Tracey Emin's sculpture of a bird, at Liverpool's Anglican cathedral.
Commissioned in 2005, when she was already a commercially successful artist.
Cost?
£60,000.00
Funded by the B.B.C., and therefore the tax payers of Britain who purchase a television licence.
Should public funds be spent on this?
No, in my opinion.
Hisorically art has been commissioned, going right back, pre-Renaissance even.
If art is good, someone is prepared to purchase and fund it commercially.
If no one wants it, and the artist is percieved as having no merit, they starve.
Supply and demand, as in any other economic business.
State funded art only really became a reality under the soviet system, especially Stalin.
Today what was produced might have a certain kitsch appeal, but no art critic of any merit would consider what was produced as great art. Many would be hard pushed to give it the tag of 'art' at all.
Am I in favour of state funded art?
No, because in my opinionm the result has very little artistic integrity.
I'd go as far as saying most of it should be relabelled craft, and practiced in people's own homes, whilst watching the telly. Rather than being funded from the public pure, under the misapprehension that it has any worth in an artistic sense.
Tax payers' money allowing dross to believe it is an art form.