Long Read
The Arts are ailing, and Covid-19 is not to blame. Sure, Covid-19 has disrupted all aspects of our lives, but we must not lay the blame for all our problems at its feet. Instead we must look at it as a violent blow, which in most cases is proving fatal.
It is not a coincidence that the language of art and capitalism have converged. We speak of art in terms of ‘industry’ and ‘production’ and ‘projects’. We might add colourful adjectives to them such as ‘creative’ or ‘cultural’, but the bottom line is that art is reduced to another statistic, and measured in terms of its contribution to a country’s GDP. It is also considered a market (something which has plagued the visual arts in particular), and thus subject to the rules of the free market. Contemporary art can sell for millions simply on the basis of it being ‘contemporary art’ and ‘in demand’, and not for any aesthetic merit or personal preference.
Of course there is nothing wrong with acknowledging the financial contributions of art, but it trivialises the whole concept of art. Think of the difference between the price of a cake, and the value of a birthday cake baked by a relative or friend for the surprise party they just threw for you. Both are ‘cake’, but one is a business transaction, the other a social interaction. And the tragic part is that artists are becoming more adept at pricing their work, and less concerned about the value of what they produce. There is a word for that: entertainment.
Again, entertainment is important. It helps us break the boredom of daily existence, and allows for a few fleeting moments of relief. It is as necessary as food and sleep and physical exercise. Art on the other hand fulfils different purposes. Art raises questions, highlights issues, challenges perceptions – all extremely valuable for our survival. In short, entertainment deals with the present, while Art deals with the future. By conflating the two we are impoverishing our present, and dooming our future.
And herein lies one of the biggest problems with the arts scene, at least locally. For decades art has been reduced to a consumable product. We have become highly skilled at discussing the value and application of art, but when you analyse the actual content it is severely lacking. This ranges from horrendous public art, tired ‘Maltese’ landscapes, manufactured pop music, and culminating in the ultimate orgy of ‘art’ with the Valletta 2018 Capital of Culture. The point here is not whether they are pleasant to behold, but whether they offer anything of value to us and future generations. If looked at from the lens of ‘entertainment’ then all of the above were fantastic, but if looked at as ‘art’ they make for very depressing analysis.
Let us look at Valletta 2018 in particular, an event that was used as a political and personal calling card by all and sundry. It is also something I was involved in to various degrees, and therefore I’ve had first-hand experience of. I have already criticised V18 before, and I will also freely admit that the work I did for V18 is hardly my best work. But it is very important to look back critically and acknowledge the fact that a lot of our current problems were already manifesting themselves back then. So for the sake of clarity (and because I love lists) here is a list of a few of those issues.
Photo credit: The Times of Malta
1. Content Poverty
Art should not be pretty or provocative. It can be either, but it has to go beyond that. It has to ask the right questions that resonate beyond the immediacy of the present. Let us look at two of the most current pressing issues: the environment and immigration. V18 acknowledged both through the Valletta Green Festival (and the infiorata) and Aħna Refuġjati, an ‘opera’ about Syrian refugees fleeing conflict, that was pretty much a still-born child.
If this were a box-ticking exercise, then V18 ticked the right box, but what about the content? The ‘opera’ comes worst off here – a muddled plot with no character development or credible storyline that trivialises the refugee experience (in the end they literally decide to ‘go back to their country’ and fight back for their homes…honestly if that were an option they would not have left in the first place). The Green Festival was a better attempt, but it tackles the environment like a Wordsworth poem. It is all about ‘pretty daffodils’ and how important trees are. We did not need to spend thousands on an infiorata to know that. What we need to know is why is our environment getting progressively poorer and what we can do about it. Both questions are extremely uncomfortable political questions, and since V18 was a political calling card, those questions were not asked.
Two years down the line, both the environment and immigration remain painful issues that few are able to discuss in any meaningful way. When lockdown happened in March, and the now rebranded VCA went ahead with the infiorata in an empty city, while migrants rioted or were left stranded at sea, it all felt like one giant parody.
2. Arts Education
I will not delve into professional training for people to become artists, but will focus on a more general approach to arts education, i.e. that of educating the general population on art. There is no creative education embedded in our education system, with the approach being an ad hoc one depending on who runs a particular school. As someone who has worked extensively with schools I am painfully aware of the discrepancies. These are the result of an education policy that has changed little since the post-war period. School is about exams and tests and classrooms and homework. You are deemed a good student if you can remember the date of the Great Siege, or know the capital of Italy. But how many students have visited the sites where the Great Siege was fought? How many of them know the cultural importance of Rome in the 19th and 20th century for Maltese artists like Antonio Sciortino whose works they can admire first hand?
You might think these things trivial, but the effects are disastrous. Generation after generation grow up to be culturally insensitive, leading to the kind of passivity that we are well accustomed to. So when Covid-19 hit, and artists were left penniless, no-one bat an eye-lid. For the general public, art is nothing more than a school project or a government funded activity.
3. Public Funding
It would be both incorrect and unfair to lay all the blame for our current predicament at the feet of the government and the general public. A great part of the blame lies with the artists themselves. Over the past ten years public funding for the arts has increased exponentially. Money has been ‘invested’ in the arts (that’s the capitalist lingo at work again), and most artists have lapped it up. The result is that a great number of artists have become dependent on it.
It is not the fact that public funding for the arts is made available that is the problem, but the unhealthy dependence that has been created between artist and public funds. Instead of striving to become independent professionals, most end up living through public funding. On the other hand there is no clear legislation or structure that permits an artist to function as a financially independent individual. Instead there is a myriad of rules and regulations that are simply unworkable and frustrating. I’ve had situations where different information was relayed from the same government entity with no-one willing to commit to an answer in writing. In the end most take the easier option and live off public funds.
You might think these are small matters, but they are not. They are life-changing matters. Try getting a home loan as a self-employed artist: it is practically impossible, especially now that we are in the middle of a crisis. With no social, financial, or legal structures to support the artists, the gut reaction is to turn to government funding. That is unhealthy for both the artists and the government. The former ends up creating safe content so as not to displease the proverbial hand that feeds them, and the latter ends up paying artists alimony.
4. The Lone Genius
Film has been one of the most powerful inventions of the 20th century (well a little earlier than that). Its portrayal of the world around us has profound influence on how we view the world. Take our current obsession with the superhero franchise. Film externalises our deep desire to be saved by a hero, whether that comes in the form of a religious figure, a political figure, or a scientist. Film also profoundly influences our views on art. Whether it is Michelangelo in The Agony and the Ecstasy or Beethoven in Immortal Beloved, the prevalent portrayal is that of the lone genius working against all odds.
It is a portrayal that has its roots in the Romantic movement. The Industrial Revolution created a great divide between the artist and the real world. Many great artists of the Romantic period delved in historical or naturalistic escapism. Despite a brief flirtation with real life through Realism and verismo, the deep upheavals of the 20th century created deeper divisions. Freud’s exploration of the psyche precipitated the kind of inward looking behaviour that has plagued the arts since. As the 20th century grew bloodier and more totalitarian, many artists retreated into their own private worlds, creating art only for the elite or even just for their own pleasure.
Although there has been a gradual rapprochement between artist and society over the past few decades (think of Warhol’s ‘art for all’ approach), there is still a deep mistrust and plenty of misunderstanding between the two. Remember Austin Camilleri’s Żieme in 2014? It was an astute and brilliant commentary on the nature of power. Most people hated it. A horse with a missing leg? How outrageous
Fast forward a few years and we found that the horse not only had a missing leg, but pretty much consisted of a bloody headless torso writhing and struggling for its life. An ongoing list of political scandals, bloody murders, betrayals, and dodgy financial transactions that exposed the nature of power. And it looks like Covid-19 might just finish off this headless torso.
In all of this…no-one really cares about the artists. In times of crisis people will snap back at criticism with ‘Where were you?’ Well, we know where some were…but most artists were quiet and complacent, and most will see no reason why they should be bailed out.
5. The problem with the word ‘Art’
I have used the word ‘art’ profusely in this article as an umbrella term. But the word in itself is problematic. What is art? Most will think of it as a painting or a symphony, but art encompasses a broad range of disciplines. I always consider art as ‘creative expression that stimulates intellectual discussion through the senses’. It is true that great art embodies important philosophical issues, but it also has to appeal to the senses. The ways that creative thought can be expressed are various, and often difficult to define or create neat distinctions. A well cooked dish or a bottle of fine wine appeal to the senses just as much as a beautiful painting, but is it art? The answer is not as clear cut as you might think.
This is an important definition to make because the word ‘art’ is bandied about indiscriminately by politicians and policy makers to suit their needs. Thus when a few years back there was a study on the creative industries in Malta, it turned out that thousands were ‘artist’ simply because the statistics considered pretty much any creative work from being a concert pianist to being a hairdresser. Fast-forward to 2020, and all of a sudden that definition is being narrowed down more and more. The less ‘artists’ there are, the less arts alimony needs to be paid out. Most ‘artists’ will also prefer to consider themselves as ‘businesses’ since the financial and legal structures for businesses are infinitely better than those for the arts.
Conclusion
I understand that the issues raised in this article cannot be sufficiently and effectively addressed in a mere blog post. What is important at this stage is to acknowledge the inefficiency of our current structures, and push for real change. We must also admit that these issues are part of a larger whole – all our current structures are crumbling.
We are at the crossroads of civilisation. Ours is an epoch as crucial to humanity as the Agricultural Revolution or the Industrial Revolution. Neo-liberalism and Post Modernism have failed spectacularly, and both religion and science have failed to ‘save us’. It is useless waiting for God to deliver us from the plague, or for science to come up with a vaccine. It trivialises both these two essential and incredibly beautiful concepts (i.e. the spiritual and the rational).
What I do hope is that despite the extremely difficult circumstances, artists (and everyone else) realise exactly how crucial and delicate the present is, and start asking the right questions, no matter how uncomfortable they are.
MużiKartI 