Artistic Value for Whom?

Art is often valued in terms of its financial balances and impact, and its effect on audiences: The education of, reception by, and attention from its users, that is, what it provides for its users and their communities. Informed by artist-driven initiatives for better working conditions and against structural discrimination in contemporary Denmark (Fair Practice Code, #undskyldvierher), we suggest rethinking the notion of artistic value from an infrastructural perspective where representation and accessibility in house and behind the scenes become crucial. Our study draws upon European-based critical diversity studies applied to the field of cultural policy studies. Artist-driven initiatives intervene infrastructurally in the premises for making cultural policy, asking “on which terms” and “for whom”? The analysis offers a twofold perspective on diversity work both in larger cultural institutions and in artist-driven initiatives: Firstly, a reality check is made through an analysis of circulating values in annual reports on two Danish major cultural institutions: which values are currently circulated in documents based on public cultural policy? How do they respond to values like diversity and sustainability? Secondly, the artists’ initiatives show how diversity cannot be conceived as something “only” happening on the representational level of appearance but must be handled on all institutional layers and persistently. We critically discuss the suggestions of the artists’ initiatives and the modus operandi in documents in cultural institutions, and, eventually, also how they lose endurance over time when not supported by cultural policy from the Danish ministry of culture.