Cultural Patronage in Australia and Historical Precedents Series (Final)
July 5th 2007 01:04
By 1979, the funding crisis and continued scrutiny forced the Australia Council to adopt a transparent policy towards the allocation of funding grants. In its Report of the same year, the Council stipulated those small organisations applying for grants must ‘provide financial and artistic details of the whole program’ (Rowse 1988, p23), and went on to add any financial support and expected audience participation must also be declared. Large organisations on the other hand, had their methods mostly taken for granted, due to already established and accepted practices. Rowse adds that this seemingly one-sided policy of the second phase of patronage, was in fact an effort to show that ‘critical interest’ is applied in funding with equity (Rowse 1988, p24).
The third and current phase of government patronage to the arts has been termed by Rowse as ‘decentralised’, three Boards within the Council: Community Arts, Crafts, and Aboriginal Arts being initial participants. ‘Decentralised’ meaning instead of funding criteria assessed solely by Council, a third party must endorse the applicant based on responsiveness to community interest. It also has the added benefit of ‘a more pluralistic conception of cultures’ within Australian society ((Rowse 1988, p26). It is in fact multiculturalism and cultural equity that are the impetus behind Council’s interaction in 1975 with the trade union movement: ‘The Art and Working Life policy’, developed directly from the Community Arts program. This radical new approach on a micro level sought to develop cultural traditions within the trade union movement. On a macro level, the government hoped to alleviate the problem of access and equity in art within Australian multiculturalism, by utilising (a) the national-demographic of the union movement (b) the cultural diversity of the workplace. Again the object and instrument regime at work within government cultural policy: the union movement being an object of intense ‘gaze’, policies already in-effect / The AC now an effective power-distributing instrument, ‘bringing about the cultural lifting of the subordinate classes’.
In conclusion, this essay will briefly examine contemporary government practice in an effort to define the results of historical cultural patronage—the object and instrument regime-shaping policy. The growth in arts funding that lead to the first cultural policy, those three phases of patronage, is the expected cultural evolution of a young nation. Citizens need to keep abreast of current policy and future direction.
In the lead-up to the first cultural policy release in 1993, the Introduction and Preamble to the Commonwealth’s ‘Creative Nation’ as the policy was termed, provides a snapshot of where the government is heading. The first point of note in the Introduction is the policy’s twin goals of democracy and excellence. Attributing the first goal to the relatively recent though thoroughly expected pursuit of a democratic government. Excellence on the other hand, we know from prior AC policy and as stated by Rowse, Anderson, and Bruce, has been the mainstay of funding criteria since Commonwealth patronage to the arts began in 1908. This final phase of ‘decentralised’ patronage, is the government’s first real application of democracy concerning funding grants. The opening sentence of the Preamble shows the apparent importance placed on this process by stating: ‘Democracy is the key to cultural value.’
Citizens’ can only hope the government stays true to their word.
To plot a course through Australian government funding to the arts, the Creative Nation Policy could be termed the evolutionary pinnacle of patronage, the embodiment of a multicultural democracy—if such a thing is obtainable. For the farming-out of funding criteria assessment to community stakeholders does not necessarily guarantee fairness and equity, there is still the opportunity for perceived local interests to be served rather than national. However, this tangible application of a democratic process to the highly-contested arena of grants and funding within arts, while not doing away completely the elitist connotations surrounding the pursuit of ‘excellence’, will see arts funding made accessible to community groups which in the past, had no hope of entering the narrow and always crowded doors of VE and centralised patronage. In this way, democracy has become the ultimate instrument, enabling wider-community access to arts funding, thereby ‘bringing about’ a cultural ‘lifting’ of the subordinate classes.
References
1. Anderson, Peter 1989, ‘What the people want: Government arts funding and the Australia Council’, Australian Canadian Studies, vol. 7, nos. 1-2, pp.127-143.
2. Creative Nation.
3. Johnson, Bruce 1995, ‘The pursuit of excellence?’, Arena Magazine, Oct-Nov.
4. Malcomson, Robert W. 1973, ‘Popular Recreations under attack’, Popular Recreations in English Society 1700-1850, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Version provided here excerpted from Waites, Bernard, Bennett, Tony and Martin, Graham (eds) 1982, Popular Culture: Past and Present, Croom Helm, London, pp.24-36.]
5. Popkin, Jeremy D. 1989, ‘Journals: The new face of the news’, from Darnton, Robert and Roche, Daniel (eds), Revolution in Print: The Press in France 1775-1800, Berkeley, University of California Press in association with the New York Public Library.
6. Rowse, Tim 1988, Arguing the Arts, Penguin, Ringwood, (excerpts), pp. 6-11, 22-29.
In the lead-up to the first cultural policy release in 1993, the Introduction and Preamble to the Commonwealth’s ‘Creative Nation’ as the policy was termed, provides a snapshot of where the government is heading. The first point of note in the Introduction is the policy’s twin goals of democracy and excellence. Attributing the first goal to the relatively recent though thoroughly expected pursuit of a democratic government. Excellence on the other hand, we know from prior AC policy and as stated by Rowse, Anderson, and Bruce, has been the mainstay of funding criteria since Commonwealth patronage to the arts began in 1908. This final phase of ‘decentralised’ patronage, is the government’s first real application of democracy concerning funding grants. The opening sentence of the Preamble shows the apparent importance placed on this process by stating: ‘Democracy is the key to cultural value.’
Citizens’ can only hope the government stays true to their word.
To plot a course through Australian government funding to the arts, the Creative Nation Policy could be termed the evolutionary pinnacle of patronage, the embodiment of a multicultural democracy—if such a thing is obtainable. For the farming-out of funding criteria assessment to community stakeholders does not necessarily guarantee fairness and equity, there is still the opportunity for perceived local interests to be served rather than national. However, this tangible application of a democratic process to the highly-contested arena of grants and funding within arts, while not doing away completely the elitist connotations surrounding the pursuit of ‘excellence’, will see arts funding made accessible to community groups which in the past, had no hope of entering the narrow and always crowded doors of VE and centralised patronage. In this way, democracy has become the ultimate instrument, enabling wider-community access to arts funding, thereby ‘bringing about’ a cultural ‘lifting’ of the subordinate classes.
References
1. Anderson, Peter 1989, ‘What the people want: Government arts funding and the Australia Council’, Australian Canadian Studies, vol. 7, nos. 1-2, pp.127-143.
2. Creative Nation.
3. Johnson, Bruce 1995, ‘The pursuit of excellence?’, Arena Magazine, Oct-Nov.
4. Malcomson, Robert W. 1973, ‘Popular Recreations under attack’, Popular Recreations in English Society 1700-1850, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Version provided here excerpted from Waites, Bernard, Bennett, Tony and Martin, Graham (eds) 1982, Popular Culture: Past and Present, Croom Helm, London, pp.24-36.]
5. Popkin, Jeremy D. 1989, ‘Journals: The new face of the news’, from Darnton, Robert and Roche, Daniel (eds), Revolution in Print: The Press in France 1775-1800, Berkeley, University of California Press in association with the New York Public Library.
6. Rowse, Tim 1988, Arguing the Arts, Penguin, Ringwood, (excerpts), pp. 6-11, 22-29.
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