Experts call for state support for contemporary art

Prague, Jan 11 (CTK) - Czech gallery heads and art historians have called on the Culture Ministry to allocate money to the purchases of contemporary art works for the museums and galleries operated by the state, regions and towns.

The Culture Ministry says is does not know the parametres of its 2013 budget yet, however.

Its spokeswoman Marketa Sevcikova said it was not very probable that some extra money would be found in the budget for the establishment of a brand new programme of subsidies. The existing ones have been cut for a couple of years in a row, she recalled.

The authors of the appeal point out that young artists, especially those working with new media, are in a bad financial situation.

The art museums and galleries are ignoring contemporary artifacts, created by artists aged around 30 and 40, in their acquisition policy, the appeal says.

One of the reasons is the lack of finances. However, it is also more demanding to get acquainted with and assess the current progressive art than old masters and modernism.

Consequently, there is gap in the art institutions' collections concerning more than three generations of artists who entered the scene after the collapse of the communist regime in 1989, experts say.

According to art historians, state support for the purchases of contemporary art could change the undesirable situation.

It should be based on a grant system in which the respective museums and galleries could bid for subsidies. The acquisitions should be limited to "free art" works and the artist's age under 40 years, for instance.

The state support should cover only a part of the purchasing price up to, for instance, 70,000 crowns, and the number of applications should be limited to five per an institution a year. The institution would pay the rest of the costs.

The Culture Ministry supports projects in the sphere of theatre, music, dance, plastic arts and literature in a grant system.

However, the grants have been considerably decreasing in the past few years. The programme of the ministry's support to galleries and museums was functioning for only a year after its establishment in 2008 over the insufficient funding.

($=19.545 crowns)