Adapted from an article by Blake Morrison which appeared in the Independent
T.S Eliot wrote in 1948 "that our own period is one of decline and that the standards of culture are lower than they were 50 years ago... I see no reason why the decay of culture should not proceed much further, and why we may not even have to anticipate a period of no culture."
In
recent years British culture has become Bland with a capital B.
Not inoffensive FAD's wallpaper blandness, no this is something
more shrill and self congratualatory. A relentlessly cheerful, blanket
of good taste.
London theatre, for instance. A report at the end of last year from
the Theatre Trust warned that, unless attitudes and funding priorities
change, the West End will soon offer only American musical imports,
and pantomimes with ageing soap stars. A look at the listings -
Chicago, Cats, Starlight Express, Saturday Night Fever, The Lion
King, Beauty and the Beast, Whistle down the Wind, The Phantom of
the Opera - suggests that the future has already arrived.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with a good night out watching 'Mc Culture' entertainment. Like warm baths or Sunday lunches, we all need them once in a while. But what if you want more? Suppose you're looking for theatre that braces or unsettles you, challenges your thinking, teaches you things you didn't know. A recent survey of intellectuals found that most rarely went to the West End. No surprises there. What would there be for them to see? That is in London, However in Cardiff and in the welsh regions, there is a serious lack of any art that makes the hair on your neck stand on end or your stomach churn. This is not the fault of the regional theatres and production companies. Money provided for the arts, from government and lottery sources hardly crosses the invisible north south divide, it washes into London where it is spent on the safely consumable. This is Britain Dome-ing down.
This
isn't just a crisis in theatre. Insiders in British art, opera,
publishing, film and TV have similar stories - of funding crises,
failures of nerve, and accountants taking over artistic management.
In Cool Britannia, the talk is of prioritising art forms that are
fun, accessible, open to all.
Looking for scapegoats, John Drummond, chairman of the Theatre Trust,
points the finger at New Labour, he finds it hard to credit how
"a few years of well intentioned but unthinking populism can
be allowed to destroy a tradition that has played a key role in
the European mind for 2000 years". All these mission statements
about British "x" (film, visual art, popular music - fill
in the gap) being "y" (exciting/ where it's at/ the envy
of the world) are nonsense. The truth is sadder - and blander. They
were the Nice Nineties, and these aren't the naughty noughts, we
are so far in the numbing noughts. Teeth 'n' smiles publicists spread
the word that art is fun. Clean and wholesome too. And nothing to
be scared of. Which true art can never be.
The irony is that we've been conditioned to think our culture is
daring. Damien's sheep, Tracey's bed, Chris Ofili's elephant dung
madonna, Sensation! The odd thing is easily assimilated their shocks
are. When Mayor Giuliani fumed at the Sensation exhibition in New
York, we smiled indulgently at his naivety. How uncool! How Mary
Whitehouse of him. Shrug it off Mayor! Time you got real!
But art that's genuinely new can't be so easily assimilated. It
doesn't draw huge crowds, or let its audience forget it five minutes
later. It used to involve its makers in years of struggle, semi-poverty
and sometimes persecution. This isn't to say the Tracy Emin, say,
lacks intellectual substance. The questions she raises about the
cult of celebrity, and about the relation of art to abuse, will
be the stuff of theses for years to come. But thats not why people
queued to see her. We go because we've read the hype. "Prepare
to be disgusted!" is the challenge, and we want to see if we
can take it - the rumpled sheets, the knickers, the skidmarks. And
hey, we can. It's ok, see: art isn't so shocking after all.
But that doesn't mean that art has lost the power to shock. Neither
have we as an audience lost the capacity to be shocked. We are so
busy reasuring ourselves how broadminded we are that we forget how
many taboos still exist. The use of "real people" or sensational
public crimes in art work. And on British Television many aspects
of sex. Compared to the late night viewing in many other European
nations, Britian is prudish, forbidden from even showing an erect
penis.
The national portrait gallery is considering issuing an adults only
warning notice on it's first ever nude - a full length self portrait
by Gilbert and George entitled 'In the Piss'. This painting isn't
in the least bit shocking, children are more likely to see shocking
scenes of Daddy in the bath but the gallery director is wary of
"unpredictable public reaction". Rodin's 'The Kiss', was
given to the East Sussex town of Lewes as a gift in 1914 but was
banned in 1917 after a campaign by a local headmistress who thought
it pornography. We've come along way from then and the sixties when
nudity on stage led to prosecution, the three ton sculpture was
returned last year, but as the 'In the Piss' controvisy highlights
we still have hang ups about the naked human form. No harm in that
maybe, but the idea that all taboos have been broken is clearly
absurd.
One
of the tricks of our culture is the way it's swallowed the counter
culture, taken it into the mainstream, processed it, paid it off.
Until recently, boldness didn't mean providing surface shocks, but
probing below the surface - as the experimental artists the Boyle
Family literally did in 1966 when they extracted bodily fluids and
projected them onto a screen. At another Sixties performance event,
the carcass of a lamb was ritually paraded, nailed, hit, manhandled,
and it's entrailed offered to the audience. Damien's sheep may be
a homage to such experiment, but it is milder and much more tasteful.
You can't push back the frontiers when there's already a main road.
