Art research: who reads it?
This is the first of Eyeline's regular column which will analyse aspects of current arts research and policy development. Here Peter Anderson looks at the recent report Art Galleries: Who Goes? In future issues he will deal with aspects of 'Cultural Tourism', arts funding, 'Public Art' and more. We are introducing this column in response to the recent escalation in efforts to quantify the arts, increased research into the arts infrastructure, and reviews of various aspects of cultural development and funding. While some of this material deservedly languishes in archives, much of it is an important source of information and is forming the basis upon which arts funding and development is being prioritised.
Over the last decade some significant changes have taken place in the research and writing that surrounds visual arts practice. Perhaps the most obvious of these changes has been the increasing amount (and importance) of 'theoretically informed' writing about, around, or as part of contemporary art. However, despite the undoubted impact of all this writing and debate, it may well be the case that the most significant long term changes to visual arts practice will result from research and writing of quite a different variety—writing and research concerned with cultural policy, arts management and the economic and social structure of the arts.
The expansion of work around issues of policy and infrastructure has accompanied the fairly recent shift towards the characterisation of the arts as an industry. Thus, we find a change away from the vague 'quality of life' claims of the seventies, with their simple assertion that the arts are an important 'universal humanising force'. Instead, more contemporary lobbying efforts have attempted to provided clearer material... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline