THE FRENCH poet and playwright, Alfred Du Masset, once declared that “great artists have no country”; whether many artists subscribe to that view hardly matters. Today and tomorrow many of Ireland’s artists and arts administrators will take part in a national campaign to convince politicians at government and local level, and of all parties, that their work is a necessary ingredient of our society — and one worthy of the kind of State support that will allow it to continue to flourish.
Tomorrow’s National Day of Action is a show of solidarity across all art forms. The scope of the face-to-face meetings between arts workers and politicians in almost every constituency is unprecedented. Although Actors Equity and the visual artists’ organisation, AARO, might have been wiser to join their colleagues rather than demonstrating a day earlier, the cause of all involved is linked by genuine anxieties that further cuts will erode the successes and audience-building of recent years.
The case being made is centred on “the relevance of arts and culture to the nation’s overall economic and social wellbeing”. Since the Farmleigh economic forum a year ago, much airtime and many column inches have been used to advance the idea of the arts as a rebranding tool to help revive a sense of national identity. There have been arguments for and warnings against this idea which is unlikely to lead to artists capitulating to the marketplace.
However, the more salient argument on behalf of the arts is that they have economic benefits and provide good value on the investment. The economic case is boosted by the potential to grow our cultural tourism, which the Minister, Mary Hanafin, has been advocating at every opportunity. On that point, the plan to close the Museum of Modern Art for more than a year does not sit well with marketing the capital as a cultural destination. The remedial work may be necessary but the extended period of closure could damage the years of work by its director, Enrique Juncosa, in building an international reputation for the institution. Adding to the state of flux, our two main opera companies are about to be disbanded and merged, with diversity of choice a possible casualty of this decision.
As yet it is unclear whether there is any real strategic thinking on how the arts can be brought into play in national recovery. This week seems a good time for real dialogue on such a strategy — there is more in common between culture and enterprise than separates them.