The opposite of History: valuing the arts

Abstract

This lecture engages with some recent developments in the debates about value and the arts. Although there are particular anxieties about this in Australia, the definition and measurement of the impacts of the arts and culture has preoccupied arts advocates and policy makers internationally. Recent reports published in the United States and the United Kingdom take these debates in a new direction. They identify the limitations of methodologies that attempt to capture ‘instrumental’ benefits and argue that new conceptual and empirical work is needed which focuses on ‘intrinsic’ values.