Are most artists ready “to flip”?
A recent conversation got me thinking about elite theory, art production and state art...
I.
Elite theory, as developed by thinkers Gaetano Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto, Georges Sorel and many others, states that rule by elite is inevitable. Whether it be through monarchy, dictatorship, theocracy, oligarchy or even democracy, an elite group with distinctive characteristics that distinguish it from the majority population finds a way of obtaining and guarding power, developing or adapting systems of education, law and civic values that allow it to shape society. If you doubt the veracity of that, consider the way the civil service, judiciary, police and the heads of the mass media, NGOs and stakeholder corporate partners will remain absolutely unchanged no matter which party is elected in the next general election. Also consider that there is no single fundamental core value that differentiates major political parties.
Elite theory tells us that a combination of coercion, education, mass-media messaging and social conformity keeps the majority of the population compliant with the intentions of the ruling class. Members of the middle-class, the “professional managerial class” as the left describes them, adopt the manners, morals and tastes of the elite to signal obedience as the administrators. There is also the motivation of status seeking, with members of the managerial stratum wishing to elevate themselves into the ranks of the elite.
Art, ever since the establishment of agrarian settlements, has been set to aggrandisement of patrons, be they kings, Greek polis or the Church (and its princes). Art of today is used by the state and its affiliates to reassert the hegemony of the elite’s values of progressive materialism and liberal egalitarianism. The Tate buys art to support “overlooked” women artists; the British Council exhibits it to present Britain as a multi-cultural creative hub; ACE (Arts Council England) funds it to promote visibility of minority-demographic creators; the Art Fund awards prizes to museums that take up social inclusion. Modern Medicis may be card-carrying democrats and faceless bureaucrats but they have the Machiavellian ruthlessness and absolute assurance of their right to rule as any Renaissance princeling. That is reflected in the culture they back and the values they promote. No less, there are certain beliefs that are considered beyond the pale. Propose to a funding body an exhibition opposed to abortion or sceptical of mass migration and see how quickly the “all art is political” and “we need to start a dialogue” attitudes dissipate like early summer morning mist.
How many more failed applications to the RA Summer Exhibition, the John Moores Exhibition or a regional ACE committee will your average young artist endure before realising the game is rigged? Outlets like The Jackdaw have exposed the quota programming that shuts out talented artists. That cohort includes women and minority-demographic artists who happen to be socially or artistically conservative. Imagine two competent artists who are black. One adheres to left-wing politics and is hostile to religion; the other announces he is a devout Christian. Is there any doubt about whom will be patronised by the state and whom cold-shouldered? Once a system of patronage is closed to worthy applicants and those applicants know that it is due to unalterable non-artistic criteria, these artists – perforce dissidents – are faced with alternatives: find new channels of support, self-finance, leave the market, overturn the system.
“Why overturn the system?” Older readers may ask. “Can’t we just turn the dial back to 1990 and get the balance how it was?” Can you imagine the political apparatchiks now in charge conceding error? After 20 years of any proposed adjustment in a politically rightward direction being described as literal Fascism, nothing less than endorsement of imperialism and the harbinger of genocide, can you envisage the gimlet-eyed commissars of ACE, Tate or the Art Util movement saying “Fair’s fair, maybe we did go a bit far”? No. The whole reason such a relentless takeover of institutions has been successful is because the left never conceded an inch. Activist curators and administrators are engaged in a sustained campaign to discredit or eliminate not only conservativism but all material or personnel who might be considered suspiciously neutral.
Disgruntled art lovers of a liberal persuasion might place faith in the reassuring idea of culture as a pendulum, but it is actually a ratchet designed to only go one way. If there is to be hope of seeing a rich array of art produced and appreciated for its aesthetic qualities, that ratchet has to be broken.
II.
Back to the conversation which initiated my thoughts. I heard from a young painter who had worked on a group project that required outside funding. She told me that she had filled out the ACE form and was depressed by the concentration on messaging and identity. “When I wrote that application it felt like I was selling my soul. I also helped a friend with writing one about half a year ago using the new form. I was shocked at how little they asked about the actual art. I mean there was hardly anywhere to write about that. It was crazy.” She commented to me that she thought that senior administrators in art had become trapped in political positions. “I agree they are in the grip of demographic programming and I fear there is more to come if not only because they programme so far in advance, even if it becomes unfashionable they will still be locked in for as long as it takes to finish all the things they agreed to when the pressure was on. I feel a bit like the people at the top are tired/scared/unprincipled rather than true believers but I'm not always sure.”
That raises the possibility that commitment to identity-quota programming is something that has become groupthink and political orthodoxy, done out of a need to advance projects and maintain jobs. There will also be diversity-hired administrators who know their abilities do not match the demands and that their income depends upon maintaining the current system. (This is part of a process called bio-Leninism.) The number of zealous believers may be relatively low. Would a new political climate would see most competent administrators ready to flip?
And how many artists are ready to flip? Would artists be ready to come out publicly by saying they do not believe in the state’s orthodoxy, namely that art must “make social change happen” and be used as a utilitarian device for social inclusion, progressive materialism and liberal egalitarianism? Are they willing to pledge to make great art to satisfy themselves, their audience and fulfil the historical necessity of art (i.e. develop and expand art consequential to production of other art, either by themselves or others), casting aside the political mantras of the current elite?
It will take a degree of moral and intellectual bravery to break with the elite’s values to assert contrary values. I do not mean turning your back on the Tate and ACE, because they long ago turned their backs on you, but saying to a fellow artist, university tutor or curator, “I do not want my art to promote equality and human rights. I need to make art that is true to my vision and beliefs that may contradict the establishment’s.” If a new power were to arise, I think that many artists would step back from the current beliefs of the establishment that they have supported; some would go on to embrace new values or fail to oppose a new elite’s beliefs. Were the paymaster to change, some artists who today endorse mass migration would tomorrow be willing to produce nationalist art hostile to migration. Make no mistake, the majority of artists in the publicly funded arts who produce identity-politics art are purely journeymen and entirely reliant on state funding.
Of course, we might hold the artist as the conscience of his society but I suspect most artists (especially the least talented, least confident ones) do not fall into that category and would change with the establishment. The majority of every field – excepting perhaps invention or exploration – are conformists. For the vanguardist – who is a risk-taker, non-collegial, cussed – the opportunities afforded by going against the grain look more appealing than conformity. The prizes for an early adopter or explorer are great, although obstacles and opposition may make for a lonely life. I wonder who we shall see in the first wave to stand up to the establishment and assert the primacy of art’s power and set the importance of beauty above the quotidian utilitarianism of state art.
I suspect that the answer to your titular question is no, but then the arts are full up of people who have no real business being involved.
A vital first step is to discredit the extant system - not just to condemn the art it produces, but the fealty and conformism it demands. Bad art coming out of ACE support, for instance, should be disdained as "Arts Council art." Bad art put forth by the Tate should be condemned as "Tatist" or "typical of the Tatist style." I have taken to calling the general case as the art of the Monoculture.
https://dissidentmuse.substack.com/p/the-monoculture
More will be willing to flip when they've been made to feel that perhaps they're not sitting at the cool kid's table after all.
I do think that the victim culture will have to undergo a cataclysmic event of some sort in order to be replaced by something else. It's just too easy to be a victim. The whole of western culture is geared to this spiritual form like those spirits in Dante who follow one flag or another on a darkened plain hither and fro, this way and that.