marcus westbury

IS THE best thing government can do for artists always to fund them? A preoccupation with funding is understandable but it obscures many other things governments can do to foster a rich and thriving culture. There are even things that governments can do that cost almost nothing at all.
Funding is actually peripheral for a lot [...]

ARTISTS and sportspeople have a lot in common… really.
I’ve never understood the idea that art and sport are somehow opposed to each other. I’ve spent a lot of time with artists, and a little time with sportspeople, and I’ve come to the conclusion that they’ve got more in common with each other than just about [...]

Based on the fact that i am sweating over my copy this afternoon, i think it is safe to say that I am now officially a newspaper columnist.
The downside is that “newspaper columnist” is a sub-profession of human being somewhere above politician and used car salesman and below journalist. I’m not sure that inflicting my [...]

From my small air conditioned bubble in a sweltering Melbourne the abstract economic gloom of stock shocks and far away corporate collapses is getting less and less abstract with each passing day. Anecdotal reports of jobs drying up, businesses closing, incomes evaporating and people fast becoming un or underemployed are mounting around me.
It is probably [...]

From the Not Quite Book notes. Click here for an explanation…
Traditionalists will hate me but I am less and less convinced that artforms are a particularly useful way to slice up the way that cultures are talked about or resourced in the world.
The qualities that interest me are far more about the resonance of cultures, [...]

I was asked recently by the folks at the Department Of Culture and the Arts in WA to take part in a forum about “Creative People” as part of their process to develop an “Umbrella Policy Framework” for the state. I thought it might be useful to post the notes here that i made for [...]

From the Not Quite Book notes. Click here for an explanation…
I have a problem with the word “Art.”

I duck the question of what is and isn’t Art. I’ve resorted to all the flippant throw away clichés: that like pornography “I know it when I see it”; that “I don’t know what it is but [...]

I am stuck in Singapore for a few days. There is nothing quite like being bored and away from the constant series of distractions that pepper my life to focus the mind a little. I’ve decided to spend at least some of this time productively by digging through some old notes I’ve compiled and posting [...]

If you were are all convinced that this site would be reserved for serious discussion of arts, cultural policy, the state of the nation and the odd tale of a bizarre night at the logies. Think again!
For the 8 weeks leading up to the Olympics i will be doing a regular spot on 774 ABC [...]

A new series, Culture Shock, is in the early stages for ABC TV (Australia). All going to plan (which these things rarely do in my limited experience) we should begin filming around around July and the series should air in about October 2008. Yes, I already know that the title is a bad cliché [...]