Brexit will spell the end of British
art as we know it
Bob and Roberta Smith
Leaving the EU will have a
devastating impact on our artists, museums and galleries. Brace yourselves for
a Henry VIII-style cultural assault
Bob and Roberta Smith is the pseudonym of British
contemporary artist Patrick Brill
Friday 12 May 2017 15.24 BST Last modified on Friday 12 May
2017 22.00 BST
Before we vote in June’s election we must consider what kind
of culture we want to live in. I woke up recently to the voice of historian
David Starkey telling radio listeners that there was no reason to fear Brexit
because “we have been here before when Henry VIII split from Rome”. What
Starkey omitted from this Ladybird book version of British history is that that
rupture with Rome led to the destruction of medieval British culture and the
dissolution of the monasteries.
Before voting for a Brexit-supporting candidate in June,
voters should remember the ivy-clad ruins of our Cistercian monasteries. When
we visit what’s left of Rievaulx or Jervaulx Abbey in Yorkshire, near where I
grew up, we are taught to feel romantic and rarely imagine the paintings,
sculpture and tapestries that were destroyed and plundered there.
Post-Brexit, we face a dissolution of our museums and
galleries comparable in its devastation to that visited on England in the 1530s,
as philistine politicians slash budgets. Art schools and the arts in schools
will be further diminished in a wave of manufactured disdain for so-called
elitists. The only people in the arts set to benefit from Brexit are the
auction houses, which are poised to sell off publicly owned collections to the
world’s super-rich at cut prices. Local authorities facing huge bills for
social care are looking to their assets to fill funding gaps. Already, Croydon
council has sold its holdings of ancient Chinese ceramics, Northampton museums
sold an Egyptian sculpture of Sekhemka and Walsall council threatened to close
its New Art Gallery. Our weak pound only makes our treasures more affordable to
oligarchs.
Brexit will precipitate a stripping of regional museums much
as Henry VIII plundered monasteries to fund his foreign wars. Local councils
will momentarily be able to plug the black holes in their budgets, but when it
comes to tourism, there will be a faded patch on the wall where once a Francis
Bacon hung. Bury council in Manchester will always be mocked for having sold LS
Lowry’s A River Bank. Future generations of children will be brought to museums
where there is little to see. Why, then sell off the museums and pop in some
luxury flats!
The congregations of 14th- and 15th-century Britain must
have thought the edifices of Catholic Britain would last for ever, much as we
now think of Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. But imagine for a moment the new
Switch House extension covered in ivy and buddleia, pigeons and seagulls
nesting in its Modernist brickwork, its oak floorboards curling up with water
damage and its artworks not in a public collection, free to view, but lining
the walls of a yacht.
If we leave Europe we leave a funding structure called
Creative Europe. In 2014 Creative Europe was given €1.46bn to spend on the
arts. There is as yet no mention of what will replace our share of that cake.
Other unanswered questions include whether George Osborne’s tax reliefs for the
creative industries will be maintained post-2020. Leaving Europe means we leave
the pan-European Erasmus university student exchange scheme, named after the
Renaissance scholar. It is heartbreaking to imagine the options of future
generations of students being so limited.
There are probably some Hogarthian grotesques out there who
imagine British art should be made by “British artists”, but most people
working in the arts voted to remain in Europe. Contemporary artists frequently
show across Europe, and are represented by European galleries. Artists are
interested in freedom of expression and we are worried that a British bill of
rights will weaken our voices advocating for artists and writers imprisoned by
repressive regimes. Large numbers of artists, such as me, have partners from
other nations. Art, like science, is an international language.
So it is with a degree of horror that artists see the
normalisation of the concept that Britain is leaving Europe, with both
Conservative and Labour parties committed to some form of Brexit. For most of
my life I have voted Labour, but I was taught socialism was international. In
the 2015 election I stood in Surrey Heath against Michael Gove to advocate the
arts. This time around, Gina Miller’s stance – advocating tactical voting in an
effort to avert a hard Brexit – has inspired me. I have come to the conclusion
that voters must consider which of their local candidates would be better for
the arts.
Anyone looking at Brexit from a cultural perspective should
be arguing for a second vote not just in parliament but also in the country. In
our arts organisations, theatres, museums, galleries and universities there is
deep sense of foreboding. If Brexit is delivered it will undoubtedly shift the
nature of our culture in a way that is deeply worrying. Brexit will mean the
end of a period of British culture born out of the ashes of the second world
war that was open, intellectually curious and essentially generous. The arts
currently suffer disdain and removal of patronage. Many who are vocal in
defending the welfare state and NHS fail to recognise or do not take seriously
that our museums and galleries are similarly threatened.
The Brexit referendum was fought on the idea that Britain
was sick of elitists and tired of experts. When we leave Europe, British
artists should prepare to be added to the list of undesirables.
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