Jorge Alberto Collao
January 2008
The conclusion I've drawn after so many decades linked to cultural activities and more that have puzzled me, I can only conclude that art, culture should not be funded . But, with both cultural activist, poet, writer or creator, lining up in the coffers of the State or a generous patron, I have nothing else to laugh and continue my journey. My conclusion is simple: when a cultural or artistic expression becomes a commodity, will inevitably lose their power of communicating the process to become a symbol tight, maimed in his huge load of future men and women worldwide. Commodified art [1] , which has nothing to do here at this critical market price-but with what it means to be a tradable product: the stratification of its characteristics, its standardization, its definition within the framework of tradable and, therefore, the final commodification and overwhelming. The art however, can never submit, simply cease to be the process, kill their magic physiology, longer rely on his infinite indeterminacy [2] . This is for my art and culture, and it does not leak or a scratch in a bathroom as the paintings of Van Gogh. So, when shopping, segregate, but also when subsidies, segregate. Everything that can be regarded as mediation between the art and culture and the public, commits the sin and perhaps it can not escape the criticism that can come from anywhere. For me art ought not to be either funded or purchased, or funded, but released [3] .
ever, a few years after the dictatorship ended I found myself chatting with a group of youths who were street theater, and they told me theatrical expression that was dying slowly. So I thought it was the dictatorial fervor that encouraged these artistic expressions but they explained to me: "We make art. During the dictatorship took to the streets in search of people and we did not introduce any problem anywhere. We went all over Chile. We are only complicated when too many people crowded and the cops are nervous. Sometimes we stopped but the few hours we were free. Now, democracy, and we can not use the streets because the law says we must seek permission from the neighbors as what we have to do that in every new city that we come? So if the police come and we ask that document, if we do not, violate the law and that means arrest and imprisonment " [4] . Thought so, then it makes sense that art is rather free of ties, rather than subsidized.
Another story that seems more like a joke, is the other side of the coin: the most expensive painting in history so far is "Number 5" Pollock . Yeah, okay, Pollock was a tormented genius, but 140 million dollars for a work of this kind do not think it justified that at all, and still more when he now belongs to one man, Mexican businessman, David Martinez , and his closest circle. Also, this picture ought to be released from captivity [5] .
This may be a feverish and partial view of one who sees the issue quite so interested, I am a poet, writer, cartoonist, what do I know, and as my ears resound to this excellent phrase that Galeano described the problem for several decades and "Do not sail the boat because there is no sea." No water of freedom.
And if UNESCO declared on culture in 1982 "... culture that gives man the ability to reflect on itself. It is she who makes us specifically human beings, rational, critical and ethically compromised. A Through it we discern values \u200b\u200band make choices. Through it man expresses himself, becomes aware of itself, is recognized as an unfinished project, questions his own achievements, seeks untiringly for new meanings and creates works that transcend "(UNESCO, 1982: Declaration of Mexico) then why do we put the emphasis where there does not?, why solace Him in this kind of racism where skin color is replaced by the amount of money?
Art, and especially the issue of culture, is today one of the most important issues in the process of globalization, where he has been learning about the role of culture in the history of men [6] . And finally, from the point of view that we address the challenge seems to be surrendering to it and float on the waves that leads to somewhere in the distant future, where all directionality always smell some kind of mental fascism. Maybe that's why I prefer the street to the museum. Art and culture are alive and living things. Metamos not in a jar or you build a zoo. Experience art and culture is lived to himself, to belong, and that seems pretty dangerous in a world with so many powerful vested interests. When we reject ourselves, then what comes out we replace our own image, and one that should have our individual and collective self-valorized in their materiality, not their spirituality. Today, it seems that all creation Shall repeat fees and stereotypes, and cover certain areas of the culturalist symbolism, because the new and innovative or is pure barbarism, or frankly delict. Who dares to create it? Victor Jara sang once, that man is a creator. And you can not create no space, no air, no freedom even in the hands have nothing; Violet Louvre filled with wire and bits of wool. Creating is not about cost but air.
[1] Within the type of ideas introduced by Steward, it should be noted the cultural materialism advocated by Marvin Harris and other American anthropologists. This stream may be treated as a form of ecofuncionalismo which fit certain divisions introduced by Marx. Cultural materialism understands that cultural evolution and configuration of companies rely heavily on material conditions, technology and infrastructure. Cultural materialism provides a tripartite division between groups of concepts serving their causal relationship. These groups are called infrastructure (production mode, Technology, General Terms geographical ,...) structure (mode of social organization, hierarchical structure and superstructure ,...) (religious and moral values, artistic creations, laws ,...)..
[2] Roy Rappaport introduced in the discussion of the social idea that culture is part of the same human biology, and evolution of the human being is due to the presence of culture . He pointed out that ... "... Superorganic or not, it must be remembered that culture itself belongs to nature. Emerged in the course of evolution by natural selection processes differ only in the part of those who produced the octopus [...] Although culture is highly developed in males, recent ethological studies have indicated a symbolic capacity among other animals. [...] Although cultures can be imposed on ecological systems, there are limits to these impositions, as the cultures and their components are subject to selective processes in turn.
[3] Likewise Michel Foucault in the famous debate in November 1971 in Holland with Noam Chomsky , answering the question of whether democratic capitalist society was also a negative answer, arguing that a society democracy is based on the effective exercise of power by a population in which no one is divided or ordered hierarchically into classes, which generally holds all education systems, which appear merely as transmitters of knowledge seemingly neutral, are made to maintain a certain social class in power, and excluding instruments power of other social classes.
[4] Louis Althusser proposed that the level of ideology (the major component of culture) is a reflection of the interests of the elite, and that through the ideological state apparatus reproduce in time.
[5] Antonio Gramsci striking the hegemony, a process by which a dominant group is legitimate before the dominated and eventually dominated naturalize and take as desirable domination.
[6] There are Ryazanov collections on cultural theory developed by Marx, in the words of Geertz "The great contribution of Marxism in cultural analysis is that it is understood as the product of relations production, as a phenomenon that is not detached from the mode of production of a society. Also considered as one of the means by which reproduce the social relations of production, allowing the time spent in conditions of inequality between classes "
