The politesse of current arts funding muffles artists’ voices

The painting, like Brando’s characterizations, is widely recognized for ushering important new movements into the American contemporary cultural experience. In the visual arts, "Green Target" signaled the end of the abstract expressionist movement by opening the doors to pop art’s objective study of American commercial culture.

The difference is that Brando’s breakthrough performance still pays the actor royalties, whereas "Green Target’s" resale for several million dollars in the early 1990s did not. But whether the Report’s important advocacy in the area of royalties, is based on the principle of great art’s importance in the visual evolution of Australian life, or a rather uneasy bureaucratic suspicion that elitist secondary art markets are getting away with murder, is anyone’s guess.

Certainly, today’s contradictory economic drivers build on the expectation of public funding. The cultural and economic impact of long term individual and institutional grant dependencies are important questions the Report leaves relatively unattended.

The impact of our increasingly privatized health system on artists’ well being is also seriously neglected, as are other important areas of financial advocacy in the industry in favor of slightly hysterical statistics highlighting artists’ low incomes. Can artists afford to make superannuation contributions?

It is time Australian visual arts bureaucrats faced the fact that although they are professionally dependent on artists for their raison d etre, the guy in the paint-splattered suit may never enjoy quite as high a standard of living as an arts management desk jockey. Ideally, artists are here to promote these and other truths, but the politesse of the Australian arts funding system often muffles these dangerous voices in our society.

The Report advocates a $15 million federally matched lifeline to the Australian contemporary art scene. The only cloud on the horizon - other than persuading the Howard Government to embrace the Report’s perspective on industrial realities - is that the states are being asked to match the funding increases.

Approximately $7.5 million will be needed to make these generous strategic recommendations stick. This puts the onus back on Australia’s Labor state governments. Will they swallow Rupert Myer’s generous demands on behalf of the visual arts industry in this country?

I’ll be watching the Report’s reception closely for debate focussed on Australia’s visual arts industry's chronic financial problems. Can it buck decades of international economic growth trends in this potentially immensely lucrative sector?

I’ll also be looking for signs of increased commitment to a more worldly approach to the incredible opportunities Australia's vast geographic span should be providing for artists and the public. That is, with or without increased public support. It might mean the end of our tolerance of mediocre regional arts bureaucrats, but there's always contemporary art history for reviving culture's premature fatalities.