Should the arts be more selective about sponsors?

Observer books editor William Skidelsky and novelist Geoff Dyer debate the withdrawal of two poets from a prize shortlist last week in protest at its hedge fund sponsor

William Skidelsky and Geoff Dyer - guardian.co.uk, Saturday 10 December 2011 

Alice Oswald, who withdrew from the TS Eliot prize last week in protest over its sponsorship. Photograph: Antonio Olmos

William Skidelsky, Observer books editor

Alice Oswald and John Kinsella, who withdrew from the shortlist of the TS Eliot prize last week because they objected to the fact that an investment firm that manages hedge funds, Aurum, now sponsors the prize, deserve admiration for putting principle before personal gain. But their decision still strikes me as deeply wrong-headed. From their statements, it wasn't entirely clear what their rationale for withdrawing was. Kinsella said, rather grandly, that "the business of Aurum does not sit with my personal politics and ethics". (What these were he didn't elaborate, beyond labelling himself "anti-capitalist".) Oswald said that "poetry should be questioning not endorsing such institutions" (as if, were she to win, she would never again be free to write a poem that evinced any scepticism about capitalist excess).
Behind their statements, I think it is possible to make out the contours of an old romantic idea: namely, that art should have no truck with commerce. While this may seem an attractive principle, the problem is that, if followed through, it would pretty much imply the end of all cultural patronage, since who other than overtly money-making organisations are going to stump up the funding that culture so urgently needs?
To me, it was striking that neither poet appeared to find anything much out about Aurum. For them, apparently, the dread words "hedge fund" were enough. Do either of them actually know anything about what hedge funds do? Bankers are often accused, rightly, of arrogance, but there's a kind of snobbishness, too, in the way that some artists wrinkle their noses up at the mucky dealings of business.

Geoff Dyer, novelist

I agree about a tendency to bash bankers and hedgies. But the larger point about questioning and worrying where prize or other money comes from is an important one. I'd never heard of Aurum until a couple of days ago but let's suppose the dough had come from a nice firm that had decided to use the prize to enhance its image. Great! But if that firm happened to be an Israeli-owned company in the occupied territories, then of course one might be under a political and moral obligation to have nothing to do with it. The key thing if you are to make some kind of statement or stand is to strike a balance between specificity – knowledge of the money's sources etc – and a larger declared political point.
So we go back to 1972 when John Berger won the Booker prize. In his speech he said "the modern poverty of the Caribbean" was "the direct result" of the "extensive trading interests" of outfits such as Booker McConnell. Rather than turning it down, however, he tried "to turn this prize against itself" by giving half the money to the Black Panthers and keeping half to finance a book he was writing on migrant labour. The hope was that the half he gave away would "change" the half he kept. Needless to say, he was criticised by the right for giving half to the Panthers and by the left for keeping half for himself.
Full discussion at The Guardian.