Progress without consensus: ‘instituting’ Arts Council in Korea

Abstract

Modelled on the British style of Arts Council, the Arts Council Korea (ARKO) was established in 2005 as an autonomous and consensus-based organisation. The creation of ARKO was expected to redefine the arts–state relationship in South Korea by developing arts subsidy operating at an arm’s length distance from the government. However, this has not happened because Korean arts policy is so deeply embedded in the country’s historical and political contexts that changes in its formal structure and organisation hardly guarantee the emergence of a new understanding and practice of state arts funding. Despite the rhetoric of the arm’s length principle, the government’s habitual control has persisted and even been reinforced. Meanwhile, the historically and politically rooted division within the arts sector has hindered the formation of sectoral consensus on the arts–state relationship and the ARKO’s operation, leaving the sector continuously dependent on a strong state.

Keywords:

• Korean arts policy
• Arts Council Korea
• arts funding

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the seven anonymous interviewees for their views and opinions. She also appreciates two anonymous reviewers’ comments on the paper’s early version.

Notes

1. In the Korean discourse of the Arts Council, the Arts Council of Great Britain (1946–1994) and the Arts Council England (1994–) have been a focal point of reference. Both of them are often called the ‘British Arts Council’.

2. In this article, ‘peak organisation (or peak association)’ refers to a large-scale and influential association that represents its member. One of its main roles is to influence government policy in the related area by promoting its causes, lobbying politicians and participating in the policy making process. Peak organisations are distinguished from common interest groups and associations in that they have more access to and power to affect policy making. The more corporatist approach the government takes, the more crucial roles peak organisations are expected to play in public decision-making.

3. Minutes of Council Meetings, 2005–2011. Available from the Arts Council Korea website: http://www.arko.or.kr/public01/public_030203.jsp [Accessed 15–31 July 2011].

4. The interviewees consisted of government officers, cultural policy researchers and a cultural manager. The seven semi-structured interviews took place in either their office or a public place for 45 min to 2 h between April and August 2011. The interviewees have been anonymised as agreed.

5. Since the Arts Council of Great Britain was created in 1946, many countries, including the market-driven US and interventionist countries in continental Europe and Asia, have set up their own version of Arts Council. According to the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies, thirty or so among its members are national Arts Councils or similar types of bodies such as endowment, fund or foundation publicly funded. However, the nature of state–arts relationship in the countries tends to vary in spite of their common use of intermediary national arts funding organisations.

6. The UK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport defines NDPBs as ‘bodies that have a role in the process of government but are not a government department or part of one and operate at an arm’s length from Ministers’. The department lists 47 NDPBs, including Arts Council England. Available from: http://www.culture.gov.uk/about_us/our_sponsored_bodies/default.aspx#1 [Accessed 8 June 2011].

7. Traditional Korean society held artists in low esteem. Professional arts such as music, dance, play and drawing were treated as a job for the lower classes while the ruling and literati classes’ own pursuit of amateur arts was highly regarded as an essential part of the literati culture. The lack of social respectability of the arts in Korea existed until recent decades, exemplified by the middle class culture where parents typically discouraged their children from pursuing artistic professions.

8. According to the 2010 Survey Report on Cultural Enjoyment published by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Korea Culture & Tourism Institute, only small percentage of the 5000 adults surveyed had attended arts events during the previous year: e.g. literary event 3.8%, art exhibition 9.9%, dance 1.4%, play 11.2%, classical music and opera 4.8% and Korean traditional arts performance 5.7%. Meanwhile, the attendance rate of the cinema and pop concerts was 60.3 and 7.6%, respectively.

9. The period since the financial crisis in 1997 has seen an intense liberalisation of Korean society and the middle classes’ rising consciousness of cultural distinction, in line with the widened economic inequality and lowered social mobility (Lee 2010). Nevertheless, their efforts at distinction still reply more on material rather than artistic consumption (Kang 2008).

10. In Korean cultural policy, ‘contents industries’ refers to those industries that generate wealth and employment by producing and exploiting cultural contents. They include popular music, broadcasting, animation, comics, computer/online games, character and mobile contents industries. Unlike the ‘creative industries’ notion advocated by the British government, contents industries in Korea exclude subsidised cultural sectors.

11. Korean society’s low esteem of artists and arts making can be exemplified by the legal dispute around the death of the sculptor Bon-Ju Ku in a traffic accident. The initial court decision on financial compensation was based on the acknowledgement that 25% of fault was attributable to the victim, the retirement age of 65 and the victim’s 6–9 year career as an artist. However, the defence’s insurance company appealed against the decision. The company insisted on the acknowledgement of 75% of fault on the victim, the retirement age of 60 and non-acceptance of the victim’s career as an artist. The victim’s lost earnings were worked out based on the ‘earning of urban workers on daily contracts’, which would apply not only to those who provide physical labour on daily contracts but also to the unemployed (Ahn 2006). This sparked fierce debates on artists’ position within Korean society. Later the insurance company withdrew the appeal and reached a compromise with the family of the deceased.