State-sponsored Public Art

Midst the controversy surrounding state funding for artistic endeavours and the boycott by some recipients against the donor’s interference in the creative process, i.e. censorship, one cannot help imagining the reason could be the oft quoted “He who pays the piper calls the tunes.” 

Throughout history artists have an uneasy relationship with their governments as their work have the power to move people and frustrate government intentions. This has not stopped governments from using artists, sometimes under duress, as tools of propaganda or for self-glorification in state-sponsored plays, opera, and monumental sculptures and buildings. From the ancient worlds of Greece and Rome to modern day dictatorships, the state has tried to bend the creative process to its will, but never achieving total success.

This is because true artists (not the mercenary ones) owe allegiance to one and only one party – their muse. Governments must face this hard truth. They can never buy respect and loyalty. 

Only the actions of those in power that resonate with the sacred ideals of the creative community, for example freedom, equality and justice, will truly find expression and perhaps immortality as works of art.