This spring, Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt will submit a cultural policy statement to the Folketing and has asked a number of cultural actors and organizations for contributions. Here you can read the Visual Artists Association's contribution:
The Association of Visual Artists' (BKF) contribution to cultural policy statement
The role of the visual arts in arts and culture policy is absolutely central. The state supports and invests in the arts, and the public funds help to create dynamic development of the art field and strengthen the conditions of art and its contribution to society with experiential, aesthetic and critical qualities to the delight of as many citizens as possible. Sharing and disseminating a common cultural asset and thereby contributing to general information plays a decisive role in the motivation behind the state's art policy, which provides increased quality in the environment and content of experience for society's citizens, contributes to increased visibility and sensibility, and strengthens the fundamental democratic formation, where experience with visual arts helps to create insight into ourselves and the world around us, and strengthen our ability to be a society.
Artists are entitled to fair payment for exhibitions
But the effort and work of visual artists is not recognized to a sufficient extent. In 2020, the artists' organizations and the Organization Danske Museer entered into an agreement on recommended minimum fees for artists' exhibitions in museums in Denmark, and although this has improved the conditions of the exhibiting artists, it is still a third who have not received a fee that corresponds to the recommendations, while fully two-thirds have paid for the production of works out of their own pockets. We know that the art institutions' budgets are under pressure after many years of austerity, and therefore we have a great desire to see things done, so that the artist, like all other professional groups involved, gets a fair payment for the work. We want requirements for fair payment to museums and other state-supported art institutions to be introduced, while at the same time transparency is created for the use of public funding for art institutions and museums. Fair payment contributes to the artists' sustainable working life, their ability to create art, their ability to pay into their pension, etc.
Commit the publicly supported arts institutions to equality and diversity
BKF has formulated its own policy on equality and diversity, which broadly targets the many different forms of discrimination that can take place in the art world. We believe that all art and cultural institutions should formulate, write down and commit to a policy for diversity and equality: For example, female artists are behind only 22 percent of the works that Danish art museums have acquired in the period 2004-2019. If you look at the museums' solo exhibitions, 29 percent featured female artists, while they made up 34 percent of the group exhibitions. If the institutions receive public support, the support must be conditional on the institutions reporting annually and publicly how they live up to their policy in the area. It is not only about equal conditions for the sexes, but also about equality in relation to racialisation, religion, sexual orientation, social class, age, functional variations etc. Danish art contributes to the country's identity and cultural understanding, and all artists, regardless of identity marker, must be given equal opportunities and included in the common narrative.
Strengthen children and young people's encounter with visual art
The country's independent and municipal art schools are run with uncertain municipal and private funds, and have no common legal framework that can ensure standards for teaching quality and for teachers' working conditions. In comparison, the country's music schools are state-supported and have their own legislation, which, among other things, ensures common standards for curricula and reimbursement of teacher salaries. All children must meet a professional working visual artist during their schooling. This can be done by expanding the House Artist Scheme and involving artists as teachers in daycare centers, elementary schools and high schools. The visual arts subject must be strengthened qualitatively and in terms of hours, both in teacher training and in primary schools, and visual arts should be made compulsory at the oldest stage of primary school. In the primary school, art is still seen primarily as a 'young children's subject' and is therefore only offered compulsorily to the 6th grade and then as an elective subject. But visual art is a central educational subject with many opportunities for in-depth, interdisciplinary collaboration, also in the oldest classes of the primary school. In the Huskunstnerordningen, where artists from all art forms collaborate with students in longer project courses, visual artists are also the most in-demand subject group. It should also be considered to establish visual arts basic course centers to the same extent as the eight musical basic course centers that are distributed throughout the country.
Make art a natural part of the green transition
The transition to green infrastructure, sustainable energy and new habits in everyday life requires that we include art and culture. Visual artists can contribute with hitherto overlooked angles, create interdisciplinary collaborations and facilitate inclusive processes that increase the durability and quality of the green projects in citizens' everyday lives. Development of new technology alone is unfortunately not enough to avert the climate crisis. In fact, it is said that we have already invented all the technology needed to make us CO2-neutral by 2050. But we are too slow to spread it. Maybe because we lack a financial incentive, or because we are stuck in old habits. Of course, we must continue to research good technological solutions, but they can only take us so far. We humans are part of the solution and must adapt ourselves and change many of our habits in order to solve the problems - and here art plays a decisive role.
Modernize the art circular
BKF will expand the state art circular so that in future it not only includes construction, but also construction work, for which we propose that 0,5 percent of the construction sum be set aside for artistic tasks. The circular's provisions on where the art must be placed should be made more flexible, so that the art appears where it is most relevant in the citizens' everyday life. Let the circular cover all joint-stock companies with a state share, not just joint-stock companies with a state majority. At the same time, regions and municipalities should be obliged to follow the same practices as the state in this area. An updated, up-to-date art circular will give more citizens throughout the country the opportunity to experience all that art can give us: new insights, increased local anchoring, meaningful meetings and experiences in our common, public space.
Strengthen the art academies throughout the country
The visual arts must not only spring from the capital. Instead, it must sprout throughout the country. The state subsidy to the Jutland Art Academy and the Funen Art Academy has not been regulated since 2009, which means that the state has de facto phased out its involvement in the art academies outside Copenhagen over the past 15 years. This is in contrast to the relocation agenda that has characterized cultural policy since 2015, where both cultural workplaces, cultural crowns and artistic education have generally been moved from the capital to the rest of the country. The consequence is that the visual arts are largely conceived and created in the capital. We therefore miss out on many of the dynamics and artistic relationships that can arise across the country. The art academies outside the capital must be strengthened and get a more diverse intake, so that Danish visual art gets a wider palette of perspectives, new thoughts and different environments. It must be emphasized that increased funding for the Funen and Jutland art academies should not be taken from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts' Schools of Visual Arts, but should be found in the extra funds that the new government intends to provide to the cultural sector.
Photo at top: Folketinget/photographer Christoffer Regild.