Are we creating a new climate of cultural intolerance? Is freedom of expression becoming ever more tightly squashed? To many, such questions are fast gaining traction. Discussion of the difficult, the unfashionable, the downright controversial, is being increasingly constricted – and, what’s more, in that very forum where it should flourish most freely: the creative arts.
The arts bring us pleasure. They provide a pastime. They preserve our past stories and commemorate our present lives. But they play other roles which are probably just as – if not more – fundamental. By opening our minds to alternative experiences, they can foster reflection, encourage understanding, invigorate debate. Are these the qualities that are now under threat? Are the voices of individuals being silenced at a time when, ironically, identity politics have become a presiding obsession, when open-mindedness and understanding are needed as much as – perhaps more than – ever?
Our cultural world has, for instance, become emphatically polarised in the wake of the October 2023 Hamas attack and the subsequent retaliation of an outraged Israeli government. The arts world has grown at best wary – at worst proscriptively authoritarian – as a result. Bristol’s Arnolfini gallery faced widespread criticism from artists last year after it cancelled two Palestinian film events because it feared “they might stray into political activity”. In September, the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester pulled a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream because (according to the Manchester Evening News) it included a song which not only referenced trans rights (another inflammatory issue) but also contained the phrase “free Palestine”. The Royal Academy in London removed two artworks related to the Israel-Gaza conflict from its Summer Exhibition after receiving a letter from the Board of Deputies of British Jews. More than 750 artists put their names to a letter of protest.
Today’s arts scene has become a political tinder box. Provocative issues flare up all over the place, from the Black Lives Matter protests which embroiled Tate Modern in a mess when it postponed a long-planned Philip Guston exhibition because it feared the Klu Klux Klan imagery needed more contextualisation, to – at a rather less noteworthy end of the spectrum – the worries of conservative councillors in Southend-on-Sea who took down an installation called How to Make a Bomb. This artwork by Gabriella Hirst was in fact a gardening project involving flowers of the “Atom Bomb” rose variety. It invited viewers to consider connections between horticulture, state power and nuclear colonialism. But the councillors, taking issue with its critical reflections upon Britain’s nuclear history and colonial legacy, had it removed.
Art, much like life, can be complicated and difficult – we should not leave it to others to instruct us how to react
How much free expression should artists be allowed? Discussion is fraught. Earlier this year, Arts Council England (ACE), responsible for distributing some £750m annually to the arts, updated its policy. It warned the organisations it funds to be alert to the risk of making “statements, including about matters of current political debate”, that might engender a negative reaction towards either themselves or to ACE. “Overtly political or activist” statements, it said, including those made in a personal capacity, might not only expose those linked to them to “reputational risk”, but also potentially breach funding agreements.
Admittedly, a backlash prompted ACE to issue a clarification. This updated guidance, they suggested, was meant to help organisations manage risk rather than instruct them as to what sort of art they should be showing. But at a time of heightened twitchiness about how political controversy might affect funding prospects, it was at the very least naïve not to understand that such guidance might have daunting implications.
We are being herded down corridors into the corrals of fashion. Take the Turner Prize, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. This award, once notorious for its divisive nature, used to have teeth. It was ready to bite the establishment on its reactionary bottom. But it has degenerated, wrote Times art critic Laura Freeman, into “an annual round of political banner-wagging… and virtue signalling”. Prioritising activist politics and fashionable jargon over the kind of provocation that used to grab headlines and inspire debate has brought it to a dead end, suggested David Lee, editor of the art publication Jackdaw.
Perhaps it’s hardly surprising. It demands considerable bravery to peep over the parapet when cancel culture runs riot on the internet. Even as the digital sphere offers artists an invaluable new public forum, it also jeopardises their freedoms. The rapid growth of a trending topic can, in a matter of moments, do irreversible damage – often in disproportionate measure to the alleged offence, and free of the due process that governs official decisions. Moreover, boundaries between public and private spheres are eroded. Loss of employment or public respect can follow such ostensibly private activities as “liking” a post on X (formerly Twitter).
Censorship is easier than ever. In today’s digital realm you no longer need to smash statues or light bonfires with books if you want to remove ideas from public circulation. You can simply “deplatform” them. Four years ago, in a mass scramble to respond to Black Lives Matter protests, Gone With the Wind – a 1939 movie, much lauded in its era and awarded ten Oscars, among them the first to be won by a black actress – was removed by HBO Max. It depicted “ethnic and racial prejudices” that “were wrong then and are wrong today” was the proffered explanation. It is perfectly valid. But might it not have been more informative – not to mention braver – to broach a discussion rather than simply banish it?
It is not that there is anything new per se about prohibition. It’s as old as democracy itself. Think of Socrates: condemned to death for the moral corruption of Athenian youth. Ideas that test boundaries will always be at risk. Societies are diverse. They will always throw up opinions we disagree with. We can either choose to clamp down on them in a (probably futile) attempt not to offend anyone, or we can accept that in a pluralist culture, offence may double up as the opening salvo of discussion: a discussion that can lead to genuine progress.
This does not mean we should set out to cancel “cancel culture”. The most censorious, it is often said, are those who accuse others of doing the cancelling. We should be “calling in” (rather than “calling out”) people for opinions we consider dodgy. We should be asking meaningful questions instead.
The interpretation of an artwork demands time to examine its ideas from multiple angles and in so doing may very likely face perturbation. Tolerance involves an ability to acknowledge there are many perspectives. Some of them might feel extreme or morally reprehensible. Understanding this may involve feeling shocked or disturbed. Face up to it. Surely our sense of self needs to be resilient. It remains fragile if kept wrapped in cotton wool. Art, much like life, can be complicated and difficult. We should not leave it to others to instruct us as to how we should understand or react. There is no single “correct” way to approach our culture. Rather, we need to develop our capacities to think for ourselves so we can learn to deal, open-mindedly, with whatever arises.
Today’s standards of censorship are nothing if not erratic. Pornographic sites might be left to proliferate while gender-critical debates are removed. How is it that shockingly explicit and frequently degrading images of sexuality can find themselves accepted when a group of women worrying about proposed amendments to legislation around sex and gender may be subjected to brutal mob justice? We need to question who is controlling what can be posted on the internet, which algorithms are operating, who wants to determine what you are able to look at, and why.
Art can confront the establishment, question the status quo. It can show us the world from the perspective of others, question the machinations of political power, break through the boundaries that confine our societies, unweave the webs that bind our freedoms about. Our cultural world is at its strongest, its richest, its most important and prescient when artists –and the cultural institutions that support them – are given the freedom to reflect upon the most challenging issues of our time.
Rachel Campbell Johnston is former art critic of The Times and now a freelance writer
