I have noticed a startling consensus across academic, public, and private spheres in the use of language used to talk about creativity and art. Terms such as, “efficiency“, “innovation“, “competitiveness“, and “paying off“ are repeated with little interrogation. All the while, the term “excellence“ was repeatedly questioned from the outside, even rejected by many speakers.
I see this absence of linguistic critique as part of the lack of willingness to disturb the neo-liberal framework which describes art using the language of performance, investment, and return on that investment. Culture is only valuable so long as it is productive, measurable, and strategically useful. This logic is reflected in Jakub Bakule’s study Supporting Excellence in Prague’s Culture and Arts Grants System, which openly cites ‘excellence’ as a selection tool in scenarios where funds are limited. This, in my view, preferences stable, low risk, institutionally compatible art forms.1
The term “excellence“ has found its way into art from managerial and administrative speak. However, when this type of language is applied to art without reflection, it leads to a dangerous shift. Art ceases to be a space for uncertainty, experimentation, and conflict, instead becoming a performance element expected to produce justifiable outputs, visibility, impact, and profit.
It is fair to say that this kind of language is not problematic in all areas of art in the same way. In performance activities, craftorientated disciplines, or in the cultural and creative industries, certain criteria relating to the technicality, professionalism or reproducible quality of a piece may be applied. The issue is when this language is applied indiscriminately to experimental, progressive, and alternative art, which primarily exists in the non-institutionalised sector. But even here, radically different ways of working have existed for many years. On the one hand, art, which by its own logic, is closer to a cultural product that satisfies the urban audience and cultural mainstream, on the other, a noncommodifiable way of working founded in process, relationships, care, risk, illegibility, and deliberate failure. These practices cannot be measured by the same criteria without deforming their entire character. It is precisely their fragility and inefficiency that are the first casualties of the language of excellence, sustainability, and impact.