The Value of Art

Maria Miller, the Culture secretary, said yesterday that if arts funding councils wanted to avoid funding cuts they should make the case for the economic impact of investing in art. This, in my view, is a terrible way for framing the argument for investing in the arts. A few months ago I wrote a post about science funding. In this I argued that by limiting science funding to projects with a clear commercial benefit over those which seem a bit more ‘blue-sky’, there is a risk that development follows too linear a path and we remain blind to ‘unknown unknowns’. The same idea, I think, applies to the arts – possibly more so.

Maria’s comments provide a good case study to talk about framing. In order to help an audience engage with an argument, the message is framed in a way that resonates with the beliefs and prejudices of the audience. Essentially, if a communicator can frame an argument correctly, they are able to effectively communicate with any audience. However, framing can lead to unforeseen circumstances. A problem, such as arts funding, may appear to have different solutions when framed in different ways.

Brigitte Nerlich has argued that by framing the outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease during 2001 as a ‘war against Foot and Mouth’, policy makers committed themselves to the destructive, wasteful and traumatic solution of culling many thousands of farm animals. I worry that by framing arts funding as an economic investment, truly innovative and risky art will be avoided.

Will a focus on the economic investment of the arts lead to a situation where big ‘blockbuster’ arts projects are funded and truly innovative stuff is underfunded and not produced? Ultimately, this will be detrimental to culture and could result in people spending less not more money on British arts – “if it’s all the same, what’s so special about spending money on this product?”

The Culture secretary claims, “I am fighting [the art world’s] corner as hard as I can within government.” To do this, I suggest a new framing model is found – one which focuses not just on the economic benefit of the arts, but also on the innovative nature of British art.