Has abstract and conceptual art had its day? Does figurative and representational art have a better future?
What happened in the late Sixties was equivalent to what happened with cubism. It was a new way of describing the world that looked dry and impenetrable to many people for many years, but underpinned a great deal of the art we now admire in the 20th century. The same is true of conceptual art. People describe as “conceptual” almost any work of art that has deep thought embodied in it, rather than simply the representation of an object on a canvas. By those standards, almost all the great art of the last 10 or 15 years has been conceptual because it has dealt with ideas as well as images. Kate Butler PR consultant, Manchester Can the arts be funded through philanthropy or have the Tories got it wrong? The arts can be assisted by philanthropy and individual giving is an important part of the Tate’s income and will increasingly be so, but we cannot rely on individual philanthropy. Even those institutions in America regarded as private get huge support from the state – not least by way of
