ON March 26 John Gilhooly, director of Wigmore Hall, announced that they were going to return the £344,000 they receive annually from Arts Council England (ACE) due to achieving their own financial independence, also citing the “crippling” nature of current Arts Council policy. What followed was a public letter from ACE, which failed to defend their position but effectively accused Wigmore Hall of being selfish during a cost-of-living crisis.

For a long period of time, ACE has been criticised for a variety of reasons, which are often valid. The recent battles surrounding English National Opera or Welsh National Opera show there are deep internal faults within the organisation which are supposed to support the arts in England but seem to be more eager to hack and slash than to help organisations grow or stabilise during this current economic turmoil.

The current Labour government can hardly be accused of being generous with its spending which means many arts organisations (and artists of all stripes who work independently) are having to evaluate whether ACE, Creative Scotland or Arts Council Wales (ACW) can actually sustain them. This has resulted in many organisations becoming increasingly reliant on philanthropy.

Philanthropy has been part of the arts for centuries, thanks to wealthy business owners investing in art galleries, concert halls, and orchestras which allowed many artists to separate themselves from earlier patrons — aristocrats and the church — which had previously been one of the few, if not the only, sources of stable income.

Being paid by the church or aristocrats came with its own burdens, namely: you were at their service, meaning that to do anything that drifted out of their vision — be it artistically or socially — would have risked losing work. Philanthropists also come with this same burden. Looking at the role philanthropists play in the arts in the US, there have been numerous stories of wealthy donors threatening to stop donating if the organisations commission “dangerous artists.”

In theory, state funding can counter this issue, as all government funding can be scrutinised, but also it means there are mechanisms in which to ensure worker rights are upheld. Though, given the current state of ACE, can we really see this in action?

With the chaos of funding, it is understandable why organisations are looking to philanthropy to plug a greater and greater gap within their own finances. There is an increasing voice which essentially argues that resorting to philanthropic support frees an organisation from the constraints of ACE and their ilk. But this is only as true as the philanthropists you can muster. When considering just how much BP invests into arts organisations, can we truly believe they would allow an arts organisation to perform a popular work that is critical of BP? We cannot, even as they continue to greenwash themselves.

Conversely, we also have to be mindful of the developments surrounding Wigmore Hall. It would be naive to believe that ACE is not watching the developments carefully. If a high-profile concert venue like Wigmore Hall does not need ACE funding, this could become a benchmark for what it means to be “high profile.” This could result in further ACE cuts because an organisation of a certain calibre should be “self-sufficient like Wigmore Hall.” In turn, we could see ACE funding almost become the artistic equivalent of a dunce’s cap, because “if you are good enough, why do you need funding?”

If the left in Britain likes to see itself as a part of the rich heritage of William Morris, Edward Carpenter and numerous other socialist artists who campaigned for arts for all of humanity, it needs to offer a better vision of what is currently happening. The increasing influence of philanthropists means the ability for the working class to influence such institutions will conversely diminish.

But ACE is also failing the working class, and we cannot defend arts organisations that suffer continued cuts if we don’t offer an alternative, or at least demand our funding bodies do better.

There have been historic examples of alternatives offered by the left and trade union movement, and the Workers Music Association in its 1948 publication Music In Post-War Britain gave a thorough examination of the circumstances and infrastructure of the arts, though circumstances have, of course, changed since then.

More significantly, in 1960 the TUC passed a motion which demanded an increased participation in the arts from unions, which established the role of cultural officers in many unions, a tradition now sadly defunct and in need of reassessment.

Alongside this, there is a role that can be played by trades councils, which in their position as the link between communities and the trade union movement, can also push local councils to represent the arts and culture of the community living in their region. 

Combined with analysis of the current situation, alongside trade unions and councils, we could see ourselves not only offering an alternative which genuinely represents the working class of Britain, but also uses the democratic weapons we already possess.

This is a battle that must be fought, as ultimately this will decide not only which art we see or hear, but could also potentially enlarge, or limit, the ideological scope that we engage with.

The working class working in the arts have been battered for decades, to a point where only 13 per cent of working artists say they are working class. But for sure, we should be worried about the growing influence of philanthropists, because it can and will remove what limited democracy we currently have within the arts.