I have just concluded a series of nine texts concerning art and society. I composed them over several weeks, each addressing a distinct subject—impact, moral conscience, heritage, labour, territory, funding, access, recognition, and the digital realm—yet upon reviewing them collectively, I perceive that they all performed the same gesture, and I wish to identify it before proceeding.
The gesture is as follows: to take a narrative that the cultural sphere recounts about itself with pride and examine what lies beneath once the rhetoric is set aside. That culture transforms lives. That good intention renders a work virtuous. That we preserve what merits preservation. That working for passion is sufficient compensation. That introducing art to a neighbourhood invariably improves it. That our financiers do not influence our output. That we open our doors to all. That talent is ultimately recognised. That the digital sphere democratises. Nine comfortable certainties, and beneath each one, something more disquieting and more authentic.
What appeared almost invariably upon lifting the carpet was identical: that the decisive factor is rarely individual goodwill, but rather the structure—the capital, the power, the class, the infrastructure—which determines what is exhibited, what is preserved, what is remunerated, and who feels invited. And that the sector, when promising more than it can fulfil, does not protect itself; it leaves itself exposed. Over-promising is the most elegant method of ensuring future retrenchment.
I wish to be precise regarding the perspective from which I write, as it alters the meaning of the whole. This is not a denunciation from the outside. I preside over a foundation that relies on funding, that activates territories, that engages in mediation; furthermore, I am working to establish a recognisable position for myself within this field. I utilise the very mechanisms I examine. The critique is domestic: I am not pointing to an external sector; I am speaking of the house in which I reside. And one criticises what one values. No one dedicates nine texts to dismantling the alibis of something to which they are indifferent.
For this reason, none of the nine conclude in despondency, nor does this one. Acknowledging the limitation does not diminish the value of culture; it is the sole factor that renders it credible. Art does not require the disguise of social policy, economic engine, or inclusion mechanism to possess worth. It possesses worth for what it is capable of doing, which almost nothing else can replicate: opening a fissure in what someone previously deemed possible. This is not measured in attendance figures or headlines, and it requires no inflation. One must simply cease demanding that it be what it is not, in order to perceive it for what it truly is.
Remaining, as a thread for what is to come, is a question that these nine texts have refined for me, and which I consider the appropriate one to pose before any cultural project. Not how much it is worth, nor how many people attended, nor what it transformed. Rather: what is being reorganised here that would not be reorganised otherwise. That question is more modest and more demanding than all the promises we habitually make. And it is, I believe, the only honest one.
I have gathered the nine texts onto a single page, in the event that anyone wishes to traverse them as what they are: not nine disparate observations, but a single investigation conducted aloud.