The arts world will not shed a tear at the news that Maria Miller has resigned. Though it was Jeremy Hunt who wielded the axe to the arts budget, it was Maria Miller who spearheaded a shift in philosophy in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport that arguably annoyed the luvvies even more than the cuts had done.
Breaking the only rule that the arts world still deem sacred, Miller demanded, in her only keynote arts speech last April, that culture ditched the art-for-art’s-sake argument for its existence and replace it with an art-for-the-economy’s-sake argument.
‘When times are tough and money is tight, our focus must be on culture’s economic impact,’ she said.
This tilt to instrumentalism, to art having to prove itself useful as well as appealing to the ear, eye or brain, began under New Labour, when former culture secretary Chris Smith exhorted arts institutions to find stats (even if they didn’t strictly exist) to demonstrate that art was of use socially, psychologically or economically.
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