A museum of all. The museum of broken relationships

If you ever visit Zagreb, in Croatia, you shall not lose the chance to visit a very peculiar museum: The museum of broken relationships. http://brokenships.com/

Entrance poster

Some old shoes, a coat, a love letter, a special CD, a soft stuffed heart... are some of the objects than can be found and, apparently, have no connexion between them, almost like a 21^st Century cabinet of curiosities, more organized and spaced, with white walls and modern supports. Then, with the help of a paper guide, you get to find out of the different sentimental conflicts of each individual person that has left an object there because, in fact, that's a museum which could totally be communal. Real stories from people all around the world, telling us about the pain they suffered when their lover dump them, when they lost love in a war, or the dreadful rage for that person who never treated them as they deserved.

Inside view of the museum

All of it are true stories, lived and explained in first-person narrative for its own protagonists; anyone can leave an object and be able to feel that a part of that person, and a part of that old relationship, lasts in this space.

Inside view of the museum Inside view of the museum

Broken love letter

Broken love letter

More or less poetical, with more discursive coherence or less of it, nastier or not at all, everyone of the donors is free to define their objects in their own way and that definition will not be changed.

We can find, for example, a love letter that was never sent because the lover dumped that person, with an e-mail, before the letter could be sent, and the broken-hearted decided to stick the letter to a glass and breaking it, as a kind of completion ritual.

The initiative was supposed to be the creation of an itinerary exposition that would run around the world before disappear, as so many do. But the need and great success of the idea turned it into a permanent exhibition, which placement was finally decided to be in the old town of the Croatian capital.

View of the city from the Old Town

The development of the project was a participation of two Croatian artists: Olinka Vištica, film producer, and sculptor Dražen Grubisic who, when they broke their relationship, decided to create, half jokingly, a museum to place the personal objects that reminded them of their life together. In 2006, with help from other friends, that project came true and was shown at the 41^st Zagreb Salon. It was a huge success, and from Zagreb it went to other Balkan countries, and also Argentina, Germany, Singapore, Indonesia, and many other countries until 2010 with a collection almost as twice as large thanks to the donations that the visitors made in each expo. That same year, the two artists decided they wanted it to be a real museum, permanent, and the rent the space where it is now, this being the first private museum in Croatia. Their originality was awarded in 2011 with the Kenneth Hudson Award.

The museum paper guide

The museum paper guide

That experience show us that feelings go beyond borders, highlighting its universality: the difficulty of saying goodbye, rage or failed love are the main topics of the museum that can't leave you indifferent and, in fact, it reflects the cultural, political and social tradition of each of the persons who took part on it, turning in public what in theory is meant to be private, creating a space where the line between privacy and the public becomes almost non-existent. You start the guide and you finish it, you won't skip a line because, deep inside, we all like to gossip and look into other people's life.

From all around the world; from Belgrade to Canada and from Indonesia to Mexico, they are ephemeral witnesses of perennial concepts, as are the human feelings, both universal and individual at the same time.

Guiomar Sánchez

@guiomar_sp

Post-art or the Angus McDonagh case

Angus McDonagh works appears with colourful designs and large colour patches that recall Andy Warhol's serigraph printing paintings, it's a branch of the pop-art that we could call post-art. Actually McDonagh's work consist in around 50 post stamps of simple appearance, most of them with his own face on it, and thanks to it this Somerset resident has been able to send letters without spending not even a pound in stamps

His work started as a protest claiming against the extinction of the stamps and ordinary mail on behalf of Internet and social media. “The Queen’s head, it seemed to me, was going to disappear from stamps and be replaced with lots of other images and I felt I had to act” he told a couple of weeks ago in an interview for London free newspaper 'Metro'.

The author created the stamps deliberately with a simple and silly appearance, but still he managed to send more than a hundred letters to destinations as far as Australia, Canada or Hong Kong, with only one of the letters being returned for having a fake stamp. Therefore are we talking about an artist or a scammer? What do you think? Because we know what Royal Mail thinks about it: the British national post company insists it is an offence both the creation or use of fake stamps and so they want to take actions against this case. Although on the other hand it was Royal Mail who was supposed to detect the fake stamps during this last three years.

It should be also said that Angus McDonagh never wanted to avoid the postal costs and he tried to send checks to the post company, but those have been returned. If that is so, instead of a criminal can we see here an artistic protest, a Banksy of the mail services? Or even a better question: Royal Mail's reaction would be the same if it was Banksy whohad  played this “scam”?

Precisely one of the last activities of Banksy in his new period in New York has been to sell his own artworks in a street stand, like the ones that usually sell fakes of his art. What is the difference between them to say that Banksy is an artist and McDonagh isn't? Both of them create original material to supplant as a protest; non of them looks for the economic profit (proceeds from the sale of originals in New York, at $ 60 a piece, were all for the shopkeeper). But beware! Banksy hasn't forced a national company to lose profits, only four strangers who were redecorating their home have lost some money. Does that mean McDonagh is an example that in Art, as in everything, you must be careful who are you protesting against to?

It comes out again the big question “What is Art?” and one of the most plausible and indefinite answers is: “Art is what the somehow (culturally, economically, politically...) more powerful decide that is Art”. It is not everyone's decision, not mine, to decide if McDonagh is an artist, that's a decision for the ones who, sometimes without us knowing completely, decide so much for us. Under that point of view contemporary art is not such a different thing from the Renaissance or Romanticism art, where the great artists were the ones who pleased better their patrons or exalted with better grace the bourgeois class. The trick must be to please who must be pleased and not criticize what mustn’t be criticized.

Ricard Gispert

@ricardgispert

Time to be thankful

Thanksgiving is coming, one of those big American things that we know about only thanks to TV series and films, but in the same way that happens with Halloween (originally All Hallows Eve) it is a festivity that Americans had inherited from the European tradition.

Thanksgiving origin can be found in the traditional church masses and religious festivals that were used in this time of the year to thank Lord (or Nature if you prefer a more secular speech) for the harvest success. Those festival, usually joined with great feasts, were also one of the last opportunities to join the social life before the cold winter arrived and became time for family home confinement.

But the 4^th thursday of November isn't a too late date to celebrate the harvest? Exactly. That is due to the fact that United States Thanksgiving is influenced by the British tradition in the period of the Protestant Reformation during the reign of Henry VIII. As part of this reformation in 1536 the number of ecclesiastic festivities was reduced from 95 to 27 days per year; but the more radical Puritans didn't agree and wanted to eliminate all the festivities, including Christmas and Easter, and to remain only with Days of Fasting to fight against God's disasters or judgements (as droughts, floods and pests), and Days of Thanksgiving for the little miracles like the victory versus the Spanish Armada or the failure of Guy Fawkes Gunpowder Plot against the British Parliament. This last historic fact became into an annual Day of Thanksgiving since de 5^th of November of 1606 and nowadays it's still a festivity (Remember remember the 5^th of November).

The first Thanksgiving , J.L. Gerome Ferris (c. 1915)

With this base it couldn't be rare that in 1621 the Pilgrims and Puritans who migrated to the “New World” continued this tradition celebrating Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving, one of which had a special importance at Plymouth, now in Massachusetts State. It was only ten month since the Pilgrims landed and, after the hard previous winter, they were ready to celebrate their first harvest success. Aware that they wouldn't have survive in hostile territory without the native's help they decided to invite the Wampanoag tribe. It were days of feasts and plays, but also of cultural exchange, learning from the others and thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving tradition was already born, more than 400 years from our days, but it still had a long way to run. At the beginning it was only home-made celebrations with still a great remain of the harvest festivals and each State celebrated it on a different day. It wasn't until 1876 when Sarah Hale started a campaign to turn Thanksgiving into a national day, and only 17 years later Abraham Lincoln listened to her ans established November's last Thursday as the National Thanksgiving Day as a treat for the victories of the Civil War.

Finally during World War II there would be one more change for this celebration of humility and gratitude. It was already sometime that the day after Thanksgiving had been established as Black Friday, the beginning of Christmas shopping season with the big department stores offering unmissable discounts. The American National Retail Federation asked president Franklin Roosevelt to enlarge one week the Christmas season and therefore Thanksgiving in USA ended up being celebrated the 4^th Thursday of November (in Canada is celebrated the 2^nd Thursday of October, as for the different weather the harvest season started earlier).

So there we have another traditional festivity which has been depraved century over century until being turned into something completely different, even if in this case we still have the background of being grateful at least once a year. Cultural Crops wants to be part of this thankful spirit in the air and so we thank you all for reading us and for following us on Facebook or Twitter. Without you it wouldn't be the same, we are working hard to improve and we hope you can all see the results soon.

Ricard Gispert

@ricardgispert

Theatre evening

Going to the theatre is a whole experience for me. It is not only to sit on a more or less comfortable sit and watch a play on the stage. There are a lot of little sensations that enhance the theatre experience.

The evening can start easily with your companions having dinner together or sharing some drinks before the play. Usually catching up or any new topic fills the conversation and you almost don't talk about the theatre, it is not time yet.

Afterwards you get to the theatre building, normally with a magnificent entrance. It doesn't matter if the theatre is in the big city or in a country village, the main door has always a look of greatness, full of people and light. For me it has a kind of class that you can not find in the cinema. Even if both of them are cultural business, for me the cinema looks more like an enterprise (more capitalist), more contemporary. The entrance to the theatre, instead, has a more classic feeling, a remain of old centuries, maybe even a bourgeois style. All together it seem VIP, as if it was an elite reunion, even if the audience dresses in the most miscellaneous ways: from the young ones in jeans to the elder marriages dressed up as if they were going to church, or the romantic couples boarding on a date shared with the stage. There, at this cultural VIP entrance, between the lights, the perfumes and a bit of a smell of tobacco is where the theatre experience starts.

Magnificent entrance to the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (Barcelona)

As it has been said a theatre is a business company, so it is very usual nowadays to find a shop or a stand at the very entrance of the building giving you the chance to buy the booklet or various merchandise. That is also an extra point of the theatre experience. I like to take a look at this little shops even if I won't buy anything. I don't want to buy a t-shirt with the show's poster printed on top, specially if even before buying it I already know it will end up being a summer pyjamas; but instead I like to collect the booklets, this little dictionaries of the play where you can find out a lot of things about the show or the actors, and sometimes they also include interviews to the director or the main stars.

At the shop we can also buy sweets, candy, chocolates or popcorn (although we associate this las ones to the cinema). All of them, anyway, the perfect companion while you access to the stalls area, feeling butterflies in your stomach while you look for your sit. First the row, then the sit number. Dammit! Is in the opposite site. Better if I go back that way. And probably the first thing you do once you are already sit is to look at the stage to see how you see it, if you see it. When you bought the tickets online the row seemed closer to the stage, or the sit more central. That is very possible, the stalls map they show you usually has strange and delusional optical effects. But soon or later you get use to it and you convince yourself that after all you will enjoy a good view of the show.

As the room gets crowded it starts to be loud and quackery. At the beginning it's only a few whispers but soon the voices get louder and for a moment you think you will hear nothing from your far position if they don't shut up all together. That can maybe be followed by a little moment of internal reflection, voluntary or not, when you hope you are going to enjoy the show you have chosen for that evening, and after you realise how much you like this atmosphere and decide you should do your best to go more to the theatre. And while I think about all this feelings and thoughts that the theatre experience brings to me I also think if they are the same for everyone. What are your feelings when you go to the theatre?

But slowly the lights turn off and they take with them all the chatty voices leaving only, again, a whisper in the aire. The curtain opens.

Ricard Gispert

@ricardgispert

Go back there!

- Tomorrow I'm going to the Tate Modern.

- I went there three years ago. You're gonna love it!

- Yes, I want also last year. It's great.

- Oh! Then why are you going back?

- ...

Maybe is because I really love museums but I have had this little conversation more than once. There is a lot of people who thinks of museums as collectibles from a catalog: I have visit it, I can cross it now from my list of museums to see, let's go for the next one. If a museum doesn't show temporary exhibitions it almost seems like we should forget about it, as if the permanent exhibition has no more to offer. But is not like that.

The London National Gallery is always adding little artworks
which qualifies its artistic discourse. Go back there!

Usually the “permanent” exhibition of a museum shows only a little part of the collection that they keep in the warehouse, and so the good museums try to have a little rotation with the exhibited artworks. That not only helps to a better conservation of the collection but it also creates an appealing reason for the visitors to come back after a while. Sometimes it is just an artwork replacing another one; but it also can be, and here is where in my point of view the thing gets interesting, a complete new distribution of the artworks. That second kind of change allow us the see again artworks we have already seen, but this time under new perspectives. For example, it could be that the first time we see a certain Caravaggio's still-life the museum shows it in the same room than the other works of the Italian painter, but after some years we go back and we find the same piece surrounded with still-life from other artists. Thereby the first time we see that artwork we perceive it as a part of Caravaggio's work, while on our next visit to that museum we can better appreciate the technical and style differences between all the still-life's.

Bilbao's Guggenheim offer is based on temporary exhibitions.
Go back there! whenever you can.

Besides from that main reason nowadays most museums have also a library open to the public and organize different activities and conferences, some of them even host contests, all of that to remember us that they are there waiting for our next visit. Sure you can also find your favourite museums online, not only with its own web page but also with Facebook and Twitter profiles to keep you informed with their news. Museum shops offer the chance to buy souvenirs with their main artworks on it, exhibition catalogues, books and drawing material; while some big museums have also a coffee shop or restaurant, a good place to host a nice and cultural dinner.

Therefore we encourage you to go back to the museums you have already visit, to repeat if you loved them or to give a second chance if their wasn't what you expected (maybe this time you will feel better in there). 21^st Century museums are, or at least they should be, alive institutions, full of life and movement, institutions that change, offer activities and want to interact with the audience. In my own experience there are museums where I have discover a new thing with every new visit. Take the chance this weekend with the International Museum Day and discover, or even better re-discover, the museums in your city.

Ricard Gispert

@ricardgispert

The riddle of modernity

The concern for being modern, for being trendy, it's not only a human life condition; it also happens in literature, for example all the novels with the same subject that came out after the success of a best-seller or even the fan-fics are a prove of that. But that concern can also be found in art subjects. That's how the different art movements arise: someone inspired tries to be original and changes the rounded arches for the highest lancet arches giving way from the Romanesque to the Gothic architecture; Edouard Monet started to paint outside instead of being closed in his study, his fellow contemporaries liked it and copy it. Originality becomes trendy and that is only break again when someone else original appears. That explains why we remember the virtuous who generate changes but most of artist who copy the new style just remain anonymous forever. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

African masks/ a portrait by Pablo Picasso

But also at the same time in art, like in trends, everything is cyclical. The bell-bottom trousers are back, or the thick plastic frame glasses... The old stuff that once was left aside is now original again. Otherwise what is vintage fashion? Well then in art it happens exactly the same: the Renaissance raises the balance and harmony typical of the Greece-Roman classic art, afterwards it comes the Baroque filling up everything with ornaments and recharged compositions that will only stop with the Neoclassicism, a new return to Greece-Roman art. Thus century after century, cycle after cycle, we arrive to contemporary art, which seems to ignore the cycle: everything is innovation and every new change looks like a complete break with all previous art. Precisely “break with everything” was the idea that contemporary artist had in mind; but intentionally or not it all still feels like a return to earlier periods. Art feeds itself. Pablo Picasso's cubism is inspired in the African traditional masks while Andy Warhol's works, despite the innovation of the technique, are just new interpretations of the portrait and the still-life, two of the main topics in Baroque paintings.

The physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living, Damien Hirst (1991)

And that's how we get to Damien Hirst, a very controversial British artist in recent decades for his work with dead animals preserved in formaldehyde. Death, the main topic in Hirst's artworks, has always been deeply laden with symbolism and a strong personal meaning. A lot of artworks talk about death, but if we use death as a tool and not only as a theme: outrage! A lot of people would say “that is not art”. Aberrations of contemporary art! But, oddly, Damien Hirst hasn't been the first one in using corpses to express himself artistically. To prove it we invite you to go to Rome and visit Santa Maria della Concezione dei Capuccini's crypt. The brave who dare to go in will discover a peculiar 17^th Century decoration which the Cappuccin monks made with the bones of its ancestors: skeletons turned into statues, altars made entirely with skulls, barrel vaults decorated with tibias and pelvis... It has nothing to envy to Hirst's shark in formaldehyde.

That is the riddle of modernity: what it's now modern is what it used to be old. Two opposite poles which are touched by the tips. So now we invite you to play a little game with the comments. Help us find more examples of modern art that can be linked with ancient art.

Ricard Gispert

@ricardgispert

Shirts, oak trees and social art

"The Blue Route", Kaarina Kaikkonen (2013)
at Fabrica space in Brighton & Hove

During this May it will be easy to find clothes hanging on the street of Brighton & Hove coinciding with the Brighton Festival. That will be the second part of the installation “The Blue Route” which is already on display at the Fabrica gallery. The project started with the Brighton Dome collecting old shirts from the citizens, as the Finnish artists Kaarina Kaikkonen works always with second-hand everyday objects, and it's her work to later on create this sort of collage with the clothes that match her design.

Why shirts? Easy. Because, in Kaarina Kaikkonen's own words, “a shirt is the closest to the heart. The person is there.” Such a bucolic step from the intimacy of a personal shirt to the opposite immensity associated to the colour blue that names the artwork; but in this way, once the work is finished, the spectator not only can play to find its shirt between the crowd but also ends up finding himself as part of the artwork, giving to it new subjective interpretative values. However, the citizen who has give his shirt will become also part of a social workshop once the Brighton Festival is over: all the shirts collected, the ones finally used in the artwork and the ones excluded, will be given to Oxfam. So in this case the social function of the art turns into a practical side.

Joseph Beuys' rocks at Documenta 7
as he left them

Art has always had this social function, either extolling the virtues of a particular social class as in more traditional artistic performances or as a criticism of social and political systems, a concept much more contemporary; but there are not that much the artworks in which the social function implies something beyond the concept like giving more than 100 shirts to charity. Perhaps one of the first remarkable examples of this kind of art are Joseph Beuys' “social sculptures”, a true believer in art as a power for the revolutionary change. 

Once moved the rocks and oak tree was
 planted next to their new location

Thus in the Documenta 7 in 1982 Beuys spread a pile of basalt rocks, which from an air-view could be seen as a big arrow pointing an oak tree that he had planted. Afterwards he announced that the rocks should only be moved if they planted an oak tree to its new site. As a result of this initiative 7,000 oak trees were planted in Kessel, Germany. I can be said that the social and environmental change that Beuys sought was more than achieved.

So let's not participate a little in the comments below: what do you think about “social art”? Do you know any other artworks like that? In which art social project would you like to take part? Or which one could we create ourselfs?

Ricard Gispert
@ricardgispert

Don't Cry For Me Argentina

 “Don't Cry For Me Argentina” as it was sung by Madonna in the 1996 film version of the musical Evita (1976), a work by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. If I were Argentinian I would cry too, but because of the musical. I'm not talking about technical or theatrical reasons, and even less about the music, I'm complaining for the historic facts that Evita represents, or rather for HOW these are represented.

It is true that, even if for me Eva Perón (1919-1952) was a fighter with very modern ideas, when she was alive she already was object of controversy and her followers were as many as her detractors; but that just gives even more reason to be careful when making a musical of her biography. However, the British duo based their work in The woman with a wipe, the first anti-peronist biography written by Mary Main in 1952 when cancer killed the Argentinian actress and politician. The result is a booklet in which the morality of our protagonist is in doubt: a woman who leaves home as the lover of a guitarist man, who uses men to move forward in her artistic career, who marries Juan Perón because of the social advantages and who runs charity events only for her own benefit. No wonder that shortly after the musical's première Nicholas Fraser and Marysa Navarro published a more neutral biography: The Real Lives of Eva Perón.

Hence Evita is one more example of the importance of the historians (Hollywood gives us examples with almost every historic film they produce). It is not enough to have a good story it also needs to be accurate with the historic facts; and that implies that one source of information isn't enough to get to the true. We can never know which flaws might have the source and that is why is necessary to contrast it. Even if in 1976 Rice and Webber could only count on Mary Main's work as the only written biography existent, sure they could had newspapers or even witnesses to talk to. Or at least they could have drawn a profile of the book's author so they could know how accurate it would be. But of course they chose a much easier path. And now I ask you: how would have British people reacted if two Argentinian had made a musical trivializing Margaret Thatcher? I guess it's something unthinkable in the 70's when the north hemisphere had some kind of absurd moral superiority against the south hemisphere, but what would happen nowadays? Has the situation changed enough?

Ricard Gispert
@ricardgispert

Touch me!

Neuenschwander installation

This last months Barcelona's CaixaForum hosts the series Què pensar? Què desitjar? Què fer? (What to think? What to wish? What to do?) from La Caixa's collection of contemporary art, divided into three periods. Until Abril 8^th we can see the artwork from the second part of the series, the one called Què desitjar?, where we'll find one of the most iconic installations of the series, which actually gives name to this particular period: I wish your wish, by Brazilian artist Rivane Neuenschwander. The work is a big polyethylene panel that covers all the wall and from which are hanged thousands of coloured ribbons with wishes the artist asked her friends to write. We can find from “I wish other people's wishes to come true”, like “I wish to make friends at school”, “I wish a fairer world” or “I wish I could travel in time and space”. The viewer stands suddenly in front of the whole range of ribbons and a small poster announcing the rules of the game: "Chose a wish and take it with you. Tie it to your wrist with two rounds and three knots” in the same way of the bracelets we used to wear when we were kids. Thus a link is established between the visitor's childhood and the artwork, spending minutes and minutes looking for the wish that best suits you and, often, looking after the room's guard double-checking if the ribbons can be taken for real. Leaving aside Neuenschwander work, so tender and original, I wanted to talk about our difficulty to play with art, to touch artwork. The history of our art and culture has taught us that art has somehow like an aura (if I am aloud once more to take Walter Benjamin as a reference), away and high, being a sacrilege to touch it; but we are forgetting that sometimes contemporary art is made to play with it, to interact, and this it is not complete until the viewer intervention. It seems hard for us to interact with artwork, we use to think it is something forbidden. We ask for permission to guides or guards, and even if we have been told we can touch or we have read instructions, we act taken by a prohibitive anxiety. An example I remember is when I visited the Museo Vostell Malpartida in Cáceres (Spain), where there were various artwork you had to interact with, like chairs you needed to sit on or a room full of dirt you had to clean or mess with a hover, according to your personality. Or the 54^th Venetian Biennial, in 2011, where at the Spanish Pavilion entrance two assistants startled the visitor with personal questions while making them walk over a tiled path that was part of the installation.

It seems to be hard when we have, when we can touch an artwork, it still seems like a blasphemy against art, but at the same time we feel the joy of reaching what is forbidden; that's why from Cultural Crops we encourage you fervently to participate, touch and play with the artwork because it is, at last, a two way game between author-artwork-receptor.

Guiomar Sánchez

@guiomar_sp

Portraits

Julius II (1512) Rfaello Sanzio

We can find it in many museums: portraits of Popes, Kings, nobles and courtiers. Nowadays we admire it as an artwork, but every portrait is also a historical document of a time and a specific ideology. Art is not only about beauty. What makes a work to be art is precisely its link with the context and, in the case of Renaissance and Baroque portraits, WHO was the person portrayed and why. Hence it is through art that the most important characters of an age are immortalized and every portrait becomes a reminder of their legacy.

For example one of the most prominent names of the Hight Renaissance would be Pope Julius II, the Warrior Pope and also Michelangello's and Rafaello's patron. But which contemporary artist could leave us a portrait of the new Pope Francis I? In the effort to preserve our past aren't we ignoring our own footprint? The answer is no. What really happens is that our footprint has changed over the centuries so the right question here will be: What will we find in futur museum when we look to portraits of our the 21st Century?

Marilyn Monroe (1960's) Andy Warhol

The figures we see immortalized in contemporary art are no longer the political and religious leaders, these groups are not anymore the most important for our society. Think about famous portraits of the 20^th Century. Probably one of the most famous would be Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe. The show business! The most important characters of our time, those that are now immortalized, are singers, actors and athletes. What would we see in futur museums showing our age? Lady Gaga's portrait.

Ricard Gispert
@ricardgispert

Burninig culture

Aerial view of the fire

These past days a bitter story took the media: Naples was on fire. Monday morning the Naples Science Museum burned – or rather was set on fire, as it is suspected it was the Neapolitan Camorra. The so called Città della Scienza had consumed while the firefighters tried to extinguish the fire throughout the day. Damages are incalculable and only one of the buildings could had been saved. Obviously that represents an important grievance because of the amount of employees that now remain without a job as well because of the almost total destruction of the museum buildings and its heritage but, especially, we should remember the “City of Science” was one of the biggest investments of the city in the past years. With a high capital it had been built a modern museum with lots of interactive spaces, as it is used in the science museums; with touch screens, audiovisuals, and all kind high-tech new and expensive elements. Leaving aside the utility, sustainability and profitability of the project, the fact is that it had been decided to invest in this project and now in the course of one day everything is lost. So I ask myself, which value have today museums, culture and heritage around us? Which social influence has something that can be burned without regrets? Since long time ago armed conflicts have led to a loose in heritage materials, besides some kind of “right” interventions, like the fact of spoliation, which helped to save part of the material, or like the withdrawal of artworks during the 20^th Century wars, when the importance of the national heritage was starting to be looked after. However it is not even necessary to look to the past century, that still happens in the Middle East, where almost all the archeological heritage have been destroyed, or during the Arab Spring in Egypt, when a lot of mummies where taken off the museums. Watch out, though! Do not misunderstood my words and fall into a banal "save people regardless of culture" as that hapless David Bisbal's tweet in which the Spanish singer lamented the loss of tourism in Egypt because of the armed conflicts. The problem here is the low importance of art, culture and heritage in our society, harming it or even leaving it to die. In the same way that it's hard to see the heritage being lost because of a war it is also griefful to see it spoiled and forgotten, leaving it to the extent of criminal acts, violence or vandalism.

Guiomar Sánchez
@guiomar_sp

Art trade in times of crisis

One of the main worries of this historical period in which we are living is the purpose of capital investment and the benefits that they generate. It is for this reason that the commercialization of Art has been also included in this universe, but in a wider sense. What it is meant by the last statement is that Art is not only listed by its materiality, but since the end of the last century and especially in these first two decades of our century, many of the leading artistic productions intrinsically linked a philosophical and intellectual value that releases most of its materiality, becoming even a part of a completely Conceptual Art. However, art investors commit paying for this thought which makes us completely modern and contemporary in the world we are living.

Perhaps these words may be an offence for an expert, but it would be incorrect not to accept that the art world has been related to the trade practices almost from its inception. Therefore, considering this as a value linked to the history of art, we will look to how these productions are evaluated and how is surviving the art market in these difficult times that we living.

According to the academics, nowadays there is a remarkable difference between economic value for the old paintings -everything produced before the 20^th Century- and for contemporary productions. This is based on the high prices for Contemporary Art, which as we have said before is an art mostly paid for its conceptual and intellectual value. While art considered as “ancient” remains on stable prices and transactions, Contemporary Art gets to move about $ 60 million annually in the art market. Although these calculations include also the antiquities and decorative art's markets, anyway the thing is that the artistic world is about big numbers, or at least that's what the data show for now. Unfortunately the critical situation has also affected the world of buying and selling art. While before it was recognized that the bad economic situation had interfered the maintenance and management of the artistic heritage, nowadays, from a commercial or particular point of view, the situation has gone through a substantial decrease both on the artistic production and its commercialism worldwide, as London and New York still stand as cores of the artistic trade.

The two factions of Art mentioned respond and are governed by different laws and principles, according to the economic times in which they are. If until now the great economic bubble had opted for Contemporary Art as speculative goods, especially in the inverter collector profile, the new situation redirects the expectations in the fields of the art market. Currently, in accordance with the recessionary times we live in, the economic change projects its capital investment towards the solid markets of Ancient Art.

One of the clearest and more relevant examples showing this economical situation is the galleries and artists fair in Madrid, now on its 32th edition of ARCO, held last month in the Spanish capital. This edition also was affected by the bad economic situation affecting both the conditions of the exhibition and the works presented by the galleries and artists. Therefore, all the preparations to shape this event were performed in a more contained way, adapting art shows to the current and real world conditions. While it is reason enough to prepare the art fair for the current crisis, another fact is added as a border for the commercial development of contemporary art: the application of the 21% VAT in culture, which is presented by the galleries as the most negative point for its commercial development. This makes them confirm that Spanish galleries are not competitive against other states or countries, while there is also a weakness in the Spanish artists. Throughout this it is also very difficult to find and present the most controversial and ground-breaking artwork, as the productions adapt to the market conditions and the taste of general customer, regardless of all creative genius. However, other opinions do not completely condemn the situation and opt for a more optimistic adaptation to reality.

Finally, we will give an end to this little reflection on the current state of the art market, with Urroz's words, president of ARCO, who reflects on the art market that the business is important when it has been affected by the loss of purchasing power of public institutions, and therefore, must watch the market towards larger collectors and individuals. To put it simply, in difficult times we must opt for the less cost effective solution, so as not to reach the end of the trading of Contemporary Art, even if for a lot of people it is not seen as a very correct solution.

Antoni Obiols

Slave trade

Street Art is probably one of the more controversial types of contemporary art. The artist leaves his mark on the street, usually in a wall which doesn't belong to him, so the author of an artwork is not entirely the owner. Neither is it the building owner, as it becomes a part of the street not of the building, so in most cases it's the local authority who will take care of it. Art as a property that can't be sold is an idea from the early twentieth century with artists such as Marcel Duchamp with his ready-made works, which were already critic with the art trading system. Street Art, as an art belonging to the street, began with good premises to avoid falling into the elite of art trade... or am I wrong?

Slave Labour (2012), the disappeared graffity represents a child sewing 

flags of the UK and is interpreted as a criticism of poorly paid job with 

which London has been fittedsouvenirs for the Olympic Games.

Thanks to the persistent criticism and protests the auction house Fine Arts Auction Miami has removed a Banksy artwork which since two weeks ago was in a random wall of a London suburb. Frederic Thut, owner of the FAAM, has said they always check the legitimacy of all the sellers to prevent trading stolen works; although Scotland Yard, London's Metropolitan Police, has said there had been no theft report for this specific but someone just decided to remove it to sell it: "there is no evidence that any crime was committed”. Do not think so residents of the borough of Haringey who had mobilized to stop the auction and return the artwork, that they see as a gift from Banksy to the community, to its place. Luckily it seems that this time is the people united who wins and the artwork will not be auctioned.

The human desire to possess more, inadvertently becoming a salve of his own possessions, has led to Street Art not being longer safe of speculation and anyone seems free to take off a piece of wall and sell it to the highest bidder. In that case the artist remains over of any equation and not only doesn't get any profit but also sees helpless how his criticism to the system inevitably ends up being part of it. Or maybe am I wrong again and I should consider that as the artist is damaging other people's property without permission nobody should either ask for his permission to do whatever they want with his artwork?

McCulture or The Sleep of Globalization Produces Monsters

There has been a controversy in the last months: Barcelona will open, now definitely, a branch of the St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum, near the city port, next to the Hotel Vela. Looks like good news. The Hermitage brand will give reputation to the city and more tourist will come delighting to take pictures with the beautiful architecture and buying F.C. Barcelona T-shirts and souvenirs. But what will exactly happen? Which will be the reality for the city? On one hand part of the city founding will be for that new museum, reducing the amount that would be for other museums like MACBA (Barcelona's Museum of Contemporary Art) or MNAC (National Museum of Catalan Art); on the other hand those ones will lose visitors because, if now already the city visitors go first to the Pedrera and Sagrada Familia and visit, only if they have time, the Fundació Miró o MNAC, now with an Hermitage in the city they will have even less time to visit this “second class” museums – second class according to their international diffusion. Hence we can think: is it really necessary? Does Barcelona need an Hermitage branch? Couldn't the MNAC had been used to show the temporary exhibitions that will come? Because it seems that this is the only function that this new museum is going to have. The thing is that it sound so well to say “Hermitage Barcelona” as it sound to say “Hermitage Amsterdam” or “Hermitage Ferrara”. Franchises like Starbucks or McDonald's, which every town wants to have one because people visits it and they know what to expect. Beloved sons of globalization, where the artworks move around stereotyped museums, with an equal museographic model in each branch – like all the Starbucks have the same seats, giving to the visitor this security of space acknowledge.

Project for the Hermitage branch in Barcelona

But on the other hand, we must consider that the world is changing and increasingly we have to accept that museums, art centres and other institutions will acquire, increasingly, pastime and marketing aspects. However is not bad at all to think about art as a pastime. That would maybe offend the most conservative, but as we have said the world is changing and with it also people and hobbies. Benjamin already announced that with the aura's fall: it's art as a mass product what it's successful, and an Hermitage branch in Barcelona will make the city grow. But let's take a look at this new museum's placement: next to the Hotel Vela, in a luxurious complex where tourists will take the chance to have some lunch or even book a room at high prices. In the case of Barcelona this is just a fledgling seed, but this could make us think on extremer cases like Abu Dhabi's complexes. Art will be again part of the elites? After all the efforts the Nouvelle Muséologie has taken in socialize the museum making it closer to the humble classes, now we are taking giant footsteps backwards to the big “monsters” -Louvre, Guggenheim...- inside luxurious complexes with golf courses, swimming pools and five stars hotels. Not everyone has the sources to visit that kind of complexes and visit those museums. As some already said, human beens move forward in technology but not in humanity. Oh! If Riviére could see us...

Guiomar Sánchez
@guiomar_sp

I don't like Tàpies

A la memòria de Salvador Puig Antich, Antoni Tàpies, 1974

The Museum of Modern Art of Tarragona has organized an exhibition in homage to Antoni Tàpies, who passed a year ago, and I love contemporary art but I have never ever liked Tàpies. I am no ashamed to say it: there are contemporary art artists I don't like or even artworks I would never name as that. But don't get alarmed, it is not a crime, even if for years they tried to make us see it like that, in contemporary art is not about all or nothing, to love it or hate it. Contemporary art is about being critic, to judge and comment.

Some days ago I did a little experiment with a friend of mine who “doesn't like” contemporary art and so I took him to a very very contemporary art display. Before going inside I asked him what he expected from a work to consider it as art and the answer was clear: beauty, technique and being able to understand it. Soon his nightmare began: white canvas with only two lines, amorphous gum sculptures, projections of single images with nonrhythmic music... but my idea soon started to work out and I saw him standing in front of a painting which technique he liked, later another one he thought was beautiful enough and finally in the last room of the display my friend understood the message of an artwork. Maybe that wasn't the same message the author had in mind, but it was a message, the one my friend was able to find out. Step by step and with some effort my dear friend had a first agreement with contemporary art and I am sure in future displays he will be able to find more and more artworks with the features he required for an artwork, and even maybe he'll find an artwork with all the three features.

So that's exactly what the contemporary art is about: to watch the artworks with a critic opinion or even a meaning that only it's valuable four ourselves. Artists don't do “closed circles” as in Renaissance when they painted with a certain canon of beauty, a precise technique and a series of iconographic images to teach us the only true meaning of the artwork. In contemporary art we could talk about “open circles” where everything is possible, where there's is no canon of beauty because that's a subjective quality, technique can easily be the result of artist's experimentation and the artwork's meaning is not complete until the viewer interacts with it being critic and judge. All this variability implies we don't need to like or understand everything. I have found some artworks I didn't like because I wasn't able to understand it; works of the mature period of an author in which he talks about feelings linked to elderly and therefore I am too young to completely get the meaning of what he is expressing. In the same way after a few years in some artworks I have re-discovered new values I wasn't able to see when I was younger. As contemporary art isn't complete until the interaction with the viewer, the final result and meaning of the artwork will always depend on the age of the viewer and its cultural background.

Finally, if you have really tried to understand contemporary art with an open mind, if you have made an effort to complete the artworks' meaning but still you don't see what's up, let's say out loud: “I don't like contemporary art!”. Once you have tried to understand it to not like contemporary art is as permissible as to though Romanesque art is boring or Baroque too burdensome. In the art's world deny contemporary art seems to be as punished as saying that Quixote is heavy duty; and it shouldn't be like that because if, as we have said, it is a subjective art it is totally normal that not everyone sees it in the same way. But if you are going to admit you don't like contemporary art just do it right, with your own arguments and values. No more topics like “even a child could do that” or “you can do this only when you are already a famous artist”. If we are brave enough to say we don't like it we have to be also brave to admit maybe it is because we don't have the necessary tools or knowledge to appreciate it properly. Meanwhile I still don't like Antoni Tapies' art.

Ricard Gispert

@ricardgispert