Plausible Artworlds

In the Netherlands arts is funded by the state. There are many great advantages and honourably intends in this system that tries to shield artists from poverty and acknowledge the position of art in society, but let me make some critical notes to for those not familiar with the drawbacks of such a system: There are almost no art collectors and the art market is not a factor of power. There are some corporate art collections mostly interested in painting and artists successful abroad/marketwise. These collections have been kept as much as possible out of museums unless there was a reason any museum would like to have a piece. Because museums are also funded by the state there is no need for them to interact with business that much and they are therefore naïve in that sense. There are more art administrators than artists in the Netherlands, most of whom are trained as civil servants, not as artists. there are some private funds that usually call the state funds to see if these have funded the applicant, so they are not really an alternative for the state money. Some good institutions get shut down, or are threatened to be shut down every 4 years when the government changes because not art quality but art policy is the deciding factor who gets funded or who does not. There is a tern called 'funding drip' which sort of sums up the negative effects of this system. Nobody can grow big unless some loopholes in the political system allows it. Because of accounting reasons the state likes to give money to institutions rather than artists these days and the call for other ways of funding the arts (from the populist side) are gave rise to some plan called the art mecenaat (medieval word for art patron). If this plan will be implemented the Netherlands will get something much more obsolete than arts and business. The bureaucracy is huge but the awards in terms of money and relative freedom for artists are big.

In Istanbul the contemporary visual arts are not as developed and relatively young compared with traditions in the performing arts. All money for visual art comes from rich individuals or their banks. The banking sector owns the galleries, has its own art spaces (Platform Garanti) and the owners of some bank set up the Istanbul Modern. The system is not bureaucratic but wholly dependent on status and contacts. The developments are interesting but there is still a big need for more diverse funding and capacity building. Istanbul foundation that organises all mayor cultural events in the city is very active but focuses on main stream events. The university network is also very important. It is easier than in the Netherlands to find volunteers (in the Netherlands most artists/people expect to be paid). Artists have second jobs, often media or advertisement related that seems to make them more aware of the working part of society.

In both examples the mayor problem artists name is the monopoly on funding. How can we design plausible art worlds that are more varied in their economics? Who would you like to get money from more, some big business or from the state? Why?

My answers: In the Netherlands working with organisations paying for our time was liberating since it gave us (me and Elias, my colleague) possibilities to connect with worlds that were normally outside of the confined subsidized art world. We also got state funding to be visible in that system otherwise our critique would not even get noticed. In Istanbul the challenge is to get the government more committed to art so that artists there have more options.