Arts & Minds #1

Journals Of An Arts Addict 2007-13

I started writing a regular arts  journal in 2007 when I left the Barbican Centre as managing director. I kept it up until 2013, my personal account of “people, performance, places and projects ” in the arts world as I  experienced them on an almost daily basis . By the end, it ran to 750,000 words. I edited them down to a manageable 130,000 words, still a substantial chunk of material.

I now intend to issue them on a 2-3 weekly basis in tranches of the journal of 2-3,000 words. For several reasons. The journal entries capture, I hope, the atmosphere of a recent but not distant era. The battles, the issues, are at once familiar, which is worrying, and also novel, a reminder that the arts require defending whatever the era. But the achievements of the period, the atmosphere,  the personalities deserve not to be overlooked.  

For the years 2007-13 proved to be rich with achievement, filled with political tensions and economic crises. They were bookended by Tony Blair’s March 2007 “legacy” speech at Tate Modern when he declared the arts world was efficiently run and sufficiently well managed to be worthy of government support. In fact that speech marked the end of the long Blairite attempt to define the arts as only worth public funding if they were socially useful, the so-called “instrumentalism” debate.

The global banking crisis  of 2008 , leading  to George Osborne’s ”Years of Austerity” shaped the economic environment for the arts covered by the rest of the Journal until 2013 , most of the years I observed.  

What emerges clearly is that  despite the economic turbulence of those years, the arts world proved to be incredibly resilient, remained creative, original, innovative, exhilarating and excellent. It was peopled by artists and performers and creators of the highest quality and greatest originality. Such people and their work were a privilege to observe and experience and deserve my attempt to capture them. These Journal extracts are my way of doing so.

A note of explanation. I have edited the original for length of course. I have not edited it to soften or vary my original judgements, or to make me seem cleverer or nicer than they were when first written. My friends will, I hope, remain  my friends. The others must take me as I emerge.

I have tried to be honest about an era which deserves recording. This was what I saw, heard, observed, thought, was told, experienced, criticised and was occasionally part of.