INTRODUCTION

TO  IGNORE, TO ADAPT ONESELF, TO UTILISE OR TO RESIST?

How the Art World Has Reacted to the Market-Based or Neo-Liberalist Turn in Social and Cultural Policy since the 1980s  – The Case of Finland 

In the 1980s and 1990s, the era of the expansive Western welfare state and the East European state socialism came to a close and these societies were opened-up to market forces on a more global scale. These societies have, therefore, been ruled by a neo-liberalist policy that treats the whole of society and the rest of the world as capitalist markets. This shift has affected the at world profoundly, for  phenomena of creative economics and commercialized art are typical of this new phase.

In Finland, the state has followed the market-based policy; for example, at the beginning of this year all of the Finnish universities were privatized. Yet, the Finnish state has not been able to apply this policy to the art life on the same scale. In Finland and in other Nordic countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden), the art life is largely dependent on the state. In these countries, the national art markets are quite limited in seize; their art worlds cannot, therefore, function properly without the expansive support of the state. Although the Finnish state and the Finnish economic life more and more often see artists and art institutions as co-actors in economic action, the Finnish state also nowadays finances art institutions (theatres, orchestras, museums) – even to the extent that 70-80% of their incomes might come from the public section.

The Nordic countries clearly differ from the Anglo-American countries (Great Britain, the United States) that underline the importance of markets, private sponsorship and donations in the art life. Likewise, Finland differs from the post-socialist countries (Estonia, Russia) in which the state is not rich enough to give expansive financial support to the art life, nor is their private section capable of effectively acting in a role like this. In part, Finland resembles France, in which politicians and ordinary citizens still think that it is the duty of the state and the public section to protect the sphere of art against pure market forces and private interests.

In our project, we consider what kind of attitudes different social actors (the state, political parties, economic life, art institutions, artists, writers) take up towards the market-based turn in social and cultural policy. At the same time we compare the Finnish art world with other art worlds in Western societies.

The project is situated at the University of Eastern Finland, and it is funded by the Academy of Finland.

Detail of the work “Car park of Revontuli-Rinteenkulma shopping mall, Rovaniemi” by Kalle Lampela, 2009.