The Written Word
for May 9, 2001

Not long ago I had as a guest on my radio show the managing director of the Barbican Art Center in London and we got into a discussion on modern art.

I immediately went to the jugular and asked him about the New Tate which is across the Thames from the Barbican and, I must say, unassociated with it. In this gallery, which incidentally draws huge crowds, exceeding the main Tate on Millbank, there are some extraordinary exhibits under the name art. One is simply a toilet bowl.

How in hell can that be art?

Well, it seems that it depends upon who puts the toilet bowl there. If it is a person of talent then that is how he is speaking to us and it therefore becomes, if not a masterpiece, at least a very valuable addition to the gallery indeed. In fact, it is implied, we are very lucky folks indeed to have such treasures in our midst.

This brings to mind the famous painting Voices of Fire" which was purchased by our National Gallery in Ottawa for $1 million and considered a great bargain at that. The painting consisted of three large stripes painted diagonally on a large piece of plywood. A farmer in Manitoba got a piece of plywood ¾ the size of Voices of Fire, painted it with three diagonal stripes and offered it to the National Gallery for $3/4 million and, for reasons that escape me, this generous offer was declined.

Why should this be so? If a prairie farmer can paint a picture every bit as good as that done by a person calling himself an artist, why shouldn’t he be paid accordingly? Does the art gallery have something against farmers?

The artsy fartsy crowd that defend this sort of thing make two points – actually I suppose it’s just one with two branches. They are, they say, appointed by the government to make independent choices and thus should not be interfered with. The corollary is, of course, that interference by the paymaster, the state, amounts to censorship.

This last argument is troubling because none of us much like censors, especially from what we see as bureaucratic pointy-heads – which is what government censors are. But wait a minute! Aren’t we talking about the public purse here and how it should be dispensed? Don’t we, as a group of taxpayers have the right to say "stuff and nonsense! This is crap. The emperor has no clothes. We are being duped into believing that utter nonsense like toilet bowls and coloured stripes are things of great, and expensive, artistic merit. If the private sector wants to spend its ill-gotten gains on such foolishness, fine and dandy but leave me the taxpayer out of it."

This become a thorny question because the whole question of state subsidization of the arts comes into focus. And if the state can arbitrarily reject things because the public thinks its foolishness then where does it end? Following that argument, the early and traditional art of Picasso would be appropriate for the state to buy but none of his modern stuff would – stuff, which incidentally, passed Picasso’s own definition that "art is what sells".

It’s a tough one. Does the state subsidize a symphony orchestra but not a rock band? If so, why the distinction?

The fact is the state does distinguish when it comes to outright subsidization but it subsidizes all noise called music through its Canadian content rules.

I think, on balance, I stray from my usual intense dislike of anything that smacks of government censorship and say that stripes on plywood and stray toilet bowls are not art suitable for public subsidy and that what the governments across the land ought to do is appoint a "common sense person to be called "The Senseperson". This "Senseperson" would be selected by the House of Commons or legislature, as the case may be, and must have unanimous approval of the legislative committee set up to vet the applications. Thereafter the SP would report not to government but the legislature as a whole.

This job should have wide powers to look at all government expenditures and declare whether same be sense or nonsense.

I think such a person would earn his salary and whatever it costs to maintain him in the first five minutes he’s in office.

Hell, he’d only have to look at a picture or two and he could save years of his cost right off the bat.

This, surely, is an idea whose time has come!