In recent years, something has slowly been happening to the word “art” and its offshoots — “artist”, “artistic”, “the Arts” — and it troubles me. More and more, the word “art” seems to be being replaced by the word “creativity”. “Creative” as a noun and as an adjective often appears in places where “artist” and “artistic” used to be found. “The Arts” is now a very rare phrase to come across indeed.
I think one of the drivers for this might be a noble aspiration (especially amongst politicians and figures in the cultural sector) to prevent the word “art” being a barrier to people actually doing or experiencing things that would once have quite naturally been referred to as “art” or “the Arts”. I’ll never be opposed to any such barriers being removed. Why would anyone be? But I do feel sad and also a bit concerned that eradicating the word “art” might have to be one of the prices of that barrier removal process.
I feel like there’s also a more covert political dimension to this shift from ”art” to “creativity.” On the surface, the transition presents itself as something very jolly and welcoming, but that jolly welcome seems to be founded on some questionable possibilities.
Whereas “creativity” sounds like something anybody could do or get involved with, “art” has been increasingly made to sound like something that only certain people can or are allowed to access, often by virtue of privileges afforded by different combinations of money, education or class. So by repackaging “art” as “creativity”, are we automatically enabling or empowering more people to access the exact same things? It doesn’t feel like it to me.
I think there’s something in “art” and being an “artist” which makes for a very different values proposition to “creativity” and being “creative”. An “artist” feels like a very striking individual concept — it is a role, a job, a profession, a title. It has an inherent dignity to it. Whereas even referring to someone as “a creative” sounds gulpy and awkward; it’s much easier to devolve the noun into an adjective, so that someone is simply being “creative” instead. Far harder to assert that adjective as a role, a job, a profession, a title — as a status with dignity and worth and respectability and meaning.
From there, it’s a simple imaginative step to sense an implicit distinction between “art” — something out there, something public, something which lasts and endures — and “creativity” — something private, temporary, fleeting, which someone only experiences for the length of a workshop, or a term of classes, or as a hobby at home, but which has no more impact or profile or significance beyond that.
And from there, there’s another simple imaginative step to grasp a further discreet distinction between “art” — something which expresses opinions, which challenges, which contradicts, which transforms, something which captures and reflects ideas and experiences which we may not share — and “creativity”, something which feels like a slightly dismissive pat on the head for someone who’s just having a go at painting or sculpture or poetry or singing or performing for pleasure, not for any larger point or greater purpose.
If a government or a society starts telling people at any stage of their life that making “art” is something they are not entitled to do — if people are being told that careers in “the Arts” are a waste of everyone’s time and money — if they are told that being an “artist” is not possible for people like them — then something has gone badly, depressingly wrong.
Do we really need to phase out “art” in favour of “creativity”? Isn’t a member of an amateur dramatics society entitled to call themselves an “artist” just as much as a paid actor in a film or in a massive theatre? Can’t someone exploring watercolours in their living room say they’re producing “art” just as much as someone who’s having work displayed in galleries and museums?
Does that three-letter word really carry so much baggage of exclusion, division and disruption that it needs to be demonised, weaponised and eradicated from use?
