The challenge is great: proposals to improve the context of the arts in Catalonia. The temptation to fall into discouraging diagnoses is there. But the guideline is clear: we are going to be proactive. So what is the context? What and who make up the artistic fabric? Obviously it is not only the institutions, large and small, but also the proliferation of independent initiatives – precarious too – that arise from the need to do things, to believe in what is done and that is often identified with the dynamics of DIY (do it yourself). Fragility also has a positive side, which is agility and the capacity to react and adapt.
Another aspect to consider: who are artistic practices aimed at? Who is their audience? We often think of a general audience when the reality is that a large percentage of the audience of the most avant-garde visual arts are the producers themselves. We find ourselves in an area of very high self-consumption. This is why the criteria for measuring profitability never quite add up, either in terms of visitor numbers or sales figures.
Political circles often forget that art, by definition, cannot be identified with a cultural industry. Because artistic work cannot respond to standard parameters, but on the contrary, it is based on idiosyncrasies, personal obsessions and a critical relationship with its forms. Therefore, the knowledge it generates goes beyond fixed patterns and insists on diversity and difference.
The visual arts are not a sector with guaranteed profitability. They move on very slippery ground and, depending on the moment, society is more or less receptive to these types of issues. The present confirms to us every day that we are at the lower end of the acceptance level. Contemporary art is seen as cryptic, unnecessary and elitist, not to mention stigmatized by the need for funding and subsidies. It is curious that other, more powerful industries receive aid and injections of money and are freed from this accusation (the automobile industry is one and banking, another).
But we are going to be proactive rather than critical, so here are 6 proposals to improve the arts sector in Catalonia.
Influence education, so that art forms part of the normal experience from childhood to recover its real connection with society. Art can provide a new way of seeing things, a form of differentiated and more critical knowledge. For artists, having real contact with an audience that approaches their practices with curiosity and without fear of asking direct questions can be a very healthy exercise.
Improve the presence of art in the media, so that it does not only have a public appearance through news related to figures, records or scandalous and/or ridiculous situations. Inform about art, artists and exhibitions focusing on their content that, however complex it may be, can always be communicated in a clear and direct way. Working on forms of financing that combine public and private initiatives, without depending solely on one of them. On the one hand, administrative circuits could be simplified. On the other, technology companies could play an important role in exchange for an extra knowledge, refinement and intellectual consumption that can complement the very profitable leisure consumption.
Bet on hybrid cultural models for the production, distribution and enjoyment of culture. Encourage dialogue and exchange. Reinvent oneself. In fact, artists produce work, but they also curate it, and their work can be an object, a workshop, a conference, a guided tour, a play or a dinner; galleries sell, but they can also produce, promote, manage and promote research projects; curators are producers, mediators and can look for more creative ways of doing and communicating; collections can influence production.
Try to cover the main needs of creators in terms of mobility, exchanges, specific resources and, above all, time.
6. Guarantee the independence of the art sector and block political interference.
… and 1 intuition:
Encourage in-depth work, resistance, the creation of a solid base. Perhaps it is not negative that the art sector is not in the foreground, but in a more discreet but respected position in order to have more autonomy, less pressure, less debt (economic and moral) and less risk of domestication.
Sis propostes i un pressentiment
[Article published in Bonart, 2014]
