want. But the role of arts organizations is to assist the democratic process. The question is, how?

Part of the answer lies in recognizing realities. It is obvious that no part of the cultural world can any longer lay claim to being of intrinsically superior quality to any other: it is no longer possible to say that theatre must be better than TV, or that an object in a museum has of necessity to be ranked higher than a piece of mass-produced design. In other words, there is good and bad theatre, good and bad TV, good and bad opera, and the arts organization has to strive for quality rather than simply affirming that they must be good simply because of what they do.

Another reality is that the official voices of culture – newspaper critics, curators, cultural funders, the leaders of arts organizations – are no longer the only legitimate arbiters of quality: there are many ‘amateurs’ in the ‘audience’ who have astonishing expertise (as they do in the sciences as well) – not to mention the fact that everyone in the ‘audience’ has a right to an opinion. The old boundaries between professional and amateur, lay person and expert, producer and consumer, have therefore become fuzzier.

In this new reality, arts organizations have to abandon the idea that they are ‘delivering’ culture to audiences; instead culture is something that happens when and where audiences and the arts organization meet – each brings something to the party. We need to think of the space between the stage and the seats not as a boundary but as an interface, or a space for conversation.

All of this demands a new relationship between arts organizations and their public(s): one where the arts leader is guide, collaborator, interlocutor, listener, partner – and sometimes follower. The role of the expert is to place their expertise at the service of their community – not to use their expertise to impose their own views on others. Paradoxically, this means that in order to lead better, arts organizations need to follow more.

Comments

  1. Thanks for the opportunity to join this discussion.

    I’m an arts administrator who has been working in an increasingly difficult environment to secure adequate resources for arts organizations and artists. It’s in that spirit that I submit to you that if you are going to make such sweeping generalizations about the inadequacies of arts organizations, your arguments should be subject to close scrutiny.

    *There are many styles of leadership*

    The range of leadership models you evoke strikes me as unnecessarily limited. There are leadership models in the arts which expand the spectrum beyond the extreme of your Scottish rabble-rousing chieftain – specifically, those in which leadership responsibilities shift from person to person according to the demands of the prevailing circumstances. Examples include visual arts collectives, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Blast Theory, and Radiohead.

    *The leaders of the avant-garde and the scholarly tradition… both wanted to use their exclusive cultural knowledge to affirm their social status and distinguish themselves from the mainstream*

    I’ve always thought that what makes the more adventurous artist-leaders special is not because they achieve what you say they want to, but because they find the most compelling ways of pursuing their calling. I know less about scholars, but I suspect the same may be true there. So I would suggest that the “false battle” you refer to is indeed false, but not in the way you intended.

    *It is obvious that no part of the cultural world can any longer lay claim to being of intrinsically superior quality to any other*

    Are you really claiming what I think you are? That there is some purpose in, for example, telling an avid opera lover that he or she (or an apparent he pretending to be a she – see La Cieca) should no longer be allowed to say that opera is the peak of worldly experience?

    *The role of the expert is to place their expertise at the service of their community – not to use their expertise to impose their own views on others. Paradoxically, this means that in order to lead better, arts organizations need to follow more.*

    You seem to be suggesting that this is not happening in the arts. In my experience, this has been happening for years.

    I’ll close with a suggestion that it might be useful to turn the tables a bit on your argument. In the early days of the AHRC – for which I see you are an adviser – the organization I worked for struggled to convince AHRC that exhibitions (rather than academic conferences or scholarly articles) were the REAL research outputs, and therefore that’s where the funding should go. There was a real sense of surprise on the part of the arts organizations that this need, which was an essential and deep one, had not been clear to AHRC from the start. As things stood, by preventing its funding from going towards what the arts organizations felt was the real, practice-oriented research, AHRC funding was actually preventing curatorial researchers from pursuing – if you like – their calling.

    I gather AHRC was persuaded to do a course correction – I don’t know the details, by that time I had left the country. But I believe this episode is still valid as an explanation of why I’d like to counter with an alternative version of your closing statement:

    In order to lead better, arts funders need to follow more.

  2. Joseph Newland says

    John Holden, in an interesting description of current state vs. Lord Clark’s state, makes the comment
    “But the role of arts organizations is to assist the democratic process.”
    Which I would find very puzzling were he not in a think tank called Demos. I’ve worked in a few and been to many arts organizations, events, programs, etc. and I can’t think of a single one whose role is to “assist the democratic process” in the arts even, much less so baldly stated.

    Arts presenters have generally (I hesitate to assert always) been filters, of whatever their source material–whether avant-garde or mainstream in his dichotomy–in that they choose things to present. Their focus and range might be tiny or broad, but the point is to NOT present everything. One walks outside for that. The greater monopolization of “traditional” arts organizations’ or publishing venues’ ability to filter and adjudicate may have been reduced, but I would suggest it’s just this reducing valve on what I guess John would call the democratic output that is of value.