WHAT USE ARE THE ARTS? PART 6: THE ARTS AND THE ECONOMYAlthough there are some who believe that business and the arts are incompatible, the current era of co-operation between the two worlds has brought benefits to both, and to Ireland, writes Sara Keatingin Paris
"The arts are an even better barometer of what is happening in our world than the stock market"
- Hendrik Willem Van Loon, historian
THE IMPULSE IN a capitalist society is to reduce everything to economics, to a factor of market value, distribution and demand. Against traditional measures of profit margin, input and outlay, the arts seem destined for market failure as a massive loss-making venture, an economic write-off. The necessity for government subsidy appears to confirm this - without the charity of the public coffers, the arts would simply not survive.
However, such capitalist crudities are misleading and the belief that the arts are a diversion of productive labour into unproductive activity has shifted towards more nuanced evaluations of the intersection between the arts and the economy, from the indirect contribution the arts makes to the market economy, to an appreciation of the arts as an industry, a market, in itself.
Cultural economics considers these links, "applying economic principles to the cultural sector", as Prof John W O' Hagan, of Trinity College Dublin's department of economics, explains: "The cultural industry is an economic industry. It employs people, spends money and pays taxes."
Crucially, however, the economic model for evaluating the cultural sector makes no distinction between "high art" and popular entertainment. As O'Hagan insists, the arts "are a service industry with a commercial aspect", like any other industry.
In line with the experience of global economic models, cultural economics embraces creative and cultural practices as diverse as ballet and book-publishing, architecture and interior design, museums and mainstream cinema. In Britain, these separate strands of cultural production and service have been re-imagined as a collective economic force, "the creative industries", whose value in the economy, as British Arts Council research has proven, is comparable to that of the financial services sector.
For some, however, the collision of practices in the commercial term "creative industries" appears to contradict the very essence of artistic endeavour: its original creative foundation, its art-for-art's-sake-ness. For the so-called high arts, economic criteria represent arts instrumentalism at its worst, emphasising the value of profit before excellence or originality, the devaluation of innovation in a context of mass-production.
But the collision of the two worlds is unavoidable, perhaps inevitable. As Prof O'Hagan puts it, "even the high arts, like theatre, opera or orchestra have to get money from somewhere. If they can't rely on box office alone, the finance has to come from somewhere else, whether that's the government or private sponsors. That's economics."
In fact, a creative allegiance between the arts and economic imperatives might lead to modes of exploration by which the arts can strengthen and sustain themselves for the future. While profit may not be a consideration, the arts perform in the cultural marketplace like any other industry would. For example, if audiences for the arts are to grow, the number of arts organisations will grow too, indicating a healthy arts culture. Yet with this growth comes competition for audiences and funding, and increased financial pressures as extra salaries are needed.
LATELY, HOWEVER, THERE has also been an increased awareness of the indirect contribution that the arts make to the broader economy. In Ireland, this contribution includes 30,000 full-time jobs in arts industries, valuable revenue, proven regeneration of urban/rural economies, the attraction of tourist trade, and an extension of the national reputation for creativity to industry and innovation.
The Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Séamus Brennan, is keen that arts organisations should begin to harness these indirect economic contributions for their own benefit, by using them as a reason to lobby for increased support.
"The arts is all very exciting stuff, but you have to earn a living as well," Brennan insists. Using the word "marketing" is leap that some arts organisations have not made, he thinks. "I always have the economic discussion here second - because I believe that it is second - but if you can make the economic argument stronger, you can get more support for the sector."
In fact, such economic arguments can be exploited by arts organisations for their own advantage, particularly through sponsorship deals, which, despite concerns about the re-branding of arts events for corporate advertisement, can provide important revenue. As Donal Shiels, adviser to John O'Donoghue when he was the minister, philosophises: "If people have a product to sell, the arts can help in doing that."
Stuart McLoughlin, chief executive of Business2Arts, is adamant that commercial patronage is mutually beneficial. "Increasingly, we should be looking towards public and private partnership, where both sectors are investing in the arts and culture spheres," he says. "Sponsorship reduces dependency on public funding and enables them to do particular projects.
"The Dublin Theatre Festival is a good example. Ulster Bank invested, so there was more money for marketing and for the programme. As a result, the number of performances went up, there was more to see than ever before, the audience numbers went up, as did the box office. It was a win for everybody."
Shiels agrees that an expansion of the culture of philanthropy in Ireland is essential in order to maximise funding opportunities for the arts, although he suggests that not enough is being done at government level to sell the advantages to business communities. "I would be a strong advocate of introducing 100 per cent tax-deductible sponsorships and donations. Surely it's the best way to get businesses to engage with the arts."
Most importantly, however, that engagement should not be merely mercenary. It should be used with a view to increasing attendance at arts events too.
CULTURAL TOURISM, TRADE AND ARTS
In 1941, Dáil Eireann established a landmark cultural relations committee "with a view to an enhancement of Ireland's image and reputation abroad in order to further certain broad objectives of foreign policy". Ireland's artistic prowess was seen as a cost-effective promotional tool worth exploiting, and today the marketing of Irish culture has become a key strategy for encouraging foreign trade and travel to Ireland.
Fáilte Ireland recently launched A New Strategy for Cultural Tourism in Ireland, directed towards the intersection of "culture, which defines in large part our identity as a society" and "tourism, which is a leisure activity pursued by people with an interest in observing or becoming involved in that society". Far from a niche, special-interest pursuit, culture is a "mainstream product" for visitors to Ireland, as Damian O'Brien, Fáilte Ireland's cultural tourism marketing manager, explains.
"Ireland's culture, both living and traditional, is one of the main motivators for visitors choosing to visit Ireland, and our overseas marketing message is very heavy with cultural references," he says. "Of the seven million-plus visitors who come to Ireland annually, the activity engaged in by the majority of visitors (approximately 2.5 million) is historical or cultural pursuits."
This cultural tourism is worth €5.1 billion a year to the Irish economy, O'Brien says, but Fáilte Ireland's strategy "is not about the delivery of economic performance through tourism at all costs, nor is it about realising short-term tourism gains at the expense of sacrificing Ireland's heritage or artistic integrity. Rather it is about . . . building recognition about the overlap and synergy that exist between the agendas of tourism, arts, culture and heritage and . . . providing a platform for the development of sustainable, authentic, high-quality cultural experiences."
Mary Cloake, director of the Arts Council, also believes that the arts feed into the tourist industry in key ways. "People don't come to Ireland for the weather; they come to us for our difference, our cultural practices, our cultural pull, our cultural distinctiveness," she says.
Cloake also highlights the role that the arts can play in the broader global economic context of international relationships and international trade. "Trade was always accompanied by culture and exchange," she says, using the 2003/2004 Ireland-China Cultural Exchange as an example.
As Donal Shiels, who served as director of the exchange, explains, it was in fact conceived to support the Government's Asia strategy, "which was about how Ireland Inc would sell itself and develop links Asia. What was really interesting was the priority they gave arts and culture. They weren't going straight in with business, and that is a statement that struck a chord with me. That is exactly one of the many things that arts can do: it can work with people across cultures."
Cloake theorises that in "a commercial relationship with a country as far from us as China, cultural awareness is crucial", and Shiels agrees.
"In China, business operates as a different system and getting to know people is crucial. They take their time getting to know you before they do business, and you have to have a five-year strategy in order to get established. So an introduction to Ireland from an arts perspective was a great way of [marketing the country]. [We spent] €3.5 million, but it was good value for money."
However, Fáilte Ireland's Damian O'Brien is keen to make clear that the growth of cultural tourism has key benefits for arts organisations as well as the tourism economy.
"Tourism can provide audiences for theatre and concert productions, local festivals, and an economic market for the visual arts," he says. "It is very much a give-and-take relationship, a two-way process, which in essence is what cultural tourism is all about."
To this end, Fáilte Ireland also provides sponsorship for the arts through its Festivals and Cultural Events Initiative, which has provided more than €16 million in funding to 400 individual festivals and events around the country over the last four years - a portion of which, of course, has gone to marketing events to encourage foreign visitors.
CREATIVITY AND THE CORPORATE SECTOR
Since its foundation in 1988, Business2Arts has been providing a key service for business and arts communities: securing an alternative means of investment and promotion for businesses, and extra income and practical business experience for arts organisations. As Stuart McLoughlin, Business2Arts chief executive, explains, there is considerable scope for developing such relationships in a more creative way, and beyond mere economic interests.
"Traditionally," he says, "Business2Arts would broker sponsorship partners in the arts for the business community, or provide contact with a curator for buying art. For the arts community, we would arrange training courses" - in areas such as marketing, sponsorship acquisition, management - "but we were not necessarily bringing the communities together."
After taking up the directorship of the organisation two years ago, however, McLoughlin conducted a "stakeholder audit", and there was a broad acknowledgement that the communities - particularly the business community - were interested in working together on a more direct level, "beyond the levels of sponsorship, patronage or philanthropy".
"The arts community has a skill that's incredibly valuable and can be used in the corporate environment - and that skill is creativity," McLoughlin explains. "Business people like to see the passion of the arts community at work, because it becomes infectious."
Increasingly then, Business2Arts has been involved in developing initiatives that allow businesses to find alternative, more creative, solutions to industry problems. These initiatives are bringing them into more direct contact with arts organisations, who can provide "artistic responses to strategic problems".
One example McLoughlin cites is a new theatre-based training course developed for the Allianz corporation, "where fundamentally sound management training is being delivered through arts and culture". One module of the course involves participants watching selected films to observe particular leaders in action. Another involves live improvisation of management problems by actors. McLoughlin is certain that this adds up to "a far more memorable than bullet points on a flip chart. It activates your mind in a way that powerpoint never will".
McLoughlin doesn't necessarily believe that the relationship extends outwards to the arts community, in terms of increased interest in the arts or increased box-office revenue. However, by promoting the involvement of the business community with arts organisations "in a way that doesn't stop at handing over money . . . the two communities matter to [each other] more, and a more long-lasting commitment to financial sponsorship of the arts is nurtured."
Despite these close working relationships, McLoughlin admits that artists can be reluctant to engage with such initiatives. "There's often a belief that if you're going to engage with business you're selling your soul, compromising your integrity, but the most successful artists that work with business are the ones that don't compromise," he says.
Not everyone, however, is convinced this is the right approach."I invited in recently, and I said 'business helping the arts! That sounds wonderful! How much do they give you? €400 million? €800 million?' They said four million," says Séamus Brennan. "It turns out that business is not really helping the arts at all; it is individual collectors buying for themselves and their families." In terms of helping access to the broader arts, they're not doing anything near enough, Brennan says. He has invited Business2Arts to go back to the drawing board.
[ www.businesstoarts.ieOpens in new window ]
Eugene Downes: Chief executive, Culture Ireland
"There are two broad dimensions to the economic argument for the arts. Firstly, there is that direct income derived by individual artists or groups travelling abroad, or selling abroad. But there is also a much broader benefit in economic or national terms. The arts raise the profile of Ireland, developing an international presence and awareness of Ireland in a deep and rich way. The arts demonstrate our creativity, and our economy is focused on creativity, so there is a strong convergence there with the cultural field.
"Sometimes there's an anxiety about looking at the social, economic or quantifiable aspects of the arts. These instrumentalist arguments can be reductive, but in the context of Culture Ireland's work [promoting Irish artists abroad], we have found that artists respond really well to the idea that they can be ambassadors for the country. That can empower the individual artist or cultural institution; it helps to reinforce the fact that the arts are an important positive influence on Ireland's future."
