The Great Arts Debate

Unlike a certain SAR-based blogger, I do appreciate the arts. This is understandable, since I'm a very cultured chap. I believe strongly that there is much to learn from the musical, operatic, literary, and visual greats.

What I object to, however, is the Government forcing me to pay for a bunch of lazy no-hopers to claim creativity without any hope of practising it. The Arts for the Dole Scheme is one of the most garbled failures, and most insidious symbols of government largesse. When the Government pays actors and painters to sit at home doing nothing, then they sit at home and do nothing.

Creativity, as I was telling an old-time professional actor friend of mine, stems from desire and personal necessity. As I was buying him lunch a few months ago, he was praising Aunty Helen for everything she has done for Aotearoa/New Zealand’s cultural movement. He then claimed that he was not interested in making money. He argued that he was not good at making money. He proposed that making money is just not good for society.

To wit, I responded: “Which of the great civilisations of history have ever contributed to world culture, except through economic dominance?”

“What?” he asked.

“Simple. Every great civilisation has created great cultural artefacts, by virtue of the fact that individuals have supported and patronised a great artist and encouraged that artist to be creative and productive, or else an artist has doggedly chosen to pursue a career by having that inner hunger—supported by nobody except their own determination to succeed. There is no other way to cultural success.”

“What about talent?” he countered.

”Yes, they’ve all had talent. But the successful artists have all worked their arses off to get there. They’ve had to understand their market. They battle on no matter what.”

Government-funded actor suggests that so much art would be lost if it wasn’t state-sponsored. I answer with: “Like what? That theatrical bullshit you come up with that nobody watches?”

Actor is hurt. I say to him: “Look, don’t take this personally. But the reason why your work is such utter shite is that you’re not hungry enough. You’re content with mediocrity. You don’t have to listen to your audience, or respond to what they want. You just do it anyway, because the State gives you a big whallop of cash for you to sit on your arse, so that it can feel good and pretentious about contributing my money to your idleness.”

Case in point is the TVNZ charter. For the last several years, the Government has paid TVNZ a special subsidy to promote New Zealand content on television. The result: outgoing CEO Ian Fraser says that New Zealand content is under threat, that there has been no noticeable increase in content capacity, that there has been no increased audience demand for local television, television revenue is falling, and, in a nutshell, TVNZ has simply absorbed the subsidy into its baselines. Money is thrown at New Zealand culture with no long-term positive effect. It is spent, simply because it is there, on mediocre television that nobody wants to watch.

This morning, I was walking past the Civic Centre. A cohort of skateboarders were doing funky things with their skateboards, outside one of Auckland’s premier cultural attractions. I stopped and chatted with them. “So what do you guys do?” I ask.

“We’re artists,” they answer.

Riiiiiight.

Meanwhile, the Herald reports this morning that a family of buskers—extremely talented, albeit not particularly attractive young musicians—have been given a different treatment from local and government authorities. The story goes like this: two pianist ingénues, aged 14 and 20, have been slaving their guts out for the last six months, providing musical entertainment on Queen Street, playing some of the most difficult Rachmaninov and Chopin pieces, among many others in their repertoire, in order to raise money to send their gifted sister to ballet school in England.

The Sheffield family are not on the dole. They do not ride skateboards. They simply sit and ply their trade. And they do it exceptionally well. Their audience appreciates them. They show their appreciation by contributing directly to them.

I suspect that the Sheffield brothers do very well from their busking. A few months ago, I offered one of them a couple of hundred dollars to play at a client function we were holding in our boardroom for a couple of hours. He declined, on the basis that he would make more money playing the piano in rush hour.

Yet both the Council and the Police have tried several times to move these kids on. Why? Because they’re not state-sponsored. Aunty Helen—the great arts champion—does not support those who actually have a connection with their audience, and who tirelessly strive to make the most of their talent.

Instead, she’d much rather pay a group of skateboarders to claim creative merit outside the Civic Centre.

Stalin tried to silence Shostakovich, because he wouldn't follow the state-sanctioned cultural regime. The Sheffield brothers have Shostakovich--and very credibly so--in their repertoire. The Minister for Arts and Culture, and the Associate Minister for Auckland, who merrily swan their way through any media opportunity at chardonnay-swilling cultural gatherings, could do much to encourage the Sheffield brothers to continue to play for Auckland city-dwellers.

And then they might actually achieve something for Auckland's arts scene. And it won't cost a single taxpayer dollar.