Run by
bean counters
Culture is
how a country expresses and views itself. Culture is vital to any healthy
country.
Scotland
has a brilliant history of inspirational poets, songs smiths, composers,
novelists, innovators, inventors, painters, designers, and much more
Herald
theatre critic Mark Brown has written an open letter to Scotland’s art body Creative
Scotland. He talks about the ethos of CS being based on Tony Blair and New
Labour. With Bigger is better committees and a top-down approach that is
market-driven and led by civil servants rather than artists.
Also in
2012 over a 100 writers and artists wrote to CS complaining over how it was
being mismanaged. The then director Alan Dixon resigned. Mark writes that this
is not only about a change personal but a change of ethos and organization.
Mark claims
CS treats art and culture as an industry. At present the creative industries
have an overly burdensome remit covering theatre, musicians, artists, writers, designers,
games designers and architects. Along with a bean counter mentality. Mark
suggests an Arts body for the artists and writers - and a separate Design Body for
architecture and the Games industries.
I would
have expected an arts council to be led by those who have not only lived and
breathed art all their lives, but are also creative as writers, musicians or
painters. We have some outstanding music writers and arts critics in Scotland.
Why are they not employed in our arts body?
If you look at world class arts of any kind – they are
normally run by capable, bright and highly creative motivated people, not
bean counters. Otherwise the arts produced become bland, mediocre,
monochrome and boring,
At the
moment Scotland also has a renaissance of writers, artists and musicians that
should be celebrated and encouraged to thrive. Our arts body needs to be promoting
excellence and innovation in the arts.
