By Sara Bright
There is a certain kind of official photograph that is designed not to document an event, but to project an idea. The images that emerged from 10 Downing Street on the tenth of October, of government ministers and art-world grandees gathered to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Frieze London, were such photographs. They were images of a happy, and mutually beneficial, marriage between the worlds of politics and art. And yet, as a curator who has spent a lifetime navigating the often-fraught relationship between these two, very different, kinds of power, I could not help but see in them a flicker of something else.
This was not just a celebration. It was an act of courtship. It was a beautiful, and deeply anxious, embrace. And in its very warmth, in its very enthusiasm, we can see a profound, and deeply revealing, truth about the current, and often precarious, state of the British art world, and of the nation itself.
A Portrait of a Partnership
The day was a carefully choreographed piece of political theatre. It began with the presentation of the Robson Orr TenTen Award, a laudable and necessary initiative that supports British artists and enriches the Government Art Collection. The winner, the Turner Prize nominee Anthea Hamilton, is a perfect choice, an artist whose work is a smart, and often playful, exploration of the relationship between art, design, and popular culture. Her print, “The Lovers,” is a joyful, and deeply optimistic, work, a perfect, and perfectly safe, piece of art for an official government collection.
This was followed by a roundtable discussion on the future of the art market, a gathering of the great and the good, moderated by the Culture Secretary and attended by the Prime in Minister himself. The language was one of support, of collaboration, of a “golden age for British arts and culture.” The numbers were impressive: a creative economy worth over a hundred billion pounds, a global art market second only to the United States.
And the day concluded with a reception, a glittering affair where the worlds of art and politics mingled, and where the walls were hung with a curated selection of works from the Government Art Collection, a quiet, and deeply powerful, reminder of the soft, and often unseen, power of a nation’s culture.
The Ghost at the Feast
And yet, for all the warmth, for all the talk of a “golden age,” there was a ghost at this feast. It is the ghost of a post-Brexit, post-pandemic, and deeply, and often anxiously, uncertain, Britain. The government’s sudden, and very public, embrace of the art world is not just a matter of cultural appreciation. It is a matter of economic necessity.
In a world where Britain is still struggling to define its place, its role, its very identity, its cultural exports have become more important than ever. The art market is not just a source of income; it is a source of international prestige, a way of projecting an image of a nation that is still, despite everything, a global player.
This is the anxious heart of the matter. The government is not just supporting the art world; it is, in a sense, clinging to it. It is holding up the success of an event like Frieze London as a kind of proof of life, a sign that Britain is still open for business, still a vibrant, and dynamic, and creative, place to be.
The Power of a Tent
And in this, they are not wrong. The story of Frieze is a remarkable, and in many ways, an inspiring, one. From its origins as a small, and slightly rebellious, upstart, it has grown into one of the most influential and respected art fairs in the world. It has, for two decades, been a vital and necessary part of the London, and the global, art scene.
It is a place of discovery, of conversation, of a shared, and often deeply passionate, love of contemporary art. It is a place where new talents are discovered, where careers are made, where the often-insular world of the gallery is opened up to a wider, and more diverse, public. And in a city that can often feel fragmented, and divided, and deeply, and often tragically, unequal, it is a place of a rare, and beautiful, kind of temporary community.
A Fragile Ecosystem
But the art world is not just a collection of successful, and highly profitable, art fairs. It is a fragile, and often deeply precarious, ecosystem. And for every blue-chip gallery, and every Turner Prize-winning artist, there are a thousand smaller, and often struggling, spaces, a thousand younger, and often deeply unsupported, artists, who are the lifeblood of this ecosystem.
And it is here, in the quiet, and often unseen, corners of the art world, that the government’s support is most needed. A reception at Downing Street is a beautiful, and a welcome, gesture. But it is not a substitute for a long-term, and deeply committed, investment in the grassroots of British culture.
The future of the British art world will not be decided in the glittering tents of Regent’s Park, or in the gilded rooms of Downing Street. It will be decided in the small, and often struggling, galleries of Peckham, and of Glasgow, and of Manchester. It will be decided in the studios of the young, and often deeply, and wonderfully, and necessarily, and brilliantly, and often tragically, and always, and forever, and ever
