Antony Gormley attacks the coalition’s plans for arts funding

"The state has a duty to be a good patron," the sculptor tells the NS.

The sculptor Antony Gormley, interviewed for the NS by Samira Shackle, speaks out against the government’s cuts to arts funding:

What do you make of the coming cuts to arts funding?
Disastrous. You should definitely cut defence before you cut art. Art is the way that an individual and a nation express their vitality. Without it, we might as well not be alive.

Should the arts receive special protection?
The idea that somehow art should be cut in the same way as everything is just completely and utterly indefensible. It is as if somehow we are having to be buried as well as being told that we are poor and starving.

What’s more, Gormley gives short shrift to the idea that Britain’s arts can be sustained by private philanthropy:

That’s wishful thinking. The American model, where national institutions and their boards are in some way influenced by the largest funders, is open to extreme abuse. I would never discourage philanthropy, but there is a huge difference between patronage and state funding. The state has a duty to be a good patron.