February 27, 2013
Is free admission to museums & galleries in the UK sacrosanct?
This subject seems to crop up on a regular basis – is the government’s money better spent on other things rather than free admission to large numbers of museums & galleries? While I enjoy the free use that the current subsidies give, one has to wonder if the overall visitor experience might be improved if there was some level of charging, which would help to reduce over-crowding. When referring to the Parthenon Sculptures, the British Museum regularly proclaims that they can be viewed there free of charge – something that seems to be taken as beneficial (& as a criticism of the fact that the Acropolis museum has an entry fee), without any meaningful debate on the subject. This free access relies heavily on government subsidies – something that the museum is less willing to shout about.
From:
Independent
Dominic Lawson
Monday 25 February 2013
Why is free admission to art galleries and museums sacrosanct, when free swimming is not?Even in a time of straitened national finances, it never pays to underestimate the awesome power of the arts lobby in Britain
What do you imagine would be an easier subsidy to defend at a time of straitened national finances – free swimming in public baths for children and pensioners; or free entry for all into metropolitan museums of fine art? If I didn’t know otherwise, I would have guessed the former. This, however, would be to underestimate the awesome power of the arts lobby in Britain.
Free use of public swimming baths for pensioners and children was abolished by the Coalition as one of its first acts of fiscal rectitude. There was no organised lobby to defend this subsidy, which had previously been justified as in the interests of public health.Yet last week, when it was revealed that the banking heir Sir Denis Mahon had stipulated that the pieces in his £100m collection of Italian Baroque art could remain where they were in public galleries just so long as there were never any charges at those institutions, it seemed universally accepted that the great collector was speaking for all of us. Can it really be such an unchallengeable political principle that our leading metropolitan museums, sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), should not charge? Why is free swimming around the corner from children in Bolton or Plymouth self-evidently an extravagance, while free museums around the corner from the residents of Knightsbridge a sacred subsidy that cannot even be questioned?
More precisely, what is so unique about fine art that it is thus sanctified by eternal subsidy? We don’t offer, via the taxpayer, free seats at concerts of classical music or at the theatre; yet any arguments about the uplifting properties of Italian Baroque art could be equally applied to the music of Mozart or the plays of Shakespeare.
John Carey some years ago took on this general proposition with his bracing book What Good Are The Arts? Carey observed there had never been a government more determined on public subsidy of high arts than the one led by a would-be painter called Adolf Hitler; his wider point was that appreciation of art does not in any way act as a check on the worst in human nature. The fact that the Third Reich believed in enormous subsidies for high culture is, obviously, no reflection on our own arts lobby. Nor is the fact that China is the only other significant nation to offer free museum entrance a proof there are Communist tendencies within our own dear Coalition. But what all of them have in common is the belief that it is worth subsidising the pursuits of the elite in order to persuade the masses to embrace the same pleasures. So although over 40 per cent of those who take advantage of this subsidy are foreign tourists (and in the case of the British Museum about 60 per cent), the ostensible political argument is that free access is the only way to bring in the most disadvantaged of the indigenous population.
The figures, however, show that if this is indeed the purpose, it is a decreasingly well-directed policy. From representing over 9 per cent of the DCMS-sponsored galleries and museum audience in 2008-9, visits from adults in the lower socioeconomic groups fell to just 7.4 per cent of the total in 2011-2012. Yet over the same period, the overseas audience rose from 34.5 per cent to 42 per cent.
Michael Dixon, the chairman of the National History Museum, argues that while the free admissions policy “costs approximately £45m a year to implement” an extra “£315m” is generated through additional revenues by tourists – presumably, in the Tate, by buying prints and suchlike in one of the gallery’s seven shopping areas. Yet if free entry is such a business no-brainer, we might wonder why this cannot be sponsored by private corporate donors, who at the moment are used only to finance the “special” shows for which these DCMS-financed institutions actually do charge. This is the model of the Saatchi Gallery (declaration of interest – the proprietor is this columnist’s brother-in-law). It has no entry charge and the cost of this policy is borne by firms seeking a pleasant association with art, not the taxpayer. But why should galleries paid by the taxpayer for such “generosity” bother to find the money themselves? This point will doubtless have occurred to the new Arts Council chief Sir Peter Bazalgette, who says that “subsidy sounds like a European wine lake”.
Dixon’s claim came in direct response to a rare dissident voice, the Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, Tristram Hunt. His constituency contains the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, which, while having “a ceramics collection second only to the V&A”, has no state subsidy guaranteeing free admission. Hunt complained bitterly that this amounted to unfair competition: “This metropolitan club-class government has made sure that our global cultural icons are immune from the pressures hitting their regional colleagues.”
Oddly enough, I suspect the Conservatives feel that free gallery entrance – even concentrated on salubrious Kensington and Bloomsbury – is a way of demonstrating that it is not a party of toffs looking after its own interests. This is one explanation of its panic six years ago when its then shadow secretary of state for culture, Hugo Swire, argued in a newspaper interview that the DCMS-sponsored museums and galleries should be allowed to charge, if they wished: “They could use the money to make their facilities even better and could have special arrangements allowing continued free access for children [and] students.” Swire was immediately forced by Tory high command to recant this unobjectionable suggestion and fired from the job soon after. The immensely well-connected and media-savvy arts mafia must have been quietly satisfied.
The subsidy of universal free access (not just for children or students) to our grandest metropolitan galleries might also be seen as an example of long-standing Whitehall bias. Fans of the original Yes Minister might recall the episode entitled “The Middle-Class Rip-Off”, in which Sir Humphrey Appleby attempted to educate his young colleague Bernard, when the more junior civil servant questioned the extent of the state’s subsidy of fine art. ‘Sir Humphrey (calmly): Bernard, subsidy is for art, for culture. (Almost furiously) It is not to be given to what the people want! It is for what the people don’t want but ought to have!”
In fact, Sir Humphrey really did enjoy nothing more than an evening at the Opera House: he was a genuine (if fictional) highbrow. I suspect the current occupants of the Media and Culture ministry, politicians or otherwise, would not know one end of Guercino’s “The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple” from the other. They only know it sounds good to say it’s “free” – as if none of us will be paying for its upkeep in perpetuity.
- The issues with free museum entry in the UK : April 18, 2012
- Is it time to re-consider the importance of free museum admission : October 27, 2011
- The British museum, Free admission & the Parthenon Marbles : March 12, 2013
- Free admission to the Acropolis Museum for Ochi day on 28th October : October 22, 2013
- Is it really of benefit to the UK culture sector to have free museum admission? : March 29, 2012
- The benefits (or otherwise) of free museum admission : September 29, 2009
- Is having free admissions to museums more important than all else? : November 11, 2010
- Όχι day for Greece means free admission to Acropolis Museum in Athens today : October 28, 2013
woefulfolly said,
02.27.13 at 8:57 am
RT @elginism: Blog post: Is free admission to museums & galleries in the UK sacrosanct? http://t.co/n8KbH4OqfH
Geoff White said,
02.27.13 at 9:38 am
When Mr Lawson’s father was Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) there were charges of course, introduced by Margaret Thatcher, for admission to our great national collections, even though many of them were essentially made up of exhibits bequeathed to the nation for the benefit of the people. When there was a change of government and Labour took over charges were abolished. Museum attendances greatly increased. Also, it became possible once again to visit a museum to see a single artifact without feeling the need to “do” the whole museum, like a tourist. There is a culture of charging in continental Europe (but usually with one free day per week or per month) but they do not have the same legal concept of gifts in trust for the benefit of third parties that Common Law countries share. One of the things that impresses visitors to Washington DC is the free access to many of the great museums such as the Smithsonian (named after an Englishman, James Smithson, who left most of his money in trust to the US, for the increase of knowledge,) where the same principle applies. That said, the charges at the NAM are very modest, with many concessions and exemptions.
Matthew said,
02.27.13 at 10:01 am
Very good points.
The whole idea is great in theory – but when it reaches the stage that the government wants to cut public spending on pretty much everything else, should the museums not feel at least some of the squeeze too?
In the old days, I remember that the V&A was free, but you were encouraged to make a fixed price donation – I think you had to actually pass a turnstile & admission desk to do so. You could say that you didn’t want to give anything & they would still let you in – I’m not sure how many people actually did though.
Its great being able to drop into a museum when you happen to be nearby, for a few minutes – but is it really a valid argument for them to use to try & put forward that they are superior to the Acropolis Museum because of it?
Amelita Flores said,
02.27.13 at 10:44 am
Amelita Flores liked this on Facebook.
LizzieAlvey said,
02.27.13 at 10:50 am
“@elginism: Blog post: Is free admission to museums galleries in UK sacrosanct? http://t.co/3Cx6U2wCTG”
I do hope so. We pay through tax.
Matthew said,
02.27.13 at 1:35 pm
The BBC covered this story this morning too:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21600034
Matthew said,
03.12.13 at 2:22 pm
I’ve written a follow-up piece here, explaining more clearly the issue that I have with the use of free museum admission as a justification for hanging onto the Parthenon Marbles
http://www.elginism.com/elgin-marbles/the-british-museum-free-admisison-the-parthenon-marbles/20130312/6996/