Dirty Desire
Daniel Robson, Japan, writes:
Daniel Robinson raises some interesting points (‘Dirty Desire’, June–July), if a little narrow in scope. I agree it’s a shame that Japanese pop artists have to sing in English to be taken seriously in the West, but then again, the majority of Japanese artists who perform in the UK, Europe or the US are punk or rock bands, and they often sing in English too, simply because the Western artists who inspired them always have.

I once interviewed Utada Hikaru, and she told me that she was proud of Exodus even though it had flopped. She said she could release any old rubbish in Japan and still sell bucketloads, but felt compelled to try harder in the West, and vowed to try again one day. But of course, flop it did – mainly because of the appalling job her label did of promoting it, describing her to journalists as ‘the Japanese Britney Spears’. It’s a shame that her second attempt at Western stardom is a cookie-cutter American pop record instead of the second artistic album she had promised.

The Art of Money
Sarah Tuck, Director, Create, Dublin, writes:
Toner Quinn’s piece ‘The Art of Money’ (June-July) is timely. Yes, perhaps questions about financing the arts should have been raised and publicly and critically debated two years ago as he suggests, but an arts organisation would have to be in denial to not understand that the underlying economics of their operations now has to be fully reconsidered.

So whilst I agree with Quinn’s assessment that the arts, generally, have not been very good at pooling resources and knowledge, we now need to think through methods of how we not only help ourselves and each other as a sector, but also strengthen the argument for a continued and emboldened investment in the arts.

Every successful arts organisation manages both artistic ambition and financial prudence – we are very capable entrepreneurs and would be able to teach the business sector a great number of skills. I am not disputing the need for the arts sector to share learning – we could develop mentoring programmes, more effectively pool marketing resources, develop cross organisational sabbaticals – all of which would contribute to a more sustainable arts sector into the future, but to seriously cut public funding to the arts in Ireland, and expect the arts to carry such a penalty, would be foolhardy.

Quite simply, not only would it contribute to numbers on the live register and diminish the vitality of the arts in Ireland, it would also make a nonsense of the investment made in the arts to date. The arts are public and as such can’t be calculated as a cost burden; they contribute to tourism – why else would people to travel to the edge of Europe with the highest rainfall? – and they also contribute to a shared meaning of what it is to live here.

We need to think in terms of sustainability, of fostering opportunities for artists, audiences and communities and of realising a collective voice and vision that doesn’t gloss over dissent and celebration and valorise the very power of the arts through an ill-fitting vocabulary of business speak. We don’t need spin that disheartens more than inspires. We need to develop a more capable, coherent and politically intelligent response to the times we live in.

Toner Quinn replies: To be clear, I never suggested that arts councils should receive a cut in funding. Nonetheless, it is happening. We have to presume that they do put forward a strong argument to governments, but they do not get what they ask for. Mentoring is one way in which arts councils and artists could make the best of what they do get.