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The title of this intervention is rather demanding I think and I have first to sort out what I going to talk about. My main presentation is about the cultural policy of the Nordic countries. There are similarities and differences, I will mention a few, but I hope you will excuse me that I mainly will talk about the Sweden, its policy and the challenges. I will also say a few words about then Nordic cooperation in the cultural field.
Let me start with point out the historic differences between the Nordic countries: Sweden and Denmark on one side, Finland, Norway and Island at the other. Sweden and Denmark have been independent states for several hundreds of years with strong feudal and aristocratic tradition. Norway and even more so Finland and Iceland are relatively young states. In Sweden and Denmark arts were much part of the court and aristocracy; it played an important role to legitimatize the ruler. The emergence of a liberal bourgeoisie in the 19th century especially Demark created a new and strong base for cultural activities and artists; that heritage is still important. In Sweden the city based liberal bourgeois was much weaker and was rather early squeezed between the still strong upper-feudal class and the emerging labour movement. Industry not commerce was basically the Swedish route in the modernity. The liberal bourgeoisie could never create a strong cultural independent base, against the court- and upper-class feudal culture. After the First World War social democracy got gradually more influence and they designed cautiously step by step their cultural policy, accelerating after the Second World War.
In Norway and Finland in contrast the early history of promoting the arts and the artists was closely intertwined with the construction of a national identity, in both countries leading artist became national symbols. Finland was ruled by Russia and had earlier been ruled by Sweden; the creation of an independent Finnish cultural sphere became the main task. The relatively weak nationally oriented bourgeois was the main carrier of this cultural identity efforts; the small Swedish upper-class was somewhat more cosmopolitan.
In Norway state financed cultural institutions were created rather early in the 19th century as a part of the effort to break the long time Danish dominance and also to demonstrate the Norwegian cultural independence against Sweden, than in a union with Norway. More than in any other Nordic country at that time the promotion of culture, the Norwegian culture, was carried out by the state, by civil servants. In Norway the liberal democratic left was nationalistic, that is against the union with Sweden and for total impendence; in Sweden in contrast the left was anti-nationalistic, since nationalism and militarism was closed linked to the feudal over class... That influenced also the culture climate in the two countries.
In the 1930, the social democratic parties in all the Nordic countries started to create a cultural policy based on the idea of the welfare state. The ambition oft the labour movement was not to promote a new, radical art, a kind of cultural break with the culture of aristocracy and bourgeoisie. The idea was to capture the culture and the art and to make it available to the working class, the whole people. “The task of the society is to make culture available and activate people to use the cultural treasures. The experience of art is a part of the liberation of the human being” summarized Tage Erlander the ambitions and goals of his party, (The Swedish social dem prime minister 1944-68), and you can find more or less the same directions in the other Nordic countries. . The interesting thing is that this policy, in contrast to social and economic policy, was outlined and decided without any substantial disagreements or political conflicts with the bourgeoisie parties; Sweden, Norway and Finland were in the forefront, by historical and political reason Finland and Iceland came later.
The main Swedish political document was the so called New Cultural Policy which was decided by the parliament, again in relative consensus, 1974. It was called new but was in fact a kind of summing up of what has already happened and gave it an ideological structure. A main point was freedom of speech; the culture policy shall “support the freedom of speech and make it possible to use this freedom in real life”. The policy should also support different directions and expressions of art and promote a pluralistic cultural life and a continuous renewal and development of the art. The culture policy should counter the negative consequences of commercialisation, making it possible for artist of all kind to work without too much dependence of the market. The policy should promote cultural activities and institutions all over the country and make it possible for anyone to take part in cultural life.
The financing authorities, local or state bodies, should not interfere in the praxis of art. It is a culture policy, not an art policy.
It was a very ambitious program and it was based on the optimistic assumption that the cultural expenditure would increase by 5 % a year. That didn’t happened and what was achieved was far less extensive than had been intended
Now, as I said, the new policy was by and large supported by all the main parties and the main thrust of the 1974 bill survived changes of power; it was in fact the main document until 1996 when the social democratic government introduced another cultural bill, which was however, basically not more than a modernisation of the old policy adding multicultural aspects in the new immigration Sweden. But the political consensus didn’t mean that the policy was unchallenged and I will mention three major debates about the social democratic policy 1960-90ties.
The first one started by a polemical book or pamphlets by Bengt Nerman "The culture view of democracy" from 1962. The book had an aesthetic relation to the new wave of art at that time, the rapture and goodbye to the classical modernism. Pontus Hulten and the Museum of Modern art were at the frontier in the new movement. “Everyone is an artist” said Beuys. The moment of art was created in the immediate meeting between the artefact of art, whatever it was, and the viewer or reader or listener. The time was ripe for an attack on the traditional “Bildungsideale” of the “Bildningsmovement”; (I use the German words since there are no good English’s words) and its inherent efforts to enlightened and train the people to enjoy high culture. Nerman moved the perspective from the art to the audience and to the individuals experience and emotions; the individual was the king and it was her or his reaction and experience which was important, not the art in itself. High- and low culture were conceptions without meaning and the efforts of teachers, to promote certain books or pictures or dramas as especially important were false. In the extensive debate that followed the controversy boiled down to the antithesis of “Sigge Stark or Harry Martinsson”. Sigge Stark was an extremely popular writer who wrote about love and adventure; Harry Martinsson of course a famous poet. The controversial point of Nerman was that for those how get stronger experience or enjoyment to read Sigge Stark she is the best writer, not Harry Martinsson; the traditional hierarchy is not valid.
His views were based on a very radical conception of equality; each individual must be seen and recognized as a subject of her own, the identity based on the individual experience, and well meaning efforts to bring him or her to other aesthetic experience could be an infringement of the personal identity.
Nerman got a very strong and wounded response from the attacked educational associations, die Volkbildungsverbände, and their mission. They felt that the whole existence of a culture policy trying to reach out was questioned. That was in fact not Nermans intention but he asked for a more relativistic and humble attitude in the “bildungsarbeit” and a greater respect fort various kind of aesthetic experiences.
15 year later, in the middle of the 70ties, after the emergence and maybe also shrinking of the radical left, the writer Göran Palm made an even more radical attack on the at this time already institutionalized culture policy, in his book “Critic of the culture”. That was an attack on art in itself, as a kind of useless activity of the few; the real culture is ordinary life and what he called the cultural basic needs, that is fest, hobbies, food, dreams, you name it; art is not necessarily a part of that. There is an enormous gap between the culture of the people and the culture of the elite said Palm. The public supported art has nothing to do with the habits of the people. You hear the wing-beats of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the background...
Palm created of course also a lot of debate and resistance. Radical artist – and most artists at that time very radical – felt themselves caught in a dilemma. On one hand, they felt that Palm was on the side of the people and that should also be their position. On the other hand, his radical denunciation of art in itself put their legitimacy as artists into question: is all useless? Many tried to solve this ideological dilemma by stressing their proletarian profile, trying to make art as a part of the people’s life, in factories, hospitals and all other working places.
But another problem was of course that the beloved people not always liked this new populist expression of art and that many, in contrast to Palms suggestion, did look upon the so called elite-art as an important part of their life. The reality was little more complex than the Palms outline.
Nerman and Palm and others on their side didn’t really change the basis of the official culture policy, especially not Palm who was looked upon as a kind of remnant of the Cultural Revolution. But they both and especially the debate they created did have some important influences. First, they made the notion of art less solemn, less dignified or ceremonial, they took away or at least reduced the feeling that you must love or at least appreciate high art if you should be a good citizen.
They also made politicians, especially in the social democratic party even more convinced that the culture policy must reach out to the people and that the culture policy must be looked upon as a part of a policy of equality, engaging people all over the country.
But both Nerman and even more so Palm were also easy to use for a general populist attack on the art ( nothing for ordinary people!) and consequently also on the public support of art – why spending taxpayers money? and that leads me to the big attack in the 80ties, the market attack. The ideology of the radical market attack is very simple: Leave art to the market, let people buy they what they want, if they do not want Mahler symphonies or Shakespeare, let them go. That is the core of the critic, and it is of course a part of the general ideology of marketisation, tax decreases and less public service, less public domain. Like in the case of Palm, who could find few if any politicians of the left who was prepared to follow his radical recipe, there are few followers to that radical market critic. Also politicians to the right, who have an intrinsic kind of sympathy with the rule of the market, hesitate to bring it to its radical conclusion, not only in the field of cultural policy but in most fields. But the market critic and policy is of course always present, as a kind of pressure against public money for art and other parts of the cultural policy. That makes politicians, both those who are little to the right and those who are little (very little) to the left even more interested to motivated the support for art with non art argument.
The big thing in the 90tis and still so is the so called policy of cultural events, that is that art should be a part of the marketisation and selling of cities, whole societies, that art should and could be a kind of magnet which could generate economic return, growth and employment. Culture policy is, as have been said by a minister in the current Swedish government, a part of the policy of commerce. That could have been said, also by social democrats and it is indeed the current credo all over Europe. It is, I think, very symptomatic that we in the 60ties and 70ties discussed the meaning of art, the importance of art in the life of ordinary people, art and equality and art and democracy. Now, since the 80ties the debate has been around market and arts and the importance of art as a part of growth policy.
Having said that, I will not at all dispute the fact that art can be a vehicle for growth and employment and that a dynamic art life can attract business, especially tourism and d there are of course several examples of that. The risk for the art is of course that that the commercial eye tends to look for events culture and that commerce art policies tend to support only the well-known and safe. But that is not necessarily so since the growth argument may also reach out to the very modern and the creation of an atmosphere of newness and modernity. Berlin is a very good example. Poor but sexy, said the prime minister of the city, Wovereit, poor yes, but why sexy: not because of erotic attractions but because if its cultural atmosphere, not only big institutions.
Let me also add a word or two about the question market versus public support. I think it is very important to remember that the arts, all of them, exist in a mix economy that is in a system of both market and public support. You can not imagine an art life without both and so have it been since hundreds of years. Artists have been depending on support from courts or churches but they have also sold at the market. Is the artist a bohemian, an entrepreneur or an employed (bohemia, företagare eller tillsvidareanställd) He or she is many times all of that. What is called the commercial art industry or entertainment industry is also depending of public support: without publicly financed art schools, orchestras, theatre etc would it be difficult also for this industry to recruit good artists. Also the symbolic homeland of the market, US, art is depending on public support, even if it is less transparent: not only extensive education and training or public support to music and drama but also the by the substantial tax allowances and deductions for support of art. That is of course a cost for the public purse; what you do is to give public money to wealthy people making them in the position to be great spender and supporter of the art. It is a matter of power not market or public support.
The market attack of art policy is of course still there; the pressure of commercialisation is extreme strong and the idea that public support is a dangerous infringement in the freedom of the market is still very much alive, especially in EU. From the point of view of the ideology of the market which is the dominant feature of the EU, all kind of public support is a distortion of the holy market and that is of course true; the distortion is in fact the whole reason with the public support; the market is not good enough. The ministers of cultural policy in the EU use to resist the market arguments in the cultural field but they can not influence the European court which, in accordance with the undemocratic structure of the EU, takes important political decisions.
The artists, the writers, the painters, the musicians, the actors, dancers and so on have, and rightly so, in their argument for money followed the Zeitgeist; if they in the 70ties argued that their art could support democracy, their main point now is that art is good for business. And why not? Serious artists have, in all times, one main concern, that is art and that they must find out how ´they should get the necessary money to survive on being artists. They have also, in all times, to bow for the argument of the rich or mighty.
Autonomy of art. There is a lot of talk about……That is much discussed, as if the main problem was that politicians or culture bureaucrats are interfering in the process of art: you should paint in this or that manner, you should or should not play this drama etc. This is, I would say, not a big problem in a democratic society; the guards and blocks against such interference are very strong. It happens now and then, it was more common in the sixties when the new political theatre smacked the local politicians in a way they couldn’t endure; but each time it ended up with the defeat of the politician and the popularity of the play.
The real autonomy question is about money, what else. (more…..) The longtime squeeze of public money to institutions as well as to independent artists and groups reduces gradually the artistic freedom and the possibility to develop and strengthen the art as well as find new and broader audiences. Institutions are desperately looking for sponsorship which is another infringement in their freedom small maybe but still there. Ticket prices are increasing and make visits to theatres or concerts too expensive for many families; the class character of culture – always present – will be reinforced, quite contrary to the solemn pledges of the opposite. The controversy in Sweden last fall about the free entrance to the museum was an interesting case. Free entrance had been established just a year earlier; it had been a great success and the audience to the museums had increased considerably. But the new right-centre government decided to reinforce the entrance. It was mall issue but it was illuminating for once ideological positions. The reason was not the economic argument – the costs of the free entrance were very modest - but pure ideological: the new government did not like the inherent equality aspect of free entrance, the very redistribution of the free entrance. That is maybe a sign of a new tougher cultural policy with more stress on the market. We will see.
Nordic cultural policy. The cooperation has old roots in the general Nordic policy which was outlined after the Second World War; the policy was for a time on the brink to create a Nordic economic union. That failed but the cooperation continued. As a part of that a decision of an intergovernmental cultural cooperation was taken in 1972. The cooperation had broad cultural objectives, covering both artistic and general cultural cooperation. A Nordic Cultural fund was created; there was support for film and media cooperation as well as in other fields. The policy had to be rewritten when also Finland and Sweden became member of the EU but in new adopted policy the responsible government stated that the Nordic co-operation should be seen as a part of the wider European cooperation whatever that means. The steam of the Nordic cooperation was going down also as a consequence of the different positions the Nordic countries took in relation to EU and within EU. As you will discuss later on here, the framework of the cooperation has now been radically changed.
Let me end with a personal note. Sweden is not a culture society in the sense that the opinion- making political or economical elites thinks that art in itself is a very important part of a society. Among the leaders, there is no strong commitment to the cultural heritage in itself, neither the Swedish heritage nor the international of which we are a part. Very few politicians have strong personal relation to art; a party leader as Frau Merkel in German who not only regularly visits Bayreuth but also can talk about and discuss Wagner in an interesting way is in Sweden unthinkable. That goes also for businessmen: we have few leading businessmen who feel that art is important – other than as a kind of “brandmaking” or PR. In the political life is art as well as the cultural heritage generally looked upon as something instrumental, a tool to achieve important other goals: democracy, multicultural understanding, gender equality, tourism, employment and so forth and so on. There have in the recent past been small interludes of another perspectives and if you go back long enough you can say that the old social democratic “folksbildung ideology” at least was based on a respect for art, a respect which is now gone.