Me hace mucha gracia rememorar textos que he escrito hace ya tiempo.... Y aunque me de algo de verguenza, hoy os quiero presentar un pequeño artículo en inglés que escribí en 2010 sobre la relación entre el gobierno y la cultura en nuestro país. Sé que ya han pasado algunos años, pero varios puntos siguen todavía de actualidad. Espero que guste....
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The Spanish Constitution
establishes that culture is a right of all citizens and the State has the
obligation to guarantee its democratisation .
As a result, the State has become the main agent responsible for fostering and
disseminating culture. In relation to contemporary art, the State has identified
two courses of action: the promotion and the support of production.
Nevertheless, the study Cultural policies
in the Spanish State (1985-2005) established that the government has
developed more promotional actions than initiatives for supporting the
production aside from occasional subsidies and awards .
Contemporary art has been used as a marketing tool with the sole purpose of promoting the modern image of Spain
and increasing tourism.
Regarding the
promotion of art in Spain, public authorities have built numerous museums. In
fact, Spain had 1,455 museums in 2008 (122 dedicated to contemporary art)
according to the most recent statistics published by the Ministry of Culture .
Nevertheless, politicians have been more concerned about creating famous landmarks
to attract tourists than on developing the content of museums to educate
society. In fact, some museums have been planned without considering the budget
needed for the creation of the collections or the design of the curatorial
programmes. The centre La Paneira,
for instance, was opened in Lleida (Catalonia) in 2003 without even having a
director .
However, this lack of planning is not the only challenge faced by the museums.
These institutions also suffer from the continuous interventionism of politicians
in the main management decisions. One of the most recent cases has been that of
the MuVIM .
This museum inaugurated the exhibition Fragments
of a year-2009 which exhibited 91 photographs. Ten of them were images
related to a corruption case which involved politicians of the region and were
removed by the regional government leading to the dismissal of its director (Ramón
de la Calle) .
This shows how politicised the cultural sector is in Spain. However, the
political interventionism is mainly visible in the appointments of the
management teams. It is well-known in Spain that when the political party in
power changes, the directors of cultural institutions also change and the new
ones are selected by the new government. Apart from the fact that sometimes the
chosen candidate is not the right person, the constant changes in directors
lead to inconsistency that affects projects and strategies because the
different teams do not coordinate their activities. In numerous instances,
there are no transitional processes to allow the last museum project to be
completed, thereby wasting the money and time invested by previous
directors.
The lack of
budgets, the lack of autonomy and the lack of long-term strategies restrict the
modernization and the renovation of these museums. Moreover, the changes in
teams, budgets and strategies also affect the acquisitions of these centres as
well as the programmes created to educate the Spanish audience about
contemporary art (affecting indirectly the social demand for artworks).
Regarding
promotion abroad, government organisations (like the Ministry of Culture or the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and public entities (like the Instituto Cervantes,
SEACEX or Fundación Carolina) develop initiatives to bring Spanish art closer to
international audiences. Firstly, they support the presence of artists,
curators and galleries in international biennales, exhibitions and fairs by
granting subsidies to cover the travel costs or the exhibition stands. The
regional governments, for instance, spent more than €5,226,000 million in subsidies in 2009 .
Furthermore, government and public institutions also organise Spanish art
exhibitions in foreign cities. But despite these initiatives, the investments
of the public sector on the international promotion of the arts have not been successful.
The Spanish contemporary art scene continues to be unknown outside the country
and only a few Spanish artists enjoy international recognition. The lack of
success of the public organisations in promoting abroad is due to several
factors.
Firstly, the
existence of many organisations with similar aims but with different
structures, the scarce budgets (distributed among all the institutions) and the
lack of coordination between the offices lead to the diversification of
strengths, budgets and objectives. Due to this diversification, the different
organisations and institutions are incapable of competing in the international
market since they create numerous initiatives but these have little
international repercussion. Moreover, the majority of these organisations do
not cover potential areas for the Spanish market. The study Lights and Shadows of the Cultural Action
Abroad states that the work of the majority of the entities is mainly
focused on Europe and Latin-America .
Promotional activity in other areas like Asia or North-America is still limited
and has been undertaken in few cities. Due to this, potential areas with strong
art markets like the USA or the Arab countries have just limited information
(or no information at all) about the Spanish emerging art scene, which in turn
affects demand. Finally, the majority of these organisations are controlled by civil
servants instead of art professionals. For instance, the Instituto Cervantes
(Spanish version of the British Council) has a board of trustees made up of the
Prime Minister, the Culture Minister, the Foreign Minister and the President of
the Board of Directors among others .
The constant changes in the political party that lead to changes in the
management teams do not help to create long-term strategies and continued
actions.
To fight
against the politicisation of the cultural sector, associations like the
Association of Museum Directors or the Art Galleries Society have demanded the public authorities to
improve the functional and structural organisation of cultural infrastructures.
They have defended the creation of a selection process for directors who would
be unaffected by political change and the better distribution of the public
budget. Thanks to their lobbying, good initiatives have been created. The
Parliament, for instance, approved the document A Guide of Good Practice for Contemporary Museums and Art Centres in
Spain in 2006, which aims to depoliticise the museums and improve their
management. However, there is still a lot of work to be done in order to
professionalise the cultural sector in Spain, achieve its total independency
from political changes and optimise the existing resources.
Badia, T. and Marzo, J.L. (2006) Las Políticas Culturales en el Estado Español (1985-2005), p. 26.
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