Fine Art and Social Exclusion

Art accessible to everybody?

Over the holiday I was particularly taken by The Guardian Obituary of Brian Stewart by Dea Birkett, (The Guardian 24 December 2010).

Brian, (whom I had never met), died aged just 57, appallingly falling victim to icy roads on his bicycle. As director of the Falmouth Art Gallery he had established a reputation as a "pioneer in making art accessible to all".  This included "baby painting" where baby painting sessions were held in the same gallery space where "high art" was showing. This was through a firm belief that one can never be too young to be exposed to high art.

This type of pioneering work is essential if fine art is to become truly accessible; and to ensure we avoid the temptation to "dumb down" fine art to make it more intellectually attractive and accessible to the masses. The challenge is to raise the knowledge and interest of people, to help them engage, eye to eye, with art in all of its forms.

But, the real risk to accessibility remains the global unfair distribution of wealth. As typified here in the UK by the class system that appears to be getting even more firmly established through for example the recent education cuts and higher education fees structures. Recent higher education fees restructuring in particular is socially divisive and reinforces social exclusion from the arts. Ensuring that art remains available mostly to an upper middle class privileged minority.

Plenty of work is happening in the artworld to counter this tendency. For example I have been on the periphery of initiatives by Portsmouth City Council and The Pallant House Gallery in Chichester to fight social exclusion.  These include art access programmes for people normally considered to be at the bottom of the social ladder, ethnic minorities, immigrants caught in the middle, those on benefits and the incapacitated. However these programmes should not be solely dependent on volunteers and charity (even though volunteers and philanthropists will always have a key role).  It is the job of central government to ensure the well being and education of all people no matter where they fit into society and this must be achieved through properly funded education. 

Improper or divisive funding of education causes social exclusion of possibly the majority of the talented, intellectually capable people that we have in this world.