Hirschhorn Ends Swiss Boycott; Cultural Policy in Hungary; Celebrating Fortieth Anniversary of '68; Sotheby's France Wants Market Reform
THOMAS HIRSCHHORN ENDS SWISS BOYCOTT
Since 2003, Thomas Hirschhorn has barred exhibitions of his work in his native Switzerland—but that’s about to change. In December of that year, the artist published an open letter in Die Tageszeitung declaring that he would no longer exhibit his works in the country, due to the election of the controversial right-wing politician Christoph Blocher to the national parliament. As the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's Jürg Altwegg reports, now that Blocher has been voted out of parliament, Hirschhorn has decided to end his four-year-long boycott.
Last December, Blocher—the leader of the populist anti-immigrant Swiss People's Party (SVP) and the justice minister under the prior administration—was voted out by a member of his own party and the opposition Social Democrats and Christian Democrats. The maneuver, while preventing Blocher from becoming justice minister once again, put an end to the "grand coalition" of consensus governing that has been in place since 1959.
Hirschhorn's self-imposed exhibition exile did not prevent him from making artworks about Switzerland or causing a stir in the country. In 2004, his exhibition "Swiss Swiss Democracy" at Paris's Centre Culturel Suisse—an installation that featured a figure urinating on an image of Blocher—created a scandal among parliament members of all political parties. As a punishment, the Swiss legislature immediately voted to cut the budget of Pro Helvetia—which funded the show and funds the Centre Culturel Suisse—by one million Swiss francs ($900,000).
HUNGARY SEARCHES FOR CULTURAL POLICY
How should Hungarian cultural politics evolve in the context of an expanded Europe? As Eurotopics reports, Péter György, writing in Népszabadság, argues that current government policies need urgent changes. "From the Kádár regime, we have inherited the gift of differentiating between alternative and official art," writes György, who welcomes the rise in independent efforts to create alternative infrastructures for contemporary visual arts beyond the state. "Under the term art, the ministry of culture and its institutions accept only what is financed directly with taxes. That's embarrassing. It's just not the case that successful contemporary artists should depend on official recognition. Rather, the state should recognize that it's in its own best interest to participate in these artists' careers. The state's task should be to stand up for the future of independent institutions that have emerged in contemporary cultural space, where the fate of Hungarian culture is decided."
2008: THE YEAR OF 1968
The year has only just begun, but the European feuilletons are already indicating that 2008 will be a year of looking back—and celebrating—the political upheavals that rocked the world in 1968, from the Prague Spring to the Paris riots. Die Welt kicks off the trend by publishing articles—both historical and contemporary—to mark the fortieth anniversary of the events of 1968. The first installment in this ongoing series of "retro politics": The international Cultural Congress of Havana, which took place in Cuba in January 1968. More than 450 intellectuals—including Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, British historian Eric Hobsbawm, French philosopher André Gorz, and West German philosopher Hans Magnus Enzensberger—gathered in solidarity with the "freedom movements" around the world and to protest "US imperialism." Fidel Castro gave an hour-long speech under an image of Che Guevara, who had been executed just three months prior in Bolivia. The exhibitions are surely soon to follow.
SOTHEBY'S FRANCE ASKS FOR MARKET REFORM
Despite a healthy fiscal year, Sotheby's France is asking for a change in certain policies that may put France (and Europe) at a disadvantage in world markets. As Agence France-Presse reports, Sotheby's France president Guillaume Cerutti said that the current market regulations and fiscal laws suffer from "archaism." For Cerutti, French auction houses should be able to benefit from three liberties that other national markets take for granted: to propose minimum guarantees to selling clients, to be able to sell and resell artworks quickly, and to be authorized to organize private sales.
As for fiscal policies, Cerutti calls for changes to both the European importation tax on artworks and the droit de suite agreements (a percentage given to inheritors). Artworks from other countries sold on the common market are subject to import taxes; according to succession laws in France, not only the artists but also their descendents can take a percentage from an auction sale.
French minister of culture Christine Albanel—reacting to complaints about these "unfavorable" regulations—promised last September to launch a "renewal plan" for the French art market, which in recent years has lost ground to both New York and London. Her initial suggestions to stimulate the French market included tax breaks for those purchasing a first artwork, the creation of a special fiscal status to attract foreign artists to France, and assistance to galleries and auction houses with foreign sales by setting up French offices abroad to represent their interests.