Is It?

I thought it was just what you were..? How you were born? No more remarkable, this day and age, than being heterosexual?

What sort of art are we talking about, anyway?

Mexican artist Frieda Toranzo Jaeger works with what she calls “semiological vandalism” – by which she “vandalizes” dominant images and thus injects new, subversive meaning into them. Car engines have lately predominated her work, as she sees them as representative of the massive systems that govern the world. At Art Basel Miami, Toranzo Jaeger is exhibiting an image of a car engine deconstructed into the form of a flower, shot through with braided thread. By turning a car engine into a flower adorned with braids, she injects her queerness and womanhood into a traditionally patriarchal structure.

PARKLIFE!! 

Sorry, sorry, that just slipped out...

Queer performance artist rafa esparza takes on cars and cruising in a very different way: straddling intersectional aspects of his identity, he brings out the resonances between different kinds of cruising – gay cruising and low-rider cars – by turning himself into a low-rider vehicle and inviting select members of his community to jump on for a ride.

*backs away slowly* There's enough material here for David Thompson's blog to exist for another few years...

Perfectly Understandably, Andreas...

Museum director Andreas Beitin said: 'We thought that flies didn’t come under the Animal Welfare Act.'

You'd have to be insane to treat them as anything other than revolting disease-bearing pests, after all. Rather like, say, art directors.

The RSPCA slammed the 'so-called "art exhibition"' and said: 'There would be national outcry if such an exhibition involved any other animal – such as a dog.'

Well, yes. But it didn't.

You're A Bit Late, Andover...

Plans for a ‘landmark’ sculpture and other artistic additions in Picket Twenty have been submitted for consideration. The application, put forward by Test Valley Borough Council’s own arts officer, Faye Perkins, is primarily for a 9.7 metre ‘torch’ sculpture inspired by the Olympic tradition.

I thought councils were strapped for cash? Clearly not, if they can afford Arts Officers! 

And did no one tell her the UK Olympics were in 2012? 

In addition, the authority is looking to install a series of ‘hoop’ sculptures in the Picket Twenty play area.The colourful hoop arches would range in height up to 2.8 metres and be installed in the green spaces, in particular Picket Twenty Play Park and Turnpike Road Play Park. They are said to represent the fun of children’s games, as well as sports where hoops are used for physical fitness and rhythmic gymnastics.

And how much is that going to cost the Andover ratepayers? 

H/T: Ian J via email

Promise, Or Threat..?

*shudders*

Borough councillors will be urged to give the green light to releasing £70,000 from reserves and consider spending a further £200,000 later to support initiatives.

But...but the terrible cuts!

The report to the management committee next week says: “The projects represent an ambitious arts programme for the borough and are designed to reflect the aspirations of the management committee to support both high quality public art (for the benefit of both residents and visitors) and community-based creativity.”

It adds: “A key driver for investment in arts projects, particularly public art and the creative improvement of public realm, is the ability of high quality installations and designs to help ‘redefine’ public perception of a community.

“By allocating resources to improving the public realm, the council can help to increase the attractiveness of an area and set the tone for the quality of new development.”

To which I can only reply: "PARKLIFE!"

You'd Think They'd Value It More, Then..?

Southend has a wealth of culture that is illustrated by the worth of its heritage assets being valued at nearly £40million.

Really...?

The antiques and collectables that belong to the council include the millennium clock, which was taken down after it was damaged. The clock is now in storage and there are no immediate plans for it, but the council have said they are happy to consider suitable areas within and outside of council ownership.

Ah, yes. How could I forget?

A bronze statue depicting a mythological rape had to be moved from being on display outside the courthouse in Victoria Avenue, before being moved to the Civic Square and then to the courtyard of the Palace Theatre, in Westcliff. 

Later, it was moved to the Civic Centre when it caused outrage among staff and again moved to Porters, in Southend. The controversial statue of Leda and the Swan was criticised by the public as the "rape" statue.

Ah, yes. 'The public' being the usual tiny gaggle of SJWs and VirtueSignallers. Most of the public couldn't give a stuff.

And the incompetence continues...

In 2006 Southend Council were given £390,000 by the Arts Council for an art installation - Lifelines. The 54-metre-long installation depicted a wave in a clear acrylic box fell victim to vandalism and condensation also became a problem before it was removed and put into storage.

Who'd have guessed?

I Wish I Hadn't Experienced Anything Like It, Love....

Yasmeen Sabri, 24, was putting the finishing touches to her £6,000 work when Mikaela Haze, 70, walked into the Royal College of Art in South Kensington and ripped the veil from its metal frame. Haze also screamed: “Saudi Arabia go home,” before knocking the sculpture to the ground on June 29.

Masters student Miss Sabri had spent six months creating the work, called Walk A Mile In Her Veil, for an exhibition to “promote tolerance and understanding”.

Today she said: “I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

Oh, c'mon! You must be familiar with the Turner Prize, where idiots are conned into declaring some load of old pony as 'art', surely?

Miss Sabri, originally from Jordan, has lived in London for six years. She said she had witnessed an increase in racially motivated crime since the referendum vote: “It’s obviously connected to Brexit. People are taking it as an excuse to be rude to others.

“It’s crazy. It’s not right. It’s a way to divide people. We are all human and it doesn’t matter if we were born under a different nationality or religion.

“It suddenly really feels like I’m not from this country. Obviously I’m not from this country, but I felt like I belonged in London and now it feels like I should go home.”

Don't let the door hit you on the way out...

Quail Before The Wrath Of The Artists...

...expressed in, where else, the 'Guardian':

Lucy Prebble, playwright:

I feel nothing but rage. A horrible feeling – and one that helps me understand how these things start, when something important to you ends. I blame you, Cameron, a middle-manager of a prime minister whose ham-fisted leadership was based on one implicit stipulation not to fuck everything up...I hope my kindness grows back. Until then, I’ll call this “historically democratic event” what it was: a jostle for prefect fagged by racists.

Anish Kapoor, sculptor:

I am heartbroken. I hang my head. I feel shame, shame, shame at the xenophobia of this country. There are so many levels of division in Britain. And it’s all so unnecessary. I think the three men involved – Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage – are despicable...How will this affect my art? Some anger does get in there. But what I feel today is mostly shame.

Andrew O’Hagan, author:

It is the revenge of the Brownshirts, a dictatorship of the illiterate and the opportunistic. I’m appalled.

Barrie Rutter, artistic director, Northern Broadsides:

What’s so awful about the vote is that it’s a leap into the dark – and for a while, it will only get darker...Look what Johnson has done to London: left it full of expensive flats, the money moguls have won. These people know the cost of everything and the value of fuck all.

David Lan, artistic director, Young Vic:

We need to start by feeling the depth of people’s fears about the quality of their lives and their future lives...Will the arts now be subject to new rules that inhibit and limit? Will it be harder to achieve the cross-border exchanges that enlighten and enrich?

*munches popcorn*

H/T: @QuietlyBritish via Twitter

Art! Is There Nothing It Cannot Do?

More than 50 people viewed photos and artwork contributed by Hackney-ites, short films about the borough and its spaces and invited to add to a graffiti piece called What is Hackney to you?.*

The 'artwork' can be seen at the link. Sadly, it can't be unseen... *shudders*

“I wanted to do this simply because I know people from outside Hackney, and their views can be quite negative about our community,” said 18-year-old Josephine Okunbolade. “Some are even too scared to visit based on things they have heard, so I wanted to participate to educate people and show that Hackney is beautiful. This is why our hashtag is #DontTurnABlindEye”.

Not to be outdone, others are even more ambitious:

I...

I just...

*H/T: wiggia via email

This Definition Of ‘Art’ Is Rather Too All-Encompassing…

Brixton’s annual free Splash street party has been called off after a reported spike in violence, drug-taking and arrests marred last year’s tenth anniversary event.

Lambeth Council last night rejected an application for this summer’s party saying south London’s answer to the Notting Hill Carnival had become “a victim of its own success” and grown “potentially dangerous” .

Why on earth would anyone else need an ‘answer to the Notting Hill Carnival’..?

Ros Griffiths, who helped found the festival but stepped aside in 2010, said she hoped the postponement would allow a fresh start. She said: “Last year the local reaction was that it has lost direction.

“Traders were complaining, residents were complaining and there was a problem. The event got too big and moved away from what it was meant to be about.”

She said the original event was aimed to showing (sic) Brixton’s independent traders and talented young people, using local businesses and products to keep the money within the neighbourhood.

So it started with good intentions, and has lost its way?

The Splash is a non-profit community organisation established in 2005 which also runs an outreach programme for young people to get access to the arts, part-funded by the Arts Council. Organisers also offered a qualified stewarding training programme for young people to get work experience controlling the crowds during the event.

The company currently has three board members but none were available for comment last night.

In a statement the board said the town hall planned to take over the festival and accused the council of “railroading” them. They added: “Lambeth’s dwindling financial support and physical support over the last few years shows its true feelings towards the event.”

So it’s soaking up taxpayer moolah courtesy of the Arts Council?

Curiouser and curiouser…

”Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards artists, for they are subtle and quick to anger…”

Mr Roscoe, a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and a winner of the Ondaatje Prize for Portraiture, did not mince his words when he came forward to admit hiding the insult in his portrait of Oddie, a former member of the Goodies comedy trio.

“Bill Oddie was a horrible person, quite awful actually, so I added a ghost of a bird with its name in Latin written alongside,” he told The Independent Mr Roscoe added: “I was testing his knowledge as an ornithologist. It was my cheeky way of describing him – something along the lines of a 'long-tailed tit’, Aegithalos caudatus – as he was 'long in the tooth’ and it sounded like a bit of an insult.”

Hmmm. What, I wonder, did the manic ex-Goodie do to so incur the petulant wrath of this artist?

Oddie said: “I don’t really take offence at it. If it makes him happy then fine. But as one artist said, it’s difficult enough to paint someone’s portrait without putting in silly little messages which people are unlikely to either see or understand.”

The wildlife presenter, known for his work on BBC’s Springwatch and Autumnwatch, was at a loss to explain why the painter would describe him as “horrible” and “awful”.

“The only thing I may have said at the time about the Roscoe portrait could have been something along the lines of 'that’s great, but it’s a little bit camp’, which in truth it is, with that toy monkey wearing a pith helmet and holding a pot of flowers.”

Whoops! He’s got a point though, hasn’t he?

“Help, Our Graffiti Was Graffitied!”

Murals created by street artists in Croydon a week ago have been vandalised and some may have to be removed.

Spray painters from the all women movement Femme Fierce spent February 15 making their mark on St George’s Walk and the surrounding area.

They were invited by Rise Gallery owner Kevin Zuchowski-Morrison as part of a plan to create an arts quarter in the centre of town.

Wow, you’d have to have a heart of stone, wouldn’t you?

He said all the artwork was fine at 5pm yesterday but when he got in to the gallery this morning he saw that they had been vandalised, and his gallery windows were also targeted.

Mr Zuchowski-Morrison said: "All of them are damaged.

"We are trying to reach out to the people who have done it and say ‘How can we stop this from happening?

"It’s just really sad and we are massively upset. "

Yes, it’s awful when these street artists think they can just vandalise others’ property, isn't it?

Shock Horror! People Buy Things To Sell At A Profit!

A "sickening" online video for a £47m Deptford development has provoked a furious response for…

Oo-er!

… portraying much-needed new homes as investments rather than places for people to actually live.

Ummm, what?

The scheme is the latest in a string of major housing developments - including Kidbrooke Village and Eltham's Grove Place - being marketed to foreign investors in places like Hong Kong, who often let the properties out or even leave them vacant before flogging them off at a hefty profit.

Oh my god! I didn’t realise that people could do such a thing with property they legally own!

The video was hastily pulled from one website after an angry online response, with Deptford artist Maria Livings writing: "The idea that this project is being sold to investors and that the coolness of artists is being touted as the reason why property prices are about to hurtle still further up is completely sickening.

"None of the interesting, creative people who have contributed to the vibrant culture of the area are able to afford to buy a home and their work spaces are being eliminated wholesale as developers buy up all the land to create yet more unaffordable housing."

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! 

Sorry, had to pause for breath!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

And Deptford resident Dan Strange, from the Defend Council Housing group, contrasted the video with council housing shortages and the high level of deprivation in parts of SE8, saying: "I was absolutely shocked by the clear speculation behind the project.

"No one is surprised but of course it's a loss for the people of Lewisham. It's clear the vast majority of people won’t be able to afford these flats."

I’m not sure that fewer of the ‘vibrant culture’ types could really be seen as a loss, per se…

Mayor of Lewisham Sir Steve Bullock said: "It's a problem across the whole of London. We've seen it trickle down from properties along the riverfront right through the city. I think most of us aren't very happy about it."

*shrugs* Personally, I could care less.

Panic Not, The Artists Will Save Us!

Music and art have always been a vehicle for political protest: from Bob Dylan and Bob Marley to Billy Bragg.

Now a new group of British artists and musicians are hoping to use art, song, theatre and words, as well as social media, to combat the coalition's austerity agenda.

Oooh, oooh, wait….

*fetches popcorn*

OK, hit me!

Created specifically to campaign against the government's cuts to public services, charities and the creative industries, the Artists' Assembly Against Austerity, launching today, is a grassroots alliance of more than 200 creative artists.

Signatories include actor, Maxine Peake, fantasy author China Miéville, poet and writer Blake Morrison and artist Peter Kennard.

Riiiight, so that’s a whinging Northern bint off the TV, a noted socialist and occasional figure of fun at David Thompson’s blog, someone I’ve never heard of and … someone else I’ve never heard of.

Wow! Bringing out the heavy battalions there…

"The coalition's austerity measures are a violent programme of cuts," says Season Butler, a writer and academic at Goldsmiths, University of London and coordinator of Artists' Assembly Against Austerity.

"The cuts are affecting artists as much as they are the public – many artists rely on benefits. Cuts to education mean it's harder to find work as an art teacher. Artists have been a bit shy recently of working on social justice issues but, now, we're seeing more come out in opposition to the broader austerity programme."

If artists were any good, why would they rely on benefits? Ergo, this ‘art’ isn’t the sort of stuff anyone wants to pay for…

Katherine Araniello, a performance artist with spinal muscular atrophy, is angered by the austerity programme. "As a disabled person who relies on government-funded income, I am appalled by the benefit cuts," she says.

"Someone like me requires 24/7 support. My funding hasn't kept pace with inflation for the past five years – I'm having to pay my care workers at the minimum wage."

Newsflash, sweetie, my pay rises haven’t quite kept up with inflation, and I’m doing something people will pay for! Why should you be different?

"My art is about what capitalism does to your heart, and the inner child in you," says Rob Montgomery, whose works was recently displayed at the Louvre."

I guess I’ve figured out why no-one wants to pay for it…

On a practical level, the Artists' Assembly will challenge the government's austerity agenda through online activism, marches and art.

"We're not going to tell artists to make certain pieces of art," says Butler."That will be their choice. But art can be a powerful tool for social justice."

There’s certainly a lot of tools involved…

What The ‘Diversity In Arts’ Debate Is Really About…

And of course, it’s not about diversity. It’s about jobs for the policy wonks and die-hard identity politics crowd:

Stephen Moss, sensible man, sensible outlook:

Culture is for everyone. Thanks to the internet, it is now freely and easily available. If you want to find it, you will, though it may take a lifetime to work out what it all means and what really matters. Dipping in courtesy of well-meaning outreach programmes doesn't work and may well be counterproductive. And if you never find it – if you fail to realise that the late quartets of Beethoven are the greatest musical statement of all time and still the most modern pieces of music ever written – no lives have been lost. It's only art.

Bonnie Greer, entitlement junkie & diversity token:

I wouldn't have accepted board appointments to the British Museum; the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; the Serpentine Gallery; the presidency of the Brontë Society; and now a seat on the cultural board of the first world war commemoration, if I didn't believe not only that culture belongs to all, but also that there is a duty in a democratic society to make it accessible to all, too.

QED.

Save The Artists!

The shortage of affordable studio space in the capital is to be investigated by the Mayor of London, amid growing evidence that artists are being driven out by rising rents and redevelopment.

Munira Mirza, deputy mayor for education and culture in London, said: “This is a pressing issue and it has been for a while. There’s a lot of concern that London is changing and artists are being forced to move to new areas.”

Is there really a lot of concern? I can’t say I’d noticed it being a topic of heated conversation on my commute, or in the office…

London is home to almost two-thirds of all artists’ studios in the UK, the majority of which are concentrated in the boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets, according to the most recent numbers compiled in the 2010 Cultural Metropolis report.

Ms Mirza said: “We want artists to stay in London. It’s very important culturally and economically, but there are lots of challenges in terms of finding space.”

Well, if you say so, Ms Mirza, but I think you’ll find artists aren’t especially singled out for this. Everyone’s affected. Artists aren’t special. Except in their own minds.

There’s even, believe it or not, a charity for it!

Jonathan Harvey, who set up Acme Studios, a London-based charity which provides artists with affordable studio space, said: “Artists require a lot of space and cheap space. How that can happen in London where property values are so high, is a real question. It’s now about how the Mayor’s Office and local authorities value artists.”

Maybe they don’t?

Mr Harvey said: “A phrase we keep repeating is that artists are pioneers of regeneration because they go where others don’t. But they’re also the victims as they then get priced out. Hackney is a perfect example of that.”

He called on a change to planning laws to include studio space in new developments.

Ah, yes. A demand for special treatment. Well, it’s not like we might need plumbers or paramedics or other sorts. No, having a local artist is clearly much more important…

Seb Patane, an artist at Gasworks studios in Vauxhall said: “It’s sad to see this happening, especially in an area where there aren’t many studio spaces. Yeah, I have no idea what’s going to happen; the prices will go sky high and at the moment artists are having a really tough time, funding their own expenses. It’s all quite grim.”

Meanwhile, everyone else is living in the Land of Milk and Honey…

Gasworks owner Alessio Antoniolli said the neighbourhood was changing “at the speed of light” which was damaging to the community.

Hmmm, other people say things like that and get scorned for it. It’s clearly different for artists!

He said that he receives “hundreds of requests” for studios every year, which is “an indication of how scared artists are. I’m not saying regeneration is a terrible thing, but what makes something great and special needs to be kept and celebrated and supported.”

Really? I leave the last word to the estimable David Thompson, who has so many examples of this sort of thing...

Creative people, being so creative, deserve nothing less than special treatment. I mean, you can’t expect a creative person to write at any old desk in any old room in any old part of town. What’s needed is a lifestyle at some other sucker’s expense. And so that garret has to be in a fashionable suburb or somewhere happening, where the creative vibrations are at their strongest and genius will surely follow. And that pad of choice has to come before the publishing deal and film rights and the swimming pool full of cash. Indeed, it has to materialise before the book itself, or any part thereof. How else can their brilliance flourish, as it most surely will, what with all that creativity. Our betters just need a little cake before they eat those damn vegetables. And possibly ice cream. Here’s some money that other, less glamorous people had to actually earn. You fabulous creature, you.

It’s A Perfect Storm!

Art lovers were horrified when two parents let their children clamber all over a multi-million pound sculpture at Tate Modern.

Said ‘multi million pound sculpture’ looking rather like the sort of avant-garde child/cat furniture you could pick up in Pet World or Ikea, maybe the kids had a point?

A visitor took a photograph of the family of four after she saw the children crawling on the installation, by American artist Donald Judd.

…

Today she told the Standard the parents had been encouraging their two daughters to play on the sculpture — and refused to back down when she confronted them.

Heh! They do seem to be the sort who are totally unaware of how they come across, don't they?

She said: “I was shocked. I said to the parents I didn't think their kids should be playing on a $10 million artwork. The woman turned around and told me I didn't know anything about kids and she was sorry if I ever had any.”

Oh, stop! I'm dying here!

The photograph went viral on the internet, with hundreds of art lovers expressing their outrage.

Art phonies vs self-centred indulgent parents – there’s really only one way to decide, isn't there..?

Because ‘The Curry House Argument’ Wasn’t Working…

The UK Border Agency was today accused of damaging London’s reputation for world music with a “heavy-handed” visa clampdown.

Oh noes! However will we look….errr, somebody…in the face again?

Music promoter Jay Visvadeva had to cancel two performances by the renowned Pakistani group Sachal Jazz Ensemble at Kings Place in King’s Cross last week.

And thus the music scene in London is that little less vibrant and rich. Or something.

“Six professional musicians who travel the world constantly should have a clean application. We had no issues with visas last year. The Border Agency are the culprits. They are heavy-handed especially with people from the Indian subcontinent.”

Gosh. I wonder why? Did they just pick them out of a hat? ‘Today, chaps, it’s roust the Romanians, and next Tuesday, it’s torment the Tonganese’. Is that how it works?

Or is there maybe a valis reason?

Simon Broughton, editor of world music magazine Songlines, said visa issues were making promoters reluctant to book musicians from certain countries. “I don’t know whether something has changed at the Border Agency but it has become a problem recently,” he said.

“Great musicians who are very well known in their own fields are not getting into this country, where there is an audience for them. Much of the music is a fantastic way of correcting the image of Islam as sombre and strict, but the musicians can’t get into the country. It doesn’t help the understanding of these cultures.”

I think we understand ‘em just fine. That’s exactly why we are tightening up on the entry requirements…

Thanks, But I'll Still Give It A Miss...

Van Badham asks:

Did anyone attend the live performance of Mikala Dwyer's Goldene Bender  at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art the other day?

Nope! For two reasons.

The first being, I don’t live in Australia. The second being, I've read all I need to know about it at David Thompson’s site.

So I’ll give this ‘nuanced examination through performance of the precise moment that our private selves know public shame’ a miss, thanks all the same.

Van, however, thinks this sort of thing isn't so much art, as it is quid pro quo:

Just as I'm forced to mentally excise myself from the reality that my personal tax contributions pay for refugee internment camps, so the Australian right must suck it up, accept that libertarianism is more than just a conservative attempt at a groovy haircut, and learn to live with the free and democratic expressions of people whom they don't like.

Nicely comparing border protection apples with adolescent tantrum display oranges there…

Oh, Yes, That Arts Council Money Isn't Wasted, Oh, Dear Me, No...

John Wedgwood Clarke, described by eminent Yorkshire poet Simon Armitage as among the best modern bards, plans to visit a North Yorkshire County Council household waste recycling centre over the next year to observe what people throw away and ask them for their views on waste.

The project will conclude with a collection of 12 poems and creative writing sessions at local schools through a project based around the Seamer Carr depot in Scarborough and funded by an Arts Council award.

Nice 'work' if you can get it...

Dr Wedgwood Clarke, Leverhulme Poet in Residence at the University of Hull’s Centre for Environmental and Marine Sciences, who has a Doctorate of Philosophy in modernist poetics from the University of York, said he had always been fascinated about what happened to people’s rubbish, which inspired him to begin a journey of poetic discovery with a difference.

Would be even more of 'a difference' if he'd funded it himself...

Coun Chris Metcalfe, the country’s council’s executive member for waste management, said: “This unique project will bring the message of the importance of reducing and recycling waste to a new audience in a very creative way.”

Don't you already have a council department doing that?

Well, Polly, It's Because If It Makes Money, The 'Guardian' Doesn't Like To Call It Art...

Polly Toynbee is off her meds (again):

In the arts, state investment can be counted out in gold too: better still, it infuses everything that brings pleasure. Only life under the Taliban is untouched by music, storytelling and eye-opening imagery, broadcast or live, designed into everything around us.

Trouble is, as David Thompson points out, the sort of 'art' that State subsidy encourages is 'eye popping' for all the wrong reasons...

The Arts Council has lost a third of its funds, obliged to cut deep. Until now it has swallowed hard, and axed some projects altogether while investing selectively in the best. But cut any deeper and they hit a tipping point where regional deserts destroy the seed-corn for the great national institutions.

I'm  inclined to agree with Tim Worstall here, this is utter nonsense. Polly is calling for "privatisation of profits and socialisation of losses" here..

Why were the humanities singled out for zero university funds? Now 16% fewer are taking humanities degrees, as Michael Gove downgrades anything that sniffs of arts, his e-bacc leaving them out altogether. A generation of children risk having little experience of art, music and drama.

It's because we simply don't need more humanities graduates. We've already got enough to fill the 'B' Ark.

This is a plunge back into the arts freezer of the 80s and 90s.

Ah, yes. I remember The Great Arts Holocaust of the 80s & 90s, when all we could do is stay home, watching a blank wall or reading the backs of cornflake packets, with only the sound of the wind and rain to cheer us...

As then, ministers claim that philanthropy is the answer, but it never was. In the US, relying on donors deadens the arts, filling their boards with the conservative-minded, failing to stimulate experiment and imagination – as only independent funding can.

If 'independent funding' (by which she means taxpayer money, and if you think that's truly independent, I've got a bridge to sell you...) is required, it's because no-one wants to pay to see it.

As for the future, what might persuade this government of the value of the arts - financial and spiritual - is a loud public demand that our cultural assets, live and broadcast, are not squandered.

Here's my message to government - go ahead, squander away. I've seen all the pickled cows and giant blue roosters I ever want to see.