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A memo sent to correspondents, friends and
acquaintances of the Budapest
Observatory (BO) in April 2008
Some
memos are rather eclectic. This one, for instance.
Public pleas for private giving
Two
leading nations in Europe have advocated for
measures to boost private giving to culture.
The
French culture minister had commissioned the director of FIAC (Foire Internationale d'Art
Contemporain) to examine ways to re-conquer the third position in arts sales,
which went to China
in 2007. Monsieur Bethenod recommended
to pay more attention to art collectors, both corporations and individuals, and
to give them fiscal favours.
Minister
Albanel refers to the good practices in the UK, which kingdom is not resting on
her laurels. On the contrary, the relative decrease in philanthropy elicited a campaign
for private giving. The campaigners propose to streamline Gift Aid, this superb British
device for raising money for charity, admired by BO also because it is so complicated.
Other measures call for upgrading, too, like the acceptance
in lieu scheme that channels works of art into public ownership.
The
main target of the campaign, however, is not the tax authorities. More
celebration and greater
recognition of the donors by the beneficiaries is called for.
Thousands each day
Every
year, The Art Newspaper
constructs the list of exhibitions held in museums, set in the order of average
daily visitors. Tokyo,
as a rule, takes the first place, in fact all first three places in 2007, with
exhibitions of Leonardo, 17-19th century Japanese art, and Monet.
Eastern Europe used to abstain before the sensational breakthrough by Szépművészeti in Budapest, which made it
to the 15th position last year with 4702 visitors a day to the Van
Gogh exhibition. From our region, there are two more mentions on the museum
show biz rank list
across the world: the 224th position was seized by the same
Szépművészeti (Inca treasures, daily attendance of 1397), and 373rd
was Zachęta
in Warsaw: 931
people a day saw 21st century Polish painting.
Cultures on your street
After
the mainstream of main streams, here is a glance at the socially committed
fringes of the arts: a hopefully successful initiative of the European Commission
invites EU residents to take their cameras and capture moments of intercultural
dialogue on their street. Prizes are offered for the best photos.
This
time the Commission resisted the temptation and does not limit the competition
to the young. By the way, BO was half joking
about "a public call for innovative, spicy concepts
with a lower age limit of 66" - but the US endowment for the arts is totally ernest.
What makes a creative nation?
Is there a special role for the creative
industries in building national self-confidence and international reputation? You have a week left to draft
your theses on this subject. If the organisers of Creative Clusters like it, you can
present it in
Glasgow next November. The concept of creative sector / industries /
economy etc. swept across our region, too. There are chances that a few good
presentations will be submitted from here before the 12th May
deadline on creative economy in smaller nations - which most of us are, in
east-central Europe.
Two
small, rich and creative nations
The
state cultural funds of Finland
and Switzerland
had almost identical budgets in 2007, somewhat over €20 million. Except that Pro Helvetia for the
greater part serves for cultural diplomacy while Taiteen
keskustoimikunta is for home consumption. Both call themselves Arts Council in
English, and have excellent information services.
Last year the Finnish fund received over 9200 applications and gave
nearly 3000 grants - nearly €7000 on average. The highest proportion (24%) went to literature, as
this fund also administers the public lending right
revenues of libraries. The next two sectors are visual arts and music (19 -
14%). 556 artists received annual working grants.
Due to its different character, the Swiss fund received fewer
applications, less than 3000, and gave support to nearly 1500 projects, an average of
nearly €16 thousand. The main sectors were music - literature - visual arts (30
- 23 - 21%). Although the 2007
report begins with openings in China
and India, still over 2/3
was spent in Europe (including the east).
What matters more for the region is that Pro Helvetia handles the Swiss Cultural Programme in the
Western Balkans
(SCP), using the funds of the Swiss development agency. To learn more, you are
directed to seven
offices plus one.
Of these Sofia and Bucharest closed down last year
and Kiev looks defunct long ago.
China in - Ukraine out.
On
a few cities (in April)
In April, Maribor and Guimarães presented their plans in
Brussels for the European capital of
culture in 2012. In January, BO wrote that Maribor had no competitors in Slovenia: we should have explained
that those had been beaten
in 2007.
In April, BO was impressed by the plans of
one candidate for 2013.
In April, BO presented a paper
about the impact of festivals on Miskolc.
The next memo will tell about the context.
Here is a graph, to raise curiosity. The columns express which proportion of
the inhabitants in these Hungarian cities perceive improvement of the cultural
events in town.
Pécs will have to warm up its own
population before 2010 - although BO
had some encouraging news about the artistic programme in April.
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