Feed the Fox

Martin Kettle, writing up Tony Blair's speech at the Tate Modern:

The pity is that Blair's most important speech on the arts as prime minister should have been given a few weeks before he steps down, not in New Labour's salad days.

Now, I'm no injured Culture War veteran. (For one thing, I was 10 in 1990.) I believe the government can do important work in the arts that the market doesn't do as well, such as preserving vernacular art forms, and that it's worth resisting the mechanism by which the far right smears any legitimate public function in the arts in order to confirm its constituency's preconceived notions about art, to satisfy the martyrdom complex&mdahs;to feed the Fox, if you will.

Of course, the NEA plays it safe and surely nothing kills a burgeoning interest in the arts quicker than an endless stream of Shakespeares in the park; and Republicans' refusal to admit program directors who are qualified, conservative, and gay doesn't help. Still, federal subsidy is A Good Thing for every state but New York and California—even if it's currently not at its historical best.

About that martyrdom thing: At the time other culture fronts were more pressing, and anyway her work wasn't publicly financed, but my first thought when I read in 2003 about Andrea Fraser's Untitled ? That a so-con would run wild with it. Isn't that an odd thing to think about? On a related note, Karen Finley is in the news and on the blogs.