Cultural Policies and Populism

23.4.09

In just under a month, controversies linked to the
José Guerrero
art centers in Granada and
Sala Rekalde
in Bilbao have spread across the internet and reached us through various channels (via the website of
Aulabierta
, for example). These add to the mess that was made in Barcelona regarding the
Centre d’Art Santa Mònica
and the controversy sparked by the management of Manuel Olveira at the head of the
CGAC
.

We would almost dare to say that intrusiveness in culture is endemic in the political class, since for better or worse culture is not and cannot be a neutral field (as Ángeles González-Sinde, Minister of Culture, recently stated in this interview from El País). Culture is, among other things, the place where we all fight to capitalize on the specific benefits that this field provides, and this is more than evident when the local particularities of this type of skirmishes are known. Perhaps a radical overcoming of this accumulative and proprietary paradigm involves understanding and “performing” culture as a truly common space.

The latter has nothing to do with the number of visitors to art centers, a populist and demagogic argument frequently wielded in this type of controversy and which leads to an even more despotic situation, such as the spectacularization of culture. But it seems that in these times of economic crisis, part of the political class has begun to think that the people do not look favorably on public money being used for things as elitist as those art centers that nobody attends and in which things are done that nobody understands. Since the administration of public affairs is at the heart of all these messes, perhaps we should dedicate part of our efforts to thinking about what the word “people” means, or rather, how it functions in the mouth of each person.

In Granada, a platform has already been set up to defend the continuity of the José Guerrero Center and gather support, and in Bilbao, a letter of support signed by “professionals representing different areas and sensitivities of the art sector” has been made public, about which you can find out here in the ptqk_blogzine, as well as about the entire controversy regarding the dismissal of its director, Pilar Mur.