The news earlier this that Newcastle was planning to completely cut its arts budget was a stark reminder of the challenges facing the arts in the recession. Yet while culture secretary Maria Miller provoked fury by insisting that the funding should be viewed as ‘venture capital’ rather than hand-outs, some have welcomed the opportunity for the arts to liberate itself from the strictures of state funding and box-ticking criteria. Should the arts be more willing to embrace the freedom of alternative funding models, or will the market prove even more hostile to challenging, experimental work? Have arts organisations made mistakes in justifying their work in economic terms for so long, or were such arguments a necessary evil? Will public access to the arts be dealt a mortal blow by the cuts, or will it only really impact work which is already struggling to find an audience?

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