Self-proclaimed technoevangelist Fee Plumley wants the world to recognise that the arts is an industry too – and it’s about time it’s real value was recognised.

The art world is a strange one. On the ‘inside’ we seem to be constantly bemoaning the lack of resources and recognition needed to support the creative lifecycle. On the ‘outside’, we receive constant criticism for taking money from taxpayers in order to feed our elite habit, like some kind of street-beggar secretly harbouring an addiction to silk underwear.

I read an article today about ten years of UK subsidy to museums and art galleries, with the heading Ten years of free entry, but can it last?. I must admit I’ve had a love-hate relationship with the issue of free entry to these institutions (and subsidy generally) for some time. I remember when this first happened, an offshoot I assume from Labour’s Cool Britannia creative fanboy-dom. In some spaces there was the sense that the arts had gained some kind of recognition, something that ‘we the people’ should all be able to access, culture as democratic enabler. In other spaces brows furrowed as people wondered how the inevitable loss of revenue would be covered. Perhaps the Government would increase funding! Yes, that’s it, the lovely, socially-conscious Labour government would of course have plans to increase subsidy to the arts – perhaps through the National Lottery (initially intended to augment, not replace, arts funding). The public as a whole would be paying for entry, but as tax payers not consumers. A status quo, perhaps. Or perhaps not.

When I first started producing arts events I naturally assumed the way to maximise attendance was to make entry free. Imagine my surprise when told by event partners “actually we get a better turnout if we charge; it’s like people make a commitment if they have put a few quid behind it”. Others said: “If it’s free, people assume there’s no value – you get what you pay for”. Hmm, perhaps the Vertu mobile phone, with its gold, diamond and sapphire components, makes the content of your calls more important too. Still, we live in a competitive, economic world and it’s important to look the part, right?

So… why does the UK Government want to make the arts look like it has no value?

Obviously there’s no economic concern in keeping entry to museums and galleries free, or the culturally-castrated Conservatives would have turned this around over a year ago. Perhaps Cameron has just given up on commercialising the arts like he seems to think he can do with film (an especially interesting perspective following the decision to close the UK Film Council in 2010). Or perhaps the arts are doing just fine with all their private sponsorships and patronage and don’t need government support any more. No, wait, that’s right, because the art world has to be careful where its money comes from.

Oh me, oh my. In this complex tug of war, what is an impoverished art establishment to do? Stay free and look elsewhere to fill the gap, or start charging and risk losing audiences and reputation? And if the institutions are having all these problems, what is happening with all the little independent artists? How are they surviving? In these tight-belt-times there must be less and less ripple-down through the system (assuming there is any in the first place).

Perhaps the rise in ‘outside the box’ and ‘creative capital’ thinking in the commercial broadcast and IT sectors is rebalancing things; yes, that must be it. The explosion of digital culture conferences and networks has been astonishing, with tickets for (already highly sponsored) ‘coolest kid in school’ events such as SXSW coming in at US$1395. Surely that helps, I mean with such a high focus on music, film and interactive communities, imagine what an artist would get paid to present at something like that! Well, apparently a very insulting ‘bugger all’, according to the lovely Evan Roth who has now been hit up twice by the same event. Seriously, if we as artists want people to stop treating us like beggars asking for handouts so we can feed our selfish little addictions, we all need to stand up and give the finger to dirty rotten scroungers when they offer us nothing but ‘exposure’. We have the internet, thanks. We don’t need your little opportunity nearly as much as you need us.

Yes. Some art is elite. Some is extremely expensive to present and has dwindling audiences. Some use entire orchestras full of expensive people, and instruments so valuable they could individually repay a small country’s national debt. Some is even presented in other languages that make it hard to understand without reading subtitles. And some – the worst of all – use new fangled technologies which threaten the very basis of society as we know it.

But some art is accessible and meaningful in ways that even the people creating it didn’t expect.

I wish society could start to recognise that the arts is an industry just like any other. It might have lower salaries, benefits and tax deductions, with longer working hours than many other career choices, but it’s got a hell of a lot more value, passion and reward than your average daily slog. Why else do you think we choose this life? Many of the people who commit their lives to it are worth far more than their salary suggests – and worth a million worlds more than some of their millionaire counterparts.

Those concerned about stumping up an entry fee to experience art at a gallery or a museum, on a street or mobile device should remember that you’d only be paying for it in tax otherwise – at least this way you get to choose where you invest your hard earned income. Vote for your art like you (hopefully) vote for any other product; with your wallet. And to those who struggle to keep themselves going, with no government bailouts or recognition from anyone, anywhere… I applaud your commitment and give you Amanda Palmer’s Why I am not afraid to take your money.

At the end of the day, if governments are so desperate to save themselves from the shame of economic crisis (something the British Conservatives seem to be actively working against right now), perhaps rather than blame the arts we can just put a little more pressure on the real dirty rotten scroungers, the corporations who have been given permission to dodge their tax bills. Maybe those executives need to spend a little less time in the presidential suite and a little more time working for free.

Image: XBeggar courtesy James Guppy, on Flickr with CC license