Robin O

Really interesting comments here, I am looking forward to the meeting at the Arts council tomorrow.

I share your concerns, Gus, that without more exploration of what excellence means, the outcomes of McMaster could be negative.

I think a study of what excellence means in the voluntary arts would have really useful learning for the Arts Council and professional artists and indeed anyone who is interested in turning the McMaster report into a real framework that can be implemented and trusted by stakeholders in the arts in England.

If misapplied,the concept may help perpetuate vague and simplistic assertions that equate “excellence” only with technical competence and ground-breaking technique, so there persists adn entrenched barrier between the professional arts sector that stands for excellence and innovation and an amateur sector that exists primarily for a social purpose in the minds of funders of the arts and the public.

From my limited reading on this, and from comments here, the key to successful implementation seems to lie in ensuring the concept of excellence balances intrinsic and instrumental value in arts and gives policymakers, funders and artists in the professional and voluntary sectors and the public greater confidence and trust in the funding and assessment system.

For this to happen though, I think the Arts Council and DCMS will need to listen and respond to what’s been said here about quality, relevance and the subjective experience of that “magic” of the arts which neither the voluntary or professional sectors have a monopoly on.

Jake Eliot, NCVO.

Apologies for the delay in my comments.

Pierre Bourdieu in his book “Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste”(1984)probably recognised as one of the most important books written in the field of sociology in the 20th century talks about “taste” or “cultural need” being the product of upbringing, social status and education. In other words it is a matter of taste and “relevance” as Macmaster calls it. The problem in our cultural heirarchy is that standards of taste compete with each other but some are elevated above others and then become legitimised as “excellent” (an absolute value).

Essentially the current portfolio of esteemed professional art is arguably only relevant to a few and its important to note that the vast majority of those people have higher levels of education and were potentially continually introduced to this kind of work at a very early age. The recent push for a cultural offer and macmaster talking about a “cultural framework” for children aim to battle with this issue.

Tak Wing Chan from the department of sociology
at Oxford University along with another colleague from Nuffield College applies this and develops it in an article called “Social Stratification of Cultural Consumption Across three domains : Music, Thetare, Dance and Cinema, and the visual arts (2006). Interestingly these guys have written for the arts council very recently. That article can be found at :

http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/publications/publication_detail.php?browse=recent&id=611

The above article hammers home the issue of lack of relevance. The figures they communicate are not unknown to us and are a little scary as per usual. Again it is interesting to note that this article has been released so soon after Alan Davey’s arrival. These academics fully understand in much more detail what I’m touching on above.

The rest of what I have to say tries to bring this back to our discussion about the voluntary arts although the above also relates to those who create arts on a professional basis and need to communicate on a much wider basis. Whatever happened to the genius of “simplicity”!

Although I have no baseline research (maybe interesting to do this) people come to our theatre in redditch to watch amateur theatre and operatics. Whats my point you may ask?! They don’t belong to the society, they have no links with the society, nobodies in the show who they know! They just watch it because they relate to real people and certainly not highly regulated performers (said by some professional theatre practioners including myself to be automatons within a professional training system which has also become arguably socially constructed. Although only my gut recation from working on the coal face in various inner and outer city communities as well as rural areas affluent and deprived people are alienated by art and often fundamentally relate to amateur practice because it is closer to their own experience.

In addition to supporting amateur art in this country should it be used as a tool to explore or research the “relevance” issue for professional artists and gradually close the gap this way. Maybe this is our way in.

Can anyone else add to what I am saying and how it could add to what we are discussing later in the week?!

I think we need really bang on about “relevance” within Macmaster’s report. This is the key and what we are winning hands down at!

Jonathan Cochrane

“From measurement to judgement” opens up concerns as to who will be the judges and about the further removal of transparency.

The emphasis on innovation and risk taking calls into question the value of traditional arts…my own musical practice is in improvisation, collaborations with laptop musicians and contemporary music but I would have to acknowledge a debt to traditional musics. Where would, for instance, this leave opera and, more importantly, folk musics.

I am also concerned about the emphasis on excellence. I run an improvised music club and its success rests on removing the pressures of striving for excellence thus allowing people who are new to the game to work alongside those of us who are much more experience. The results justify the approach, with some exceptions, producing work that is sensitive and creative but I repeat is borne out of the removal of the banner of “excellence”.

Wearing my other hat, as national arts development manager for Mencap, I am continually confronted by the arts worlds’ inability to understand and appropriately contextualise the work of learning disabled artists and performers. I cannot but fear that this inability will be compounded by a focus on “excellence”.

Art is, as McMaster seems to acknowledge, about exploration and understanding. This does not always lead to excellence.

There will be winners and losers in the arts funding game. I fear is that if there is an emphasis on innovation those who work within other traditional art forms, or art forms that are still not fully understood, will.

On a more positive note the inclusion of artists and practitioners on boards is welcome but again who will decide who these are to be and how?

Is McMaster likely to move us away from community or participatory arts born out of social functions and from communities into a top down vision of excellence? I don’t think this is the intention but my overall feeling is that the very premise of the report is misplaced and is likely to move us further in this direction.

To overcome the concept of “it’s not for me” is to replace it with “it came from me”. Free admissions are to be welcomed but of themselves will not achieve this.

I believe that while there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the spirit of the McMaster report the likely outcomes are worrying.

It is all very well to describe “excellence in culture as being when an experience affects and changes an individual” but to go on to say this is in fact quite concrete is questionable. It begs the question of who the individual is and when and where and how this experience happens. Fine stuff indeed for debate but not a concrete basis for “objective” judgment.

When he talks about innovation I agree with the concepts of reinterpretation and refining but this is not innovation. Innovation as a concept belongs more happily to the world of science. Renewal is the term I apply to the human process of the arts.