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Money for art

Andy From Sligo

Just watching a thing on BBC2 about the new Tate Art Gallery in the UK - £58million pounds of UK Tax Payers money used in the project? - what do you think about using tax payers money to fund something like this?

Would the Irish tax payers put up with something like this if a similar project wanted to go ahead?

Do you think art and art projects should be funded with public tax payers money or should the money be raised in other ways or by entrance fee or by the artists themselves or people just interested in art only?

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Frostybrew

What's really shocking about this thread is the fact that the UK spends more on a single art gallery than the Irish Arts Council's entire yearly budget.

muddypaws

Andy, you live in Sligo, how many visitors go to Drumcliffe each year because of the Yeats connection? How much money do they then spend in the local area? They don't just fly in, get a bus to Drumcliffe, bus back to the airport and go home, they stay around, injecting money into the local and national economy.

Whether you like modern art or not is irrelevant, other people do, and people travel from around the world to visit the Tate Modern, and then put money into the London and English economy. So the government then get VAT back, income tax from people employed directly by the gallery and in peripheral jobs.

timthumbni

I know someone earlier mentioned about a monkey doodle being passed off as modern art. I didn't know that but wouldn't be surprised.

I watched something where they they got a group of nursery school kids to just slap paint around at the school, then submitted these to some art critics as being from adults and the amount of crap and nonsense the critics came out with regarding what the "artist" was saying was unbelievable.

It's why anytime I hear anyone on tv discussing modern art I laugh. You know the worlds gone mad when some drunken girls skiddy Knicks are considered to be saying something aside from get a shower and get the wash on..

MRnotlob606

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

£58 million of tax payers money in austerity times! - cut backs everywhere else health, and other areas but can use tax payers money in this way - mad!

Actually Art is the first thing to be cut back on times of Austerity.

LunarSea

If AndyFromSligo would prefer, it seems some enterprising individual can "do art" for oh say the price of a pair of glasses

Ack, I'm a new user so can't post links, so just Google "glasses on floor art".

The guy deep in thought with the bin is priceless

maryishere

percy212 wrote: »

Thank God for the British and their commitment to the arts and culture. We pay a lot of lip service to the arts here but they aren't properly funded.

I do not know about the arts in Britain but the arts here are overfunded by the hard pressed taxpayer. Money would be better spent on infrastructure eg having had the 2 ends of the LUAS linked up properly, or on education or health ( not on teachers or doctors salaries). I know some people here funded by the arts council and they do not really provide a service to the public. Waste of money.

genericguy

Bored_lad wrote: »

I've have no problem with this and I personally think that the arts are underfunded here in Ireland.

Sorry but when we can't run hospitals, transport, a justice system, schools etc, funding for pictures of the sea can **** off and get in line.

ToddyDoody

I remember seeing this. £60,000 for a mural. Irregardless of politics, that's steep but great if you can get it.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/belfast-loyalist-district-to-unveil-st-patrick-mural-34516912.html

HensVassal

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

Just watching a thing on BBC2 about the new Tate Art Gallery in the UK - £58million pounds of UK Tax Payers money used in the project? - what do you think about using tax payers money to fund something like this?

Would the Irish tax payers put up with something like this if a similar project wanted to go ahead?

Do you think art and art projects should be funded with public tax payers money or should the money be raised in other ways or by entrance fee or by the artists themselves or people just interested in art only?

Art is beautiful and people enjoy it.

Public money should not just be spent on the necessities but also on the little extras like libraries, parks, playgrounds, concert halls AND art galleries.

maryishere

IvyTheTerrible wrote: »

So OP do you think artists shouldn't be paid for their work? What about photographers? Should people just use their photos without credit and without paying?

Photographers can get paid by people who like the photos enough to buy the newspapers, magazines etc they are printed in.

Being paid by the hard pressed taxpayer as well just puts up all our taxes. We have enough to pay for already, without a ****** army of failed actors, artists, sculptors, poets, writers, philosophers etc..

Frostybrew

maryishere wrote: »

I do not know about the arts in Britain but the arts here are overfunded by the hard pressed taxpayer. Money would be better spent on infrastructure eg having had the 2 ends of the LUAS linked up properly, or on education or health ( not on teachers or doctors salaries). I know some people here funded by the arts council and they do not really provide a service to the public. Waste of money.

The arts in Ireland is actually chronically underfunded. On a GDP per capita basis, it's about a fifth of the EU average. The UK, per capita, spends about twice what Ireland does.

It's ironic that you mention the LUAS, as cost over runs on the original lines would have funded current arts council spending for several years.

If anything, increased funding would yield a net gain to the exchequer, by making the country more attractive to overseas visitors; and diversifying what we have to offer.

maryishere

Frostybrew wrote: »

The arts in Ireland is actually chronically underfunded. On a GDP per capita basis, it's about a fifth of the EU average. The UK, per capita, spends about twice what Ireland does.

We should not have left the UK so, should we, is the obvious logic.;)

Seriously though, there are other priorities in this bankrupt little country.

Frostybrew

maryishere wrote: »

We should not have left the UK so, should we, is the obvious logic.;)

Seriously though, there are other priorities in this bankrupt little country.

Yes, like investing in areas like the arts that will yield a net gain to the exchequer.

As an example look at our film, television, and animation industries. Struggling ten years ago, now worth hundreds of millions.

Andy From Sligo

Ok how about this angle dont fund art (especially so called modern art baloney) at all with tax payers money. If people like it and want to buy it or pay an entrance fee to look at it , all well and good. There is some really good art out there worthy of gaking breath away.... but on the other end of the scale there is a lot of pure and utter rubbish that pretentious people try to make out what it is or what the artist was thinking of at the time. By funding art like this with what seems to be funded by tax payers whether they want to or not , means that artists can literally put a load of rubbish out there and get funding for it, whereas if it wasn't funded and people had to pay entry to view an exhibition this would give an idea of what is good and what is bad art .... and hopefully weed out all the rubbish from the good and get back to the quality of art before all this modern art crap started with unmade beds, bricks and rubble on a floor, glasses on a floor, etc etc... back to nice paintings and portraits and clever art which involves skill from the artist to produce something clever as an end result. Im sorry to say in my book arranging some of this modern art rubbish such as what i have described above, theres no skill or experience put into that its just someone chancing their arm at an attempt of art and getting paid or getting it tl be shown in an art gallery funded by tax payers money. Priorities all wrong, especially these days when the money could be better spent.

FizzleSticks

This post has been deleted.

Mellor

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

Ok how about this angle dont fund art (especially so called modern art baloney) at all with tax payers money. If people like it and want to buy it or pay an entrance fee to look at it , all well and good.

Well said Andy. If it was worth it, people would pay to see it. Cut the funding.

While were at it, cut the funding and grants for small businesses. If it was a worth wile business they be'd making money.
Science and education can shag off too, no education hand outs. If it doesn't make them money why are they learning it. Dumbasses.

And farmers too, no more grant and subsidies for them. If they can't make a profit with their stocks, they shouldn't have grown them. Maybe if they didn't insist on living on massive properties they's get by on less.

And sports funding, that can go too. Why should the government fund athletes going to the Olympics for nonsense sports. If they did a proper sport they'd be able to make millions in england or america.
If there no money in amateur sports, just go pro.

Obviously that means no government funding for local GAA clubs, they'll just have to charge to watch the games on the weekend, if they're good enough the whole parish will turn out.
The GAA should have never got that $100m funding for Croke Park, then they have the cheek to charge for tickets.
The soccer and Rugby are as bad, $200m for Aviva, and they charge for tickets too.

We need more lads like Andy From Sligo in charge, not these arty farty money wasters. Their fault we've in this mess.
If all that funding money was put into a Post Office saving account the country would be loaded by now.

[Deleted User]

lazybones32 wrote: »

I can't recall if it's an urban legend or not but was a monkey's doodling given to art critics for examination and some of them came out with elaborate hokey about what the artist was impressing/conveying?

I don't see any great controversy there.

Who makes modern/ abstract art?

The artist, acting on spontaneity and emotion?
Or the viewer, who imposes his own subjective emotion and life-experience onto an abstract vision?

I'd never claim that the artist's intention is irrelevant to the aesthetic value of a piece, but it's definitely not as important as the viewer's own interpretation, in my view.

Any time I go to see an abstract art installation, I'm first guided by my own interpretation of the material, and am only residually interested in the artist's (hypothetical) intention, if any.

Jackson Pollock is a great example. A lot of what he painted looks like the amateurish splatterings of a four-year-old. I really don't care about the artistic 'authenticity' underpinning Number 4, or even whether a four-year-old painted it. I feel a minor throb of excitement at the intellectual and personal freedom (I believe) Pollock felt in creating Number 4, and whether or not he authentically felt that, or whether it is the work of a four-year old, is utterly irrelevant.

Abstract art is personal experience, with only a passing nod to the artist's intention. It is fundamentally existentialist.

When it comes to abstract art, there is no such thing as truth to be swallowed whole, which is why it can be both liberating and maddening.

failinis

I have to admit I seldom like a lot of contemp. and modern art.
Of course I can't say I out right hate it as some installations I have really enjoyed.

Does that mean I want funding cut?
No, because some people do like it.
The vistor numbers to the Tate show this side of Europes interest.
My small city even has 2 modern art galleries among 4 (now only 1 due to lack of money) traditional galleries.

If I do not like something it should not mean blocking those who do enjoy it.
No such thing as degenerate art.

And I echo Mellors post.

Shint0

Mellor wrote: »

We need more lads like Andy From Sligo in charge, not these arty farty money wasters. Their fault we've in this mess.
If all that funding money was put into a Post Office saving account the country would be loaded by now.

While we're at it, we could set up a Ministry of Truth and put the OP in charge. Wipe out our artistic, cultural and literary heritage. Who would even notice. It's not as if we have had any global impact.

Tabnabs

So artists get to be paid what is essentially a government grant for putting ink/oil/water to canvas? Who gets to decide what is art and what is graffiti, flower arranging, etc.? Does photography not count as art, can a photograph not be seen as a stunning and worthwhile piece of art? If a piece of canvas or a sculpture is art and should be funded by the state, why not music? Why is a band not able to get funding to play their music?

Public funding means forcing every individual tax payer to pay for some elitist's idea of art. Why?

RDM_83 again

A couple of things

1) I doubt many people visit London just for the Tate modern -Been there a few times and its never as busy as the other attractions in London (still bust enough but no queuing). No huge crowds of Chinese tourists etc.

2) The extension itself doesn't look good or fit with rest of building

3) Its extremely elitist and unorganic, even for modern art

4)It continues the London centric thinking, open a gallery in a different British city, its already massive and if space is so badly needed maybe put more stuff in the generator room, improve the quality rather than size, even if u like modern art a lot of whats there is bad

5) Answer 3 &4 is relevant here too, it serves no education remit, they are closing/cutting loads of small libraries and museums here especially regional ones

The Tate modern deserves some funding certainly, what it doesn't deserve is additional money being thrown at it in a time of austerity.

osarusan

Tabnabs wrote: »

So artists get to be paid what is essentially a government grant for putting ink/oil/water to canvas? Who gets to decide what is art and what is graffiti, flower arranging, etc.? Does photography not count as art, can a photograph not be seen as a stunning and worthwhile piece of art? If a piece of canvas or a sculpture is art and should be funded by the state, why not music? Why is a band not able to get funding to play their music?

Public funding means forcing every individual tax payer to pay for some elitist's idea of art. Why?

This was the question asked in the OP: Do you think art and art projects should be funded with public tax payers money or should the money be raised in other ways or by entrance fee or by the artists themselves or people just interested in art only?

I think people can disagree with that and feel that the state should have a role in promoting art (and preserving it), while also recognising that some projects are not a sensible use of funding.

Pickpocket

lazybones32 wrote: »

A painting/picture of a tin of soup is not art!

You may not think Warhol's work was art, but notice how you've used it to define what is art. That's interesting.

My weakness is Marcel Duchamp's Fountain, a porcelain urinal masquerading as a work of art.

But by rejecting them we're actually bringing them into the art 'space' and legitimising them. We both came on here to talk about art but ended up talking about soup and piss pots. Those artists and their 'works' are part of the dialogue, even as they're being denounced.

I find that fascinating and it speaks to the enduring nature of the question 'what is art?'

Pickpocket

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

someone viewing it might just say its an unmade bed or food on a table or ... just a space with bricks in it !

If thats skill and years of training , then i think its a load of bollix!

I'm not sure about unmade beds and food on a table, but certainly a lot of abstract artists would have been formally trained as fine artists before moving into their given area.

The work of Jackson Pollock, for example, is often thought of as just splatter, in the "sure I could do that meself" line of thought. But Pollock was formally trained and would have studied the anatomy of the human body, composition, etc. And that added to his eventual genius because he not only took a idiosyncratic approach to his art, he knew exactly how to go about doing it.

It's extremely easy to be sniffy about certain pieces of modern art, but I wouldn't be too quick to write off the people behind them.

Mellor

Tabnabs wrote: »

So artists get to be paid what is essentially a government grant for putting ink/oil/water to canvas? Who gets to decide what is art and what is graffiti, flower arranging, etc.? Does photography not count as art, can a photograph not be seen as a stunning and worthwhile piece of art? If a piece of canvas or a sculpture is art and should be funded by the state, why not music? Why is a band not able to get funding to play their music?

Public funding means forcing every individual tax payer to pay for some elitist's idea of art. Why?

The money refered to in the OP wasn't going to the artists. It was money to build the extension.

Andy From Sligo

FizzleSticks wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

But Modern music is not funded by public/tax payers money though.

The artist (as in recording artist) produces their music and if the public likes it they will buy their music (by download or other means) - and just as Public/tax payers money should not be used to open up new recording studios or extensions to recording studios then tax payers money should be not used to open up or add extensions to Art galleries!

Andy From Sligo

failinis wrote: »

.... The visitor numbers to the Tate show this side of Europes interest.
My small city even has 2 modern art galleries among 4 (now only 1 due to lack of money) traditional galleries.

If I do not like something it should not mean blocking those who do enjoy it.
No such thing as degenerate art.

And I echo Mellors post.

why funding though? - why not loan the money (even interest free loan) to the art galleries or funding of art? ... if successful and has a lot of visitors (paying) then by rights if it gets the interest of the public it deserves the 'loan' can be paid back into the kitty (of tax payers money).

By using tax money from the public and making it free to everyone to visit/view the powers that be are presuming *everyone* loves art and agrees to support it, so why not use the tax payers money but let them and non tax payers can view it for 'free' - no, this is not on... i bet everyone that visits the Tate or other galleries are not all interested in art, its free to get in , its something for them to do.... get out of the rain for an hour...... "i will have a look and see if it does interest me" .... schoolkids brought by their teachers to wander around when a lot of the kids might would much rather be doing other things or more interested in other things.

As a test these art galleries that open up free to the public should try charging for a while and see how much footfall will go through the door - I dunno, I might be proven wrong, but I am thinking visitor numbers would fall ... but then again at least you would get 'genuine' visitors / people who really are interested in art to go to them.

Andy From Sligo

Mellor wrote: »

The money refered to in the OP wasn't going to the artists. It was money to build the extension.

i am presuming and i am not an expert on the subject (as you most probably can tell

) but when some of this modern art (say if its painting or something like that) and has the artists name on it, if they are alive, can people say "I have seen your painting in so and so gallery and are you interested in selling it to me?" does this go on? - if so not only is the artist afforded to show his wares and his art and putting it out to a market, he gets to display his art, for free, funded by the tax payer, but can make money out of displaying his art in a public gallery - if so its win win for the artist he gets to display his artwork for free to the general public- i suppose not all artists are in it for the money or to make money, some most probably just want people to look at it rubbing their chin and coming up with what the picture is supposed to be or what the mental state of mind the artist was going through when he produced this work of art...

Andy From Sligo

i suppose at the end of the day I dont really get art (as in paintings and this modern art with bricks and rubbish etc..) - I mean, what, you sort of like look at it, you ponder a while you wonder what it is or what it represents or supposed to represent .... then you move on to the next one - naw i dont get it. - true, just because i dont get it or find it interesting / pleasing / theraputic i suppose that doesnt mean that should make it inacessible for others - but i will say this that in the past i have had to pay entrance fees or buy tickets for something that i am interested in and that others are not?

Why some concerts say have I had to pay to get into venues, why havent they been funded by tax payers money with free entry for 'everyone' to enjoy and made accessible to all? - music is art too is it not?

And why hasnt the O2 say in London been paid with tax payers money as the extension (and I dare say some of the main building ) of the Tate has?

The O2 Building (I presume) not paid with Tax Payers Money?
The Tate modern Art Gallery extension paid with tax payers money?

A group playing in the O2 you need to buy tickets to get in to see them
Artists displaying art in the Tate, free entry and you dont have to pay to view the artwork?

So by rights if it is to be fair across the board they should either make concerts free to get in and view the groups funded by tax payers money... but accessible to all - or cut funding to art galleries and charge people a ticket to go and see the art pieces -

yeah that should balance things up a bit

Mellor

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

i am presuming and i am not an expert on the subject (as you most probably can tell ) but when some of this modern art (say if its painting or something like that) and has the artists name on it, if they are alive, can people say "I have seen your painting in so and so gallery and are you interested in selling it to me?" does this go on?

The Tate is not a commercial gallery or showroom. Pieces housed there are generally owned by the gallery, or on loan from a collection. They not on display for sale by the artises.
No more than you could buy the Mona Lisa off the wall of the Louvre.

In a nutshell you don't really understand how a national art gallery works. You are basically critiquing the very existence of art gallery's which is one of the most ludicrous things I've heard tbh. Even If I didn't get art (and a lot I don't) I'd never suggest we shouldn't have national gallery/collections.