workshop of the patronage in contemporary art- report

Within the framework of a research program devoted to the stakes of the inheritance, was held with the IEFA, on Wednesday January 24, 2007, a workshop on the topic of the patronage in the contemporary art. This workshop gathered an about sixty people: persons in charge for museums, police chiefs of exposures, journalists, academics, students.This meeting was organized by the IFEA and the International association of Criticisms of Art (AICA, Turkey section). It is the first of a series of meetings organized by these two institutions until 2010. This series entitled “2010, Istanbul, European capital of the culture”, envisage the organization of meetings each six-month period. The principal topics discussed at the time of the workshop of January 24 were as follows: origin and evolution of the patronage, questions of definition of the patronage and sponsorship, institutionalization of these practices, role of the police chief of exposure, recent evolution of sponsorship in Istanbul and role of the press. The workshop took also the continuation of a series of conferences organized by the IFEA under the direction of professor Nora Þeni at the time of the first six-month period 2006, and bearing on the benevolence, philanthropy and the patronage. The opening speeches were made by the director of the Institute, Pierre Chuvin, the President of the AICA - Turkey, Beral Madra, and the scientific secretary of the IFEA, Alexandre Toumarkine. Pierre Chuvin reconsidered on the place of this workshop in the current activities of the IFEA related to the concept of inheritance and the ancient origins of the figure of the patron. Beral Madra placed this meeting within the framework of the activities of the AICA and then drew up a critical portrait of the sponsor today. Alexandre Toumarkine put the question of the continuity of the practices of patronage and of sponsorship, antiquity at our days, and, by underlining the variety of the actors intervening in the field of the patronage, it has advanced the idea that their interactions could be analyzed like a system. The first meeting, chaired by Professor Doctor Zeynep Inankur, member of the AICA - Turkey and teaching with the Academy of Beautiful Arts of the University Mimar Sinan, related to the concepts of sponsorship and museology. Güven Turan, adviser leading with the editions Yapý Kredi, traced a long historical prospect and, while insisting on Antiquity and the Rebirth, it determined contours of the concept of patron and owner. Professor Nora Þeni reconsidered confusion between patronage, sponsorship and philanthropy. It also introduced the concept of evergetism, made familiar by work of Paul Veyne. It then evoked the example of the Camondo family, family which was initially philanthropist in the Othoman Empire then patron in France. From the Camondo museum, it showed the logic which governed the installation of the museums with the XIX° century in Paris, and analyzed the policies of donation. The communication of professor Edhem Eldem, from the University of the Bosphorus, related to museologies Othoman and Turkish and their comparison with Western museology. In Occident, to the XVIII° century, the cabinets of curiosity (“Wunderkammer”, had by the kings and the princes), yielded the place to collections of art had by the upper middle class, then with public museums. This evolution did not occur in the Othoman Empire. The appearance of the museum with the XIX° century is there very clearly a Western importation. The public of these museums, summoned to give in exoticism, can then contemplate there only collections of objects of the Eastern world. Under the Turkish Republic, this specificity perdure, but this time at the profit of a nationalist project which hears exalter the aesthetic value of the objects of the culture and the country. In same time, the need for draining foreign tourists pushes the museums with “exoticism”. The museums Turkish are today in a logic of importation more than of creation of exposure. Turkish museology poses also the problem of the “recycling” of historical places (Holy Sophie and Palais of Ibrahim Pasha). As for the Palate of Topkapý, it is with the palate of Versailles rather than to a true museum that it would have to be compared. There exists here little of relationship between the place even, its life, its organization and the collections which are presented there. The second meeting, chaired by Beral Madra, related to institutionalization and the financing. Ramon Tio Bellido (AICA - France) devoted itself to a comparison of the policies of government aid for the contemporary art in France and Spain, while being centered on the local level (France) and regional (Spain). He showed how much the national differences in term administrative structure and distribution of competences (Spanish autonomies and French decentralization) could explain the differences in the modes of allowance of the assistances. Marcus Graf, (AICA - Turkey, University of Yeditepe), started from his personal experiment to analyze the role of the police chief. He wondered about the capacity of the police chief to act in a way independent for émanciper of the constraints of sponsorship - patronage and the weight of the institutions. The last meeting was devoted to the recent evolutions of sponsorship and the patronage in Istanbul. It was chaired by Haþim Nur Gürel, director of the virtual museum Eczacýbaþý. It is professor Ali Akay, member of the AICA - Turkey, teaching with the Academy of the Art schools the University Mimar Sinan, and on several occasions police chief of exposure, which returned, from the point of view specialist in comparative literature (Occident/Turkey), on philanthropy and the patronage, two activities for him deeply imbricated, then on the transformations occurred in Istanbul in the system of sponsorship. Doctor Zeki Coþkun, of the Academy of the Art schools of the University Mimar Sinan, showed the complex relations and the interdependence of the press and the Art schools. The panel which enclosed this workshop initially evoked the singularity of Istanbul while sticking to the question of the private museums. For Nora Þeni, these museums are based on a French model which it exposed in its communication; whereas Ali Akay returns rather to the American examples to explain how the patronage in the contemporary art developed in Turkey. Ramon Tio Bellido wondered whether museums still not institutionalized, without true collection, professional framework and structure of council could claim to become artistic centers. The panel then reconsidered the question of the rights of the artists (Marcus Graf), of the use of the funds, the weight of the decisions of the godfathers and the institutions about the artistic choices. The future of the virtual diffusion of art on Internet and finally the difficultéà to define the concept of sponsorship, were evoked, and the majority of the participants in the panel agreed to recognize its singularity compared to the model inherited the past. Next workshop common AICA-IFEA, will be organized in spring. It will be devoted “to the museums and collections deprived in Turkey”, topic which was essential at the time of the debates of the workshop. In addition, in collaboration with Professor Nora Þeni, the IFEA prepares for the nearest autumn an international conference on “philanthropy, patronage and cultural policies” which should associate it the Bilgi University and the Museum of Péra. We intend to request for this demonstration the participation of the major actors: dynasties of large patrons Turkish, architects, persons in charge for cultural establishments French and Turkish, Turkish, European and Japanese foundations. Burcu Pelvanoğlu (AICA- Turkey) and Alexandre Toumarkine (IFEA)