Tiffany Jenkins: Art still needs its Medici

Jupiter Artland and Summerhall are shining examples of how patronage from the rich can give creative talent the platform it needs, writes Tiffany Jenkins

If YOU go down to the Edinburgh Meadows today and visit what was formerly the Royal Dick Veterinary School, your eyes will be treated to a feast of art and fashion, as well as the archives of Richard Demarco, imaginatively displayed in myriad rooms, corridors, laboratories, and even a former church. This is Summerhall, the big hit of this year’s festival, a multi-arts venue that is open all year round, with studio and workshop spaces for rent. Far from a one-month wonder, it is “the” new creative hub in the capital of Scotland. It may even showcase the future of cultural funding.

What makes Summerhall so interesting, beyond its establishment and multiple awards in an impressively short space of time, is that – thus far – it has not been funded by the state.

Instead, the bulk of the finances to set it up – to buy the building and refurbish it – have come from a visionary and generous economist and property developer who was educated at Eton – Robert McDowell. Yes, those with links to the rather unpopular banking section of society, those benefiting from the traditional bastions of privilege, are doing brilliant things for the arts.

Happily, there are more modern-day Medicis improving our artistic landscape, the most beautiful of which is Jupiter Artland, in the grounds of Bonnington House just outside Edinburgh. Spread across 100 acres of gardens and forests, it is a fantastic site of contemporary sculpture.

On show are pieces by Anish Kapoor, Cornelia Parker, Anthony Gormley, Charles Jencks and the late Ian Hamilton Finlay, woven sympathetically into the woods, popping up between bushes and secreted away off quiet pathways.

This magical park is a private collection set in the grounds of a Jacobian manor house, which is open to the public who pay to get in and support the project by doing so. It was dreamt up and bankrolled by Robert and Nicky Wilson, who are part of the family who owns Nelsons healthcare, with a portfolio that includes Bach flower remedies.

They commission the work and run the site which is also their home. The income they bring in is funnelled back into an educational trust.

What’s more, they offer free visits for schools, colleges and universities.

Summerhall and Jupiter Artland are success stories that suggest we are seeing a much needed surge in private patronage, a development that couldn’t have come at a better time. A quiet revolution has been taking place in the landscape of arts funding in Scotland, and it’s a shift that has never been more necessary.

Arts funding has always been an uneven and messy business. Most art will not make a profit, and we cannot rely on the market to support it. Thus funding is required and a combination of public and private is best.

Such models do exist and work well, such as the scheme Artists Rooms, set up when the artist Anthony d’Offay donated his collection to the Tate and National Galleries of Scotland for the price he paid for it – £26.5 million. That may sound a lot – it is a lot, but it is far less than it was worth, and it included 725 pieces. His generosity was met with funding from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Art Fund and the Scottish and British governments.

However, significant developments over the past twenty to thirty years have been deleterious to our cultural landscape that force me to question the contribution of the state. We have seen a crisis of purpose hit state funding of the arts, and as a consequence financial support has increasingly come attached with instrumental purposes.

This has happened across Britain, with slight differences manifested south of the Border. Creative Scotland, the Arts Council and the Department for Culture Media and Sport all suggest that the arts are not just good in and of themselves, but for their contribution to the economy, urban regeneration and social inclusion. In their policy documents, mission statements – God help us – and in their funding applications, these outputs have been given priority. In recent times, government funding has often been accompanied by expectations, directions and conditions about the artwork and the audiences that fit in with these objectives, creating policy-orientated culture.

It is somewhat ironic that both Summerhall and Jupiter Artland talk the language of the arts, and do good, whilst being funded by the wealthy with business experience, and Creative Scotland talks and demands the language of business but has lost the point of art on the way.

The idea that the arts should be supported for themselves – for being art, has been given short shrift. But culture is too important to be left to the bureaucrats and the box tickers, and that is why a renaissance in patronage is to be embraced. Amidst the current round of griping over the beleaguered body of Creative Scotland and the perils of public funding this parallel story needs telling and celebrating.

History shows that patronage is essential. The Italian Renaissance would never have happened without the Medici family of Florence, who lavished money on the great artists of their day, funding the greats such as Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, and Michaelangelo. More recently the great man of abstract expressionism – Jackson Pollock, was supported by the American art collector Peggy Guggenheim.

This is not to be naïve. Those with prominent positions and the rich have always used patronage for their own interests; to reinforce their ambitions, social position, and to garner prestige. The Medici employed it to improve their reputation, to cleanse wealth that was considered ill-gotten through usury. Lorenzo the Magnificent was tyrannical and capricious.

The Scottish patron and collector, George Buchan Simpson, was directing of those he supported, instructing his painters to include a human or animal motif, resulting in many similar kinds of work. No artist wants to or should rely on one individual.

And there aren’t that many about. Therefore, it is also worth realising that public funding isn’t just constituted by the state, and recall the habit of public subscription.

This would mean artists and organisations appealing to the public to support their work, which would be far more creative and demanding than laboriously filling in grant applications. Of course, many already contribute in donations, ticket sales and friends schemes, but perhaps a more formal link could produce higher returns.

In the past, Victorian statues were fought for through campaigns with individuals making a public appeal for funds. In his book Public Sculpture of Greater Manchester, Terry Wyke shows that campaigns in favour of statues, such as those to Disraeli and others, “took on the tenor of political meetings”. Unveilings would be highly charged political affairs.

I am not saying don’t take any state money ever. A civilised society would fund its artists without expecting returns that are outside their brief. But times are difficult and there are complications with it that restrict the necessary freedom for creation. So embracing other ways and playing hard to get with state subsidy could help to reinvigorate and reorientate it. It is time for all good men to come to the aid of the creative sector, dip into their own pockets – large or small – and secure the future of the arts.