Post-war Western societies, confident in their economic and political choices, have long turned officially to the arts. Political power has incorporated the arts into its realm of interests, sometimes to control them and other times as a pretext for its fundamental indifference towards them. Yet, the art of politics hardly accommodates art itself. The latter requires explorations and balances of interests, strategic planning, and goals—dimensions unknown, if not detrimental, to art. True, art has always had dependent and contentious relationships with the prevailing powers. The artist was the emancipated jester, voicing the truths he believed in, not those the ruler wished to hear. Yet, there were times when rulers understood artists' truths, even if inconvenient, and better still, were in a position to appreciate and even inspire their work. A challenge necessary for the artist, who contrary to popular belief, needs commissions, as the terror of uncertain artistic outcomes distances him from creation and offers excuses instead of motivation.
The enlightened ruler of bygone times knew that to leave a glorious memory through time, it was necessary to associate his name with works of art. The artist found in the shadow of each power, whether political or religious, both financial and moral support, without which he could not survive. However, this relationship often deprived the artist of his critical clarity, as his need for financial and moral affirmation made him a blind ally to dangerous powers. This has been seen often, even during the grim interwar years, with famous names that history has chosen (perhaps rightly) to forget. In the end, it is always the power that benefits the most from this relationship.
In the post-war era, power succumbed to the dictates of propaganda and the arguments of advertising rhetoric. Governments, impressed by the philosophy and effectiveness of private enterprise policies, almost automatically adopted their methods and assessments. The protection of art became part of a policy aimed at cultivating an image according to the dictates of advertising. However, according to this logic, what matters is the immediate and the obvious, not the substantial and enduring. If the opposite were true, power would show much greater interest in artistic education, which ensures longevity and depth in artistic production, without, however, being able to promise immediate benefits that power at that moment requires.
An event that significantly affected the relationship between the artist and power is the gap, which first appeared in the middle of the last century and peaked in recent years, between artistic creation and its acceptance by broader social strata. This gap led many worthy creators either to practical inability to create, as happened with arts requiring high production costs (e.g., performing arts), or to substantial artistic isolation and inactivity. At the same time, it gave rise to the distinction between the art of merchants and the art of creators. The former, although not inherently bad, began to be guided by the demands and average tastes of the broader public rather than by the vision and creative perspective of the artist, resulting in it being defined more by market laws than by artistic concerns. The entertainment industry, powerful and often producing aesthetically pleasing results, is an extreme form of this, where its outcomes are insufficient to replace the label of commercial products with that of works of art.
The latter, the art whose primary concern is the dialogue of the artist with his own inner world and the language of the medium he uses, found itself more dependent than ever on power, since only power can allow the birth and possibly the spread of a work of art, and even more so one that requires high amounts for its production. Thus, an art that likes to claim the accolades of uniqueness found itself dependent on the quintessential conservatism expressed by whichever power is in office.
However, there is a fundamental difference between the era of enlightened, albeit absolute, powers and today's political governments. The democratic management of power does not allow the existence of state officials who operate like the old patrons. The personal choices of ministers or officials cannot be a safe guide to behavior, especially one that ensures good external testimony. Moreover, if it is somewhat dangerous for art to be directed by the personal preferences of one person, it is infinitely more undesirable for it to depend on the preferences of a state organ, necessarily covered under the weight of democratic procedures and institutions. Modern democratic powers cannot, nor should they, turn into technocrats, nor is it their role to provide directions in cultural policy. They cannot be covered behind the impersonal neutrality of unyielding and precise democratic processes while simultaneously being charmed by the exercise of an arbitrary policy of personal choices.
The questions (and the corresponding traps) that power would have to face in exercising a cultural policy are approximately as follows, although the enumeration of them is not restrictive: a) Is there a need for a Ministry of Culture? b) If the answer to the previous question is yes, then where does the concept of "culture" begin and end? c) Will power attempt to "give an artistic line" according to its own goals or the personal perceptions of its organs? d) Will it exercise through its cultural policy a policy of other areas, e.g., external, social, etc.? e) Will it create cliques of "state" artists or will it follow democratic procedures and perceptions? f) Will it favor and enhance those who have already shown significant "samples of writing" or will it focus on the young and unknown? g) Will it simply assist or fully cover every production? h) By what means will it select and by what criteria will it judge the work and the artists?
The answers to these questions are neither easy nor absolute. And quite naturally, they are also influenced by the particularities of each form of art. However, the solutions that seem more logical, or at least constitute more logical starting points for contemplation, are as follows: The creation of a special Ministry of Culture does not seem necessary. After all, it is encountered more as an exception rather than a rule. The various activities of such a ministry could be subject to various competent ministries. Nor is it necessary for each activity that takes on greater importance in times to be established as a ministry, which may later be merged with another, change its name, or even be abolished. Such an arrangement may be politically convenient for a government, but it does not create stability and institutions.
If, however, such a ministry exists, it is reasonable to ask what its subject is. Because indeed the term culture is broader than art or culture. The Latin-rooted terms civilization and culture more accurately define the problem and distinction. If, therefore, we accept that culture encompasses other areas beyond art, then sports rightly form part of the said ministry. But then why not include many other areas that equally express or concern the broader culture and relate to garden decoration, taxi driver behavior, street bollards, or beach palm trees? And if the conservation of our antiquities is included in the responsibilities of this specific ministry, why should it not also be part of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Public Works, or possibly a Ministry of Tourism? Since there is such a ministry, let us only deal with the part of it that is related to the support, cultivation, and support of the arts, a topic that, at least, concerns us.
The role of power towards Art is not, of course, to generate it, to substitute it, or to direct it. It should simply ensure favorable conditions for development and sufficient space for survival. It is, therefore, a "technocratic" and not an artistic activity. A country, therefore, has the type, extent, and quality of art that its artists choose and are able to serve, not the one chosen and favored by the rulers. In other words, power does not intervene, but helps.
This role is generally fulfilled firstly by the financial support of artistic activities, secondly by ensuring suitable conditions and circumstances for the development of the arts, and thirdly by facilitating the presentation of the works and their communication with the domestic and foreign public. A very important role in this effort must be played by artistic education, which will contribute to the creation of future artists but also to the creation of a trained public. The State must play its compensatory role here against - very logically and democratically - free private initiative, whose springs, whether noble or humble, usually serve other purposes beyond art - although not necessarily contradictory to it. Precisely because the State has the general educational responsibility, but also simultaneously the luxury of ignoring the commercial logic of supply and demand, it must place special emphasis on introducing artistic reflection, artistic history, and the artistic event in the years of basic education and morally and financially support every effort that moves in this direction.
A big mistake (a mistake also made in other European countries) is to judge the type and quality of supported artistic activities by the simultaneous service of other purposes and areas of government policy. Even if these areas have great value and importance for the social whole and for the well-understood exercise of politics for the sake of this whole, it must be realized that the benefits that arise from the development of the arts, although undoubtedly, are long-term and measured qualitatively and not quantitatively. If this is not accepted, then any discussion about state support for the arts is superfluous, and it would be more honorable and more effective to follow with the State a process similar to that which prevails in private sponsorships, where satisfaction of measurable and ultimately economic results is weighed. The benefits that directly or indirectly, short-term or long-term, result for the broader government policy from supporting the arts are incidental and welcome, but they do not constitute the main motives for a cultural policy.
The temptation of power to use the arts for yet another reward for its friends of all kinds is also great, all the more so nowadays when the invested amounts are on an increasing trajectory. And it is probably certain that this disease, which affects many government activities in many different countries, is difficult to eradicate completely. Nevertheless, in the field of art, it is particularly necessary for good external testimony to operate, precisely because the criteria are qualitative and not measurable. And it is certain that as the level of artistic education of citizens rises, even government favor will necessarily be expressed from a point of artistic quality and above. In other words, nepotism, favors, and bribing, on their way to the desired disappearance, are increasingly approaching meritocracy.
There are two ways for power to convince of the impartiality of its choices and thus to ensure itself and to protect the artists themselves. Firstly, to adopt and observe with great respect flexible but fair procedures and secondly to start from the living material that already serves the arts. Those, that is, who have already, regardless of the interest of the State, expressed their devotion and their service to the arts. These two presuppose state organs, and especially ministers, with reduced, or even better non-existent, personal artistic ambitions and with discretely formulated, or even better unknown, artistic positions and opinions. The cultured technocrat, in the end, is a much better choice than the talented and ingenious artist for filling a state position in the field of culture.
Another recent mania of many cultural policy state rulers around the world is the creation of institutions. Perhaps in this way, they reassure their artistic sterility through indirect organizational relief. However, in art, institutions are created by the presence of artists and their work. There are so many examples of institutions that flourished under the presence of an artist (and often also a teacher and organizer), who is usually also their founder, to wither under their successors, that it is futile to continue hoping that the opposite might happen. The semi-state "institutions" organized are usually places for the care of salaried workers, opportunities for the waste of money, occasions for the satisfaction of favors, and causes for bureaucratic entanglements. If those administering the institutions are appointed or controlled (as is usually the case) by the supervising state authority, no substantial autonomy is served. Since all this has been proven in the practice of foreign states, why should we hope that in our country, where the above negative phenomena have deeper roots, the results will be happier?
Therefore, for the exercise of state cultural policy, a competent department in the competent Ministry, staffed with a few and capable cultural managers, whose task would be the recording and support of the existing artistic potential of the country, would suffice. This potential, as it is responsible for the production of its artistic work, will also be responsible for the creation of the institutions it needs and can support itself. The State will come to cover and enhance what already exists outside of it. It is quite strange and contradictory in an era of privatizations in the economy to invest so much hope in the nationalization of the arts.
Nevertheless, precisely because of the meritocratic impartiality of the cultural power managers, the presence of an advisory body is required, which in each art would advise the power by opining on the artistic quality of the people, works, and plans. The weight of these opinions could be invested with binding effect, although the most important thing would be that the merely advisory opinion would constitute a moral obligation, from which power could not deviate without sufficient and justified reasons. The composition of such an advisory body would change annually, either entirely or partially, but the opinions would also be public and justified.
The first and foremost task of power must be the recording of the artistic potential of the country. The artists, the teachers of the arts, the spaces, and the activities, the artistic past, and the artistic presence of all should constitute the starting point of every planning. After all, the State will enhance what exists. It cannot and should not create something to enhance it. This is also linked to two other parameters of the above questions. The percentage of enhancement and the artistic past of those subsidized. According to the logic supported above, the absolutely private character of art would not be reconciled with the complete and paternalistic adoption of the artist and his work by the State. For an artistic institution to be sustainable or to provide the hope of a successful conclusion to an artistic project, the creator must take risks and invest himself and simply be morally and materially supported by power. However, the latter should not undertake the full coverage of the work, as then we would have the corresponding problems of nationalized economic units. Private artistic initiative would then not constitute an initiative, since it would not be combined with personal artistic risk. Otherwise, the state becomes a producer of works, and the artist an employee of it. The artist wants and must create with or without the state and with every possible sacrifice. He wants and must communicate with his audience, however limited it may be. The state will be a helper in this madness, or at least make it seem less mad than it really is, but it should never turn it into a state work of art. The artist should be able to count on state sponsorship, but also exist without it. For this reason, the State will always be a co-producer of the work, covering perhaps the largest, but not all, of the production and promotion costs. This will give it the opportunity to support more artists, reducing the chances of injustices. Because it is better to support one more untalented creator than to ignore one more talented one.
Yet again, we should not overlook the existing sample of the artist's work. It may not make much sense for the State to assist artists who do not really need it. Those whose economic surface and fame are sufficient for the production and promotion of their work. Of course, moral recognition is certainly necessary. However, it is not quite right (again through the logic of the previous record) for the State to aid the emergence of artists who did not exist until its intervention. Power distributes its economic and moral strength among those who are already struggling in the field of art. Moreover, without at least a small past, any evaluative judgment will not be feasible and supportable.
Every attempt to precisely delineate the terms of support and promotion of artists and their work, every effort to encircle the criteria with legal or quasi-legal terms, will complicate the substantive work of the competent managers, without of course ensuring the integrity of their decisions. The latter is achieved with conscience, not legal provisions. Therefore, it makes no sense to precisely define the percentages, to temporally restrict the past, to numerically exclude repetitions and above all to attempt to define art and its quality. These will be conquered over time and with the rise of the level and consciousness of the artists and all kinds of curators, managers, and bodies. And then the public's trust will have been conquered as well. It also makes no sense to formulate directions that serve specific goals and purposes, not insignificant, but of lesser scope than the timelessness and universality of art. Surely the respective judges will be swayed by their personal tendencies. However, it would be suffocating and criminal for the freedom of the artist to emphasize and impose criteria related to nations, religions, races, social or political views, or whatever else ultimately serves even noble purposes during the various artistic judgments. Because we must not forget that those who imposed similar, even contemptible and dangerous, restrictions in the past also had the belief in the superior significance of an extracurricular goal. Let the creator be free with only the laws of society as a limit.
Finally, let it be noted as outrageously offensive the exclusion of natural persons from state subsidies as inherently suspect of abuse. It is extremely hypocritical to need the creation of non-profit legal entities to accept and disburse subsidies. Subsidies should be granted to all kinds of natural persons (i.e., individuals), or even legal entities of a speculative nature (i.e., commercial companies), since it is known that many formally speculative legal entities have contributed much to Art, albeit at a loss, while conversely, other non-profit ones have profited at its expense. The only consequence of an unexploited subsidy should be the exclusion of the creator from future support.
Hydrocephalus in Greece is an undeniable problem, which, however, is often addressed with irrational and spasmodic excesses. However, when half of the country's population is in a basin, it is obvious that there is also concentrated the maximum audience for art and consequently there art must seek to communicate more extensively. The dispersion of significant artistic events throughout the territory often works against communication. Artistic decentralization must clearly be enhanced and given absolute priority to artistic presences that emerge in the provinces. Decentralization, however, means educating the provinces, creating an artistic audience in the provinces, supporting even the smallest artistic activity that appears in the periphery, enhancing its artistic potential, and not simply transferring events whose natural space of presence is the capital.
All of the above apply with very minor adjustments for every type of art. The State, acting as a public sponsor, distributes the corresponding Culture (in this case, the Arts) expenses by judging the artistic past of the creators, the seriousness of the proposals, taking seriously into account the decisions of the advisory committees. These subsidies, of course, are disproportionate in volume and necessity between the performing arts and the rest. The former - cinema, theater, dance, music - face the competition of their commercial counterparts, require the full employment of their creators sharpening their livelihood problem, and absorb large sums due to the high production costs. The latter, those in which the creator is alone with their work - painting, photography, poetry - allow the creator more easily to engage in another livelihood, justify a more occasional engagement with their art, and require lower production costs. Nevertheless, all creators need economic support (regardless of the production costs of their works) given that the significant care and hours spent on their art detract from the corresponding investment in livelihood productive activities. Thus, even if the amounts differ, the support of the performing arts should be considered equally obvious as the support of the rest.
Photography, with which we can particularly engage as it is the subject of our artistic interest, is closer to a visual poetry rather than to the visual space. And this is because the percentage of photographers who produce visual photographic and unique objects in the manner of painting is overwhelmingly smaller compared to those who generate all the other photographic production. It is also much rarer for photographs to be sold, especially at prices comparable to those of painting. The production of photographic books, moreover, constitutes a natural outlet for the promotion of photographic work, just as it happens with poetry, while for painting the publication of albums usually accompanies the climax of the careers of famous visual artists and yet does not constitute the body of the artistic work, only its trace. Moreover, the distribution of these photographic albums more closely matches the rhythm of sales of poetry collections rather than that of novels.
Photography is logically and self-evidently engaging a very small percentage of funds and government officials. In the existing museums, photography departments can be created. In some, they already exist. Depending on the general subject of the museums and the preferences of the curators and directors, each museum can preferentially turn to a type of artistic photography. There is no clear need for an autonomous photography museum. After all, the first and most important photography museum in the world is but an annex within a larger one (Museum of Modern Art in New York).
Every year as many photographers as possible should be supported, regardless of age or years of involvement in photography, provided their past and their proposal offer the hope (not of course the guarantee) that they can produce serious work. The composition of their proposal folder should be absolutely free, without precise specifications. Even the way an artist presents his proposal provides information about himself and his work. The financial support should be part of the estimated cost and part of covering the necessary livelihood of the artist. And the amount may be given in installments, but not based on the qualitative judgment of the produced work. Otherwise, the artist will try to adapt to the artistic views of the competent advisory committee.
The Ministry should also subsidize artistic photographic publications either by buying copies of the books directly or by mediating so that they are bought and distributed to school libraries. Again, this amount should correspond to only part of the total cost and the purchase of the books should be made at retail price and not wholesale since it is for support and not for commercial exploitation.
Support should also be given to exhibitions planned for the province or cities abroad, provided again that the competent advisory committee judges that both the content of the exhibition and the city to which it is addressed meet certain basic quality and proper presentation requirements.
The various photography centers that are developed in the province offer great services in the substantive decentralization and should be supported as a priority. Support that should cover a minimum amount of operating expenses (any idea of covering all operating expenses is unacceptable) and a percentage of coverage of specific events. Preferably, the events of communication of photographic societies or individual photographers from Athens to the province and vice versa should also be covered. Likewise, every similar communication action with abroad, especially with Europe and our neighboring countries, should be covered.
We must avoid (I understand that this will happen, if it happens, to the great disappointment of political power) grandiose, pompous, and expensive events. The power of photographic art lies in its ability to spread, in its tempting approach to larger segments of the population, who thus might come into contact with the artistic event itself for the first time, and in its general "poverty" which has nothing to do with bulky and impressive events.
In short, private individuals (photographers, teachers, organizers, publishers) always take initiatives first, propose, and the State supports and supports the institutions and artistic productive activities (work, education, publications, exhibitions, and all kinds of communication), which it judges (based on substantive and not formal criteria) to be interesting and of quality. The general perception and proposal is less and more discreet state in combination with deeper and more lasting choices.
Plato Rivellis