This is the final proof..........

I must confess that I rather enjoyed listening and writing this out.

Kim Howells on Radio 4 Today - Wednesday 11 June 2003

It does seem a bit odd that Wales is being represented by two artist who were not born in Wales and the other two artists don't live there?

KH: Well God forbid, Sarah, that artists should only be able to represent somewhere they either live in or work in, if they were born there. It is a bit like the terrible quandary of Welsh Rugby Union, that you, it almost got to the stake now where if your mother when she was pregnant actually could see Wales from the M6, that you could be picked for Wales.

It is an interesting argument this one. Neil Howells critique is very important because he is clearly worried about what he perceives to be the lack of quality of art in Wales. I disagree with him profoundly, I think there are lots of very interesting artists working in Wales.

Point at some?

KH: Some of whom are Welsh.

Point at some then?

KH: Should Gauguin not have been called French because he painted in Tahiti?

Well point us at some Welsh artists we should be looking at – who are not involved, not these four?

KH: Pope for example…

Who IS one of these and was born in England, what about outside of these?

KH: Well I don't know artists who ought to be picked to go, I'm always very wary about a …

I'm not asking whether they are going or not – just Welsh artists who we could/should be looking at and who represent the thriving Welsh visual arts scene, that this is meant to be promoting?

KH: I go down to Cardiff and I look at the galleries down there and there are plenty of young Welsh artists
on display, I don't think that it's a .......

Well give us a name?

KH: Well no, I'm not going to say there is one artist above all....

Laughs - Well you can give us more than one name if you like. My point was just can you think of one?

KH: No – I can't at the moment…….you've got the …………..[indistict?].

That is a problem, isn't it?

KH: Well, listen it's very difficult to that in England, outside of a small coterie of people who have been chosen by, by, - an even smaller group of art critics and art experts as being great.

But Neil Howlls's point here is that if you have to go outside Wales, people either born or live outside Wales, what does it say about those who remain?

KH: Well maybe it says something about the way we teach art and we present art. Visual art in Wales has been very much the poor cousin. You are asking me – you have got to ask Alan Pugh. This is a devolved issue for the Welsh Assembly.

I'm telling you - as somebody who lives in Wales, artists feel quite strongly that they are the poor relation. The big money goes to the Welsh National Opera – it goes very much to those great establishments of creativity in Wales.

And good enough, they are great institutions but visual artists have always suffered from a lack of support and I am very glad to see that now at least we are taking people who are working in Wales, or come form Wales and saying this is good enough, we feel confident enough to have work represented at the Venice […….,] which is one of the great art exhibitions of the world. I mean what could be wrong with that? I mean art should be international, should have no frontiers and operate as openly as possible.

Kim Howells, thank you.