C102 Article

Vox Pop:

Kathy Herbert

Artist based in Dublin

Kathy Herbert: Landscape with tulips, 2002, oil on primed paper, 33 cm x 33 cm; photo Alan Kennedy; courtesy the artist

The purpose of making the arts available to the general public is, surely, to enrich life and to enlarge an experience of the culture in which it is created. As arts facility, the arts centre must reflect the cultural doings of the community by helping the communication between art and audience. This communication centres on the relationships between the arts centres and the general public, and between the arts centres and the artists. However, the majority of the people in the community (which includes artists), for one reason or another, has little or no access to these facilities. There is plenty of scope for improving these relationships and this should result in better use and functioning of the facilities.

The audience for art is potentially a lot larger that it currently is. However, most people never come in contact with art either in school or during the course of their normal lives. As a result, they would have little or no incentive to go into an arts centre. I would contend that, because art exists, everyone has a right to be given the opportunity to know and understand it. Equally, if you want people to know what is being done in a certain field of human endeavour, you have to tell them about it. Although most centres run outreach programmes, the audience can be selective or too closely defined (school groups, senior citizens, for example) and may not extend to the community as a whole.

Kathy Herbert: Yellow light, 2002, oil on primed paper, 30 x 30 cm;photo Alan Kennedy; courtesy the artist

There is no such programme for enlarging the catchment of artists. Owing to the submission/competition selection process, the artists are at a disadvantage. They are in a position of impotence in this relationship, with the power of choice always being with the facility. Artists often seem secondary to the facility programme, and are treated as subcontractors. Nothing would be gained by reversing the roles - but rather it should be a meeting of equals. There are too few opportunities to allow for most artists, as subcontractors, to make a decent living from their work. Although artists do not need arts centres in order to make the work - the facilities required for this are very different - once the art is made, a facility which can help bring the art and the audience together is certainly worth having.

The financial outlay on facilities does not seem to achieve much for either the artists or the general public. If the investment was made in education, the public would come into contact more often with art; artists would have a larger audience to communicate with and, possibly, more opportunities to make a living from their work on a par with other professionals in the community. If the audience was enlarged to its full potential, there would be a viable market for the work. If the system giving access to artists was more comprehensive, the arts centres would be able to engage with a greater degree of participation from the artists. As arts facilities, arts centres can offer a focus whereby artists and audience can come together, with a greater contribution by the community and by artists, justifying the spend and making the communication of the art more successful.

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