Idioms

For example, last year on national television a visual artist cum presenter proclaimed with some pride, and with disdain towards his interlocutor (also a visual artist and guest in the program), that he had never received a subsidy. He seemed to suggest that, as an artist, you should be proud of that.

Grants for artists are, by definition, awarded to artists living and working today. Contemporary art is sometimes difficult to grasp; in most cases it does not yet have a frame of reference. You could say that visual artists are our advance observers, with curators, directors of presentation institutions and communications staff having the clean task of translating to a wider audience, which is sometimes not at all ready for what the artist is showing. In fact, it often takes years or decades for art that was once contemporary to be understood and appreciated. We all know the examples. So the appreciation of contemporary subsidized art is anything but obvious.

In recent years, condescension toward art and art subsidies has entered our idiom, our language and our system of thought via the political and social debate. After all, appreciation for art is partly driven by the government, by determining where subsidies do or do not go, but certainly also by the language used to justify political choices. Just think of the introduction of terms like "subsidy guzzlers" and "left-wing hobby. Although the latter is now used less frequently, this stigmatizing term is hard to get rid of.

Moreover, this stigmatization is not conducive to the market position of the entrepreneurial artist. Clients sometimes fancy their chances by offering little in return for the artist's services, while it is precisely now that the artist should be approached as an entrepreneur. When the artist has to 'market himself', he can no longer offer his services for next to nothing. And that should no longer be asked either.

The artist as an independent entrepreneur stands up for his economic position. For example, in art commissions where artists are asked to submit a sketch design without compensation. However understandable the latter may be from the perspective of the client confronted with budget cuts, for the art sector it is an undesirable development.

Back to the idiom. A new term has been added to the idiom used to communicate about the cultural sector: resilience. It's then about how, perhaps even thanks to (rather than in spite of) the massive budget cuts, all is well again with the sector. Indeed, in no time at all, the institutions have picked up and embraced the entrepreneurship so valued and praised. This conveniently ignores the fact that this trend was started years ago, from within the cultural sector. Those efforts are now, with the drastic budget cuts and the insistence on cultural entrepreneurship, being very conveniently redirected into policies that are well picked up by the "resilient" cultural sector.

There is also good news: idiom is apparently easily influenced. Parallel to promoting cultural entrepreneurship and the resilient cultural sector, we can work just as hard to promote the value of art: the special experience of experiencing art, the economic and marketing value of art, the positive effect art has on health, etc. THERE are terms to be found that will seep into our idiom. So that eventually when visual art and entrepreneurship are mentioned in the same breath, these terms will be so firmly embedded in our language and thought system that they will immediately evoke in us not only the value of art but also that of the artist. Art then has the idiom it deserves.