A WIND BLOWS FROM THE EAST

by Giuliana Carbi

In the new, eminently western, scenario in which the achievement of recognition and consensus - also with regard to contemporary art promotion - relies increasingly on the network of international relations, the appearance of artistic expressions coming from “neophyte” countries is a healthy starting point to assess the dangers of the shift towards requiring maximum “efficiency” of presence on the international artistic scene even at the expense of the “substance” of the artistic discourse itself. Keeping this level of presence up with the gigantic pace of gobalisation demands such paradoxical resources that even those acknowledged as the powerful in the art system, major dealers, collectors and curators of great museums, are starting to have difficulties and are having to resort to forming associations, to restyling and reinforcing themselves and to finding increasingly rich sponsors, be they multinational companies or large governmental grants. A waste of resources which ends up by working against the authenticity of that which is new. From here the need to get to grips with the difficulties encountered by the “young” eastern countries - especially as a result of the lack of adequate structures and of private and public resources (upon which weigh the progressive divestment of the Soros centres and their difficult conversion into public institutions) - both in terms of “access” to the system, i.e. of promotion in the countries of the west (which at best will agree, out of sheer exotic curiosity, to show in their museums great artists unknown to them) and in terms of “compulsory hosting” in their own country of major international shows; to evaluate the (slight) project opportunities, often politically imposed, offered by individual governments so little used to contemporary art that some countries still lack a contemporary art museum; to observe the new private enterprises still too weak to act like American sponsors; to study the strange mixture of private and public which has come into being out of necessity; to document the unease of independent curators which are obliged to take up different interlocutory roles; to compare the needs to the opportunities, still too generic, offered by the European Union; but also to bear witness to the “budding” of a specialised audience and to an overall, surprised yet positive, awakening. This and much more offered material for debate during the discussion. Many of the curators agreed on the necessity of achieving an operative mode of cooproduction: a signal projecting great vivacity and positiveness from this eastern world onto the much needed abolition of barriers between rich and poor art in the near future. Some of the considerations made highlighted the need to talk about “sustainability” in the field of art, as is the case with the environment. The global race for the supremacy of status and the monopoly of culture must slow down and the premises of public cultural policies reassessed. Among the primary objectives of such a re-conversion there should be a balanced common program of divulgation and education capable of reaching all involved and of giving adequate space to the complexities of their cultural needs (in the last issue of the magazine we reported on the ongoing international debate on a universal definition of “cultural heritage”). The endowment of resources for cultural projects that carry out an integrated reconaissance of the achievements of contemporary (and past) art in the different countries should be increased: in other words the possibility of expressing cultural relevance should be granted to research rather than to other choices which are endorsed on the basis of their immediate “weight” in terms of appeal on the international scene (a primacy this which is not entirely equivalent to relevance).