Art: What Is It Good For?Institute of Ideas, Hodder and Stoughton, 2002, ISBN 0 340 84837 5, £5.99 [£8.56 inc p&p*] This slim volume 'one in a series 'is one contribution to encourage contest about ideas' (the 'Institute': www.instituteofideas.com). Unlovely intro-language notwithstanding, I would urge AP readers to ignore second essayist, pseudonymous 'Ricardo P. Floodsky's injunction to 'stop reading...Go see some art' and at least look at the essays by Sacha Craddock, Pavel Buchler and Aidan Campbell, which are refreshing polemic and marshal interesting arguments useful for arts managers and students alike. In general, the book is remarkable value for money and a meaty, if somewhat eccentrically uneven, read. Predictably, David Lee recites his mantra in favour of high culture and venomously against art institutionalism and the predominance of the modern curatorial agenda. His Sewell-like distain for the idiocies of the pretentious half-educated and Serota tendency alike are (for us) highly enjoyable, even if some of his statistics seem a bit rickety. On Sir Nicholas: Aidan Campell reminds us of the Sixties Situationist Guy Debord's warning against 'the society of the spectacle', which of course is what much of our institutionalised arts scene has become. But Ricardo P., whoever he may be, deserves the last laconic word: 'All I can say is that art is a bit like language. You do not need to know the lingo inside out to get something out of it, but you are not going to get anything out of it if you do not know a smidgeon'.
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