Help! David Cameron likes my art

Abstract

This book chapter examines the events set in motion by the UK Government Art Collection’s acquisition of Eva Weinmayr’s artwork Today's Question, and its subsequent loan to Samantha and David Cameron—then the UK Prime Minister—for display in their private residence at 10 Downing Street. It reflects on the dilemmas that emerge when an artist’s work receives endorsement from what might be regarded as the “wrong” audience. Convinced that once “a work is out, it’s out” and that it inevitably develops a social life of its own—whether it inspires, comforts, provokes, or makes people think—Weinmayr uses this episode to rehearse a range of possible reactions always keeping in mind The Smiths’ co-founder Johnny Marr, who famously declared: “DAVID CAMERON, STOP SAYING THAT YOU LIKE THE SMITHS. NO YOU DON’T. I FORBID YOU TO LIKE IT.”