Creativity isn’t in crisis, creatives are
How to keep art alive, with The White Pube
MØRNING! And Happy New Year (though it already feels like an eon since the 1st). Hope you’re feeling refreshed and ready to cause some mischief. The team say this feels like the most MØRNING time of them all (who wants a new day when you can have a new year?) And so we’re starting as we mean to go on. We’ve been hatching a sneaky plan to relaunch our Morning People Fund, our way of giving back to the creative work that dares to sit on the fringes (the work that, ultimately, trickles up to the rest of us). More on that later…
But before we get into all the ways we can help, it felt right that we started the year with a proper state of play. No secrets here, the creative industry is a financial shit show, Only 7% of creatives in 2022 came from working class backgrounds, compared to 16% in the 60s. Artists in the UK earn an average of £16,000 (well below the living wage), with only £6,000 of that from their creative practice. Yet the arts continue to keep our hearts and minds alive, and fuel creativity that makes big profits for a select few.
So what’s going so badly wrong? How bad have things got? And is there anything we can do to save the arts from strangulation? This week, we are very lucky to have Zarina Muhammad, of the iconic art critic duo The White Pube, to tell us what’s what.
FIRST, IMAGINE THIS: YOU’RE AN ARTIST AND LIFE IS BLEAK
You went to art school, you have a BAFA and an artistic practice. You live in London because it’s your hometown or because it’s a place where art happens. You pay £875 a month for a room in a Zone 3 houseshare*, but your deposit flashes before your eyes every time you pick up a paintbrush. So you pay £500 a month for a studio** with no central heating, too. You’ve got a bargain, apparently, but your bank balance doesn’t agree. It’s The Cost Of Living, baby! It’s in crisis!
How do you make money, as an artist? Teach at an art school? Art school teaching roles are now mostly zero hour contracts. You don’t know if they’ll get you back in next year, next term, and you don’t know how much you’ll be working even if they do. You go on strike. You’re not paid to be on strike. You could get a job that’s nothing to do with art! Work in a shop, a pub, do admin in an office. You have transferable skills! You work full time. You have money and holiday leave and sick pay!
But, sorry, when are you meant to make art? In the evenings when you’re too knackered to even make dinner? On the weekends because you can sacrifice having a social life? You need a peer group, colleagues, but everyone else has the same work/life/art balance to strike. They’re squeezing art in on evenings, weekends, days off. Your schedules don’t match up so you don’t see anyone, you don’t discuss art.
You have a couple of workshops lined up, artist talks, panels etc. You do 2 of these jobs a month and it’s £100, £200, or £300 a go if you’re lucky. (How much is your rent again?) You land an exhibition! If it’s a group show, the artist’s fee is probably somewhere around £500. If it’s a solo show or a commission, the artist’s fee might be £5,000***. They’ll even give you a separate materials budget! This is a generous offer. If you get more than one of these solo commissions in a year, you’ll be doing well. You’re meant to say thank you because you’re so lucky.
You could avoid working with galleries at all. The Arts Council’s got a DYCP round coming up, if you want some public funding? But it’s a small, finite amount of money and they get thousands of applications in, so the success rate is 21%. If you’re unsuccessful twice then you’re ineligible to apply a third time. You can also only apply for up to £12,000. The average salary in Britain is £35,000 and national minimum wage is about £21,000.
You hear that the government is cutting arts funding. Again. But arts funding feels fictional because there is no National Art Service, no Big Art Corporation you clock into. You’ve got to hustle, hope to be in the right place at the right time when the stars align, wait for a gallery to call your lottery numbers. Just getting one gig for your CV feels like good luck.
WHAT THE FUCK DO WE DO NOW:
If you're seriously asking, you shouldn't be asking me. I’m an art critic, not a policy maker.
I could go for the easy answer and say, ‘this could all be fixed if we use all that public money to fund the arts properly!’. We need more public funds, subsidised studio spaces, artists industrial placements or more generous gallery systems, though these all rely on the goodwill of people in power. A more progressive government and more public funding for everything, including art, would be nice. In Ireland they’re trialling Universal Basic Income for Artists. In Norway they have an artist stipend, you can apply for a salary for up to 5 years. There are examples like the Artists Placement Group from the 60s, when they put artists in industrial placements at companies like the British Steel Corporation. Or like Leo Castelli Gallery, who put their artists on payroll, so they got paid regardless of whether their work sold.
But truly, there can be no healthy arts ecology under capitalism. It’s objectively fucked that artists are paid the least, the least frequently and the most precariously for their involvement in an industry that we all benefit from and that wouldn’t exist without them. Conservative governments cut cultural funding because capitalism doesn’t value culture, regardless of how much the creative economy may or may not contribute to GDP. Instead, the entire arts industry is subsidised by artists’ desire to make art. Making art is desirous, it’s wasteful, it bears no relation to need or necessity, supply or demand. It’s a beautiful human thing that predates anything as ugly and untrue as capitalism. The system isn’t in crisis, this is the way it was designed to work.
If you insist on asking me, we should get rid of landlords, no one should ever have to pay for a roof over their head again. Give everyone a Basic Income, free higher education, healthcare, nationalise the supermarkets, a National Fruit and Veg Service. Sort that out and people will make art in the slack. This is all easy to say, maybe it’s impossible to do. But if we don’t do it, then maybe there will be no art in 50 or 100 years. So I guess it could always get bleaker.
*my actual rent
** average price of an Acme studio
***actual figure for commission at an anonymous national portfolio organisation
Yes, The White Pube has spoken: the situation is dire, and the only real escape is systemic change.
But we’re not entirely helpless. As consumers, creatives and brands, it’s our duty to fight for new systems in the long term, and support the creative economy as best we can in the short term. Here are the basics.
It’s tough out there, but thank fuck for those doing the work to defend the arts and help nurture creativity. Use them! Support them! Here’s a (by no way exhaustive) list of some our favourites:
Creative Lives - listing a range of funds across the UK
Metallic Fund - helping support and inspire the Creative Black Community via mentorship and funding
The incredible local venues hosting art, film or writing clubs. Set, Reference Point and BeauBeaus are some of those leading the charge in London
The Bomb Factory - London-based arts hub offering residencies to artists
Artrabbit - great resource for upcoming exhibition openings and shows
The independent magazines who are committed to platforming new talent, like Bricks, Tank and Pilot
Dazed Club offers loads of creative resources for those starting their career
Softer - panels and talks about digital creativity, including IRL community meetups
Vocurations - support emerging artists through residencies, exhibitions, and studio spaces
Babes on Waves - network for WOC/underrepresented creatives & entrepreneurs
Arts Sisterhood - creative workshops for women
And, of course, The Morning People Fund
Brands don't have all the answers, but they do have a role to play. How can you give back to the creative community that we so often extract from? Relationships have to be symbiotic to thrive.
Create true value exchanges - what grants or initiatives can you set up?
How can you support the creativity of your community and audience?
(If any of this feels like a struggle, you can always ask MØRNING for help)
Finally, If you haven’t got the message already, USE YOUR VOTE whenever you can. It’s the only way we can create an economy that lets arts and culture thrive.
Phew. That’s all for today. Strength and solidarity to all you creative souls out there. We look forward to revealing more Morning People Fund juiciness next week. Until next time!
Words: Zarina Muhammad
Editor: Letty Cole