interview

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  Mirko Petric

UJ: I would like to start with your presentation at the Open Institution conference in Zagreb in January 2011, where you were critiquing the emerging Museumsquartier model of cultural institutions within the former Yugoslavia territory. You said: “big in numbers, but without any autonomous production.” Could you explain this in more detail – what were you pointing at when you were talking about the lack of autonomous production, and how do you actually understand autonomous production in a context where the majority of cultural production is dependent on public money? 

MP: At that conference, I was actually speaking about the situation in Zagreb, and comparing it with the one in Vienna. I really do not know much about what is going on in the rest of the former Yugoslavia. However, what I referred to then as the Museumsquartier strategy, having in mind specifically Vienna, is going on in many other places around the world as well. Therefore, one can suppose with good reason that institutions in the territory of the former Yugoslavia cannot be completely innocent of this idea of spatial concentration and of providing numbers of visitors as evidence of “success”.

In Vienna, I witnessed the emergence of Museumsquartier (MQ) and was able to observe firsthand the changes that this new concentration of museums brought to the life of the city. I am speaking here not as someone researching cultural policy decisions, but as somebody who is interested in and enjoys culture. Since MQ became functional, I have rarely visited an exhibition there. The buildings are architecturally untalented and austere in appearance, forbidding, and the exhibitions match this lack of appeal. The only facility I force myself to use there is the bookshop. It carries quite a wide range of literature on arts, design and architecture, and you are free to browse and – so to speak – create your own program for your visit. This cannot be said of the plethora of art shows pre-packaged for tourist exploitation that you find in the exhibition spaces the complex is composed of.

Of course, MQ management would say that I do not know what I am talking about, and that a great number of visitors are citizens of Vienna. But this is exactly the point. Even locals feel like tourists in the complex, as the cultural offer there is tuned to a “tourist taste” and the whole zone feels like an extraneous body transplanted into the surrounding architecture. The city actually begins to be experienced as a stage set, as a mere backdrop for various “attractions”. And we are speaking of a living city like Vienna. Places like MQ are actually turning it into a tourist attraction whose urbanity is kept alive by means of seasonal art shows, as is the case in Venice. This is a far cry away from the vibrant place producing culture that Vienna had previously been in the relatively recent past.

To make things worse, as if to create a certain balance with the passive, tourist consuming part, MQ has become a place of concentration for a large number of different cultural initiatives that had previously been scattered all over the city. Facilities were provided for these initiatives in MQ in line with expectations that “creative clusters” would “produce” more culture thanks to the possibility of contact and exchange between them. So far, we do not know if this is true or not, partly because it is difficult to come up with a methodology with which to appropriately research this expectation. But it is beyond doubt that some of the neighborhoods that were previously enriched by the existence of autonomous local initiatives have been deprived of at least a part of their previous character.

What one should realize is that this is not due to independently operating wider cultural trends, but has more to do with a different system of funding and different goals of the current cultural policy. In this regard, the example of the Austrian city of Graz also comes to mind. Graz was a European capital of culture in 2003. During the preparation for this event, the representatives of the autonomous local culture production were protesting that the funds used to put in place the expensive, biomorphous Kunsthaus building could have kept the whole alternative scene alive for many years. 

Eight years after the fact, one can say that Cook and Fournier’s Kunsthaus building and Aconci’s Island in the Mur have indeed become essential landmarks in the urban identity of Graz. Kunsthaus is also said to have revitalized the previously drab, historically working class district in which it was erected. But the question of the actual cultural production is very different. To begin with, Kunsthaus has never become what it was planned to be: the exhibitions it can offer do not seem to be sufficiently attractive to bring to Graz an all-European audience, and the local scene is suffering because funds are channeled to maintaining the building and its program and are not being set aside for autonomous cultural production to the tune of the pre-culture-capital times.

I am mentioning these two examples because they have a lot in common with the present and the future of Zagreb’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA). As art historian Konstantin Akinsha once mentioned, the establishment of the Zagreb museum was a part of the impulse that was felt in many Eastern European capitals to supply themselves with such an – essentially anachronous – institution. In Zagreb, the added impulse was to place the building in the cultural wasteland of the apartment blocks in Novi Zagreb and by doing so make it possible for “culture” to “cross the river Sava”, which separates the historical center of the city from the socialist high-rise zone.

Two years before the official opening of MCA, a shopping mall was opened in the immediate vicinity. It featured the first cinema complex in Novi Zagreb, which indeed brought the possibility of film viewing to this part of the city. Now, MCA was expected to not only bring art to this part of Zagreb but also to make the cultural elite come there from “across the river”. 

Indeed, they came, and – to my mind – the first possibility of coming, the opening of the museum, revealed what the whole thing was essentially about. To begin with, the event was staged in such a way as to put the focus of attention on the present members of the political nomenclature. The creators of art works that are exhibited in the building, that make the bulk of its collection, were left to stand outside in the cold rain, in spite of the advanced age of some of them. When the politicians were finished with the speeches and photo opportunities, the audience gushed in, viewing the exhibits essentially in the same way that shop windows in the neighboring shopping mall are viewed. To stress the new profile of the institution, the acquisition of Höller’s Toboggan announced that, in addition to their presumed art value, the new exhibits would be viewed as potential attractions for a wider audience.

Now, one should understand that I am not saying that all of this is “bad” and that this is the end of it. What I am trying to say is that the new priorities for funding “art” are not in favor of “autonomous cultural production”. The contribution of art to the life of the community seems to be seen in terms of the added value it creates for it in terms of what is – essentially – entertainment and revenue from expected tourist visits. But it does not always work like that, as the example of Kunsthaus Graz shows. And the damage that the decreased funding for local art production and education is causing will only be seen in full in the future. 

UJ: Again, what does autonomous cultural production represent for you in this context? And what is autonomous about it in the situation where the majority of cultural production is dependent on public money?

MP: Autonomous cultural production should be understood exactly as the etymology of the term implies. It should be “self-governing”, set its own goals and rules. Furthermore, this should not be taken as an idealistic stance on my part, nor has it much to do with financing. I am speaking about some activity that is undertaken by the members of the public, and could be financed if there are funds available in the wider society. My belief is that funds should be available and that this is a very good use of public money. However, the purpose of funding should not be to produce entertainment or spectacle for the consumers. There should be some leeway for the producers to do what they want or feel they need to do. Only in this way can art, for example, gain a place that many feel it deserves in contemporary society. Art – and culture in general – has a special way of and special importance in addressing some of the burning social issues of the day. But it cannot fulfill this function if it is merely an illustration of the precepts of the funders or self-proclaimed “theoreticians” and curators. Unfortunately, this is what I see the large part of present-day production boiling down to.

“Autonomous”, the way I understand it, does not mean “self-financing”, as it seems to me your question implies. This idea, that art and culture should be “self-financing” or “useful”, either as a contribution to employment, revenue from tourism or a creator of “social cohesion” is alien to the “Continental”, European, and especially Central European tradition of public funding of the arts. Under the recent neo-liberal offensive, so to speak, this kind of language, however, has become increasingly acceptable in this part of the world as well. One aspect of this is the idea that there is an economic aspect to the contribution of the arts to society. This idea came about in 1980s Britain, as a defense strategy and a way for the legitimation of the arts in a stiflingly conservative era. The second part, the “usefulness” of the arts in connection with tourism is connected with the idea of a European cultural capital. It was always an argument, actually almost the only one, for the alleged usefulness of being a cultural capital to the community hosting the event. The idea of achieving “social cohesion” through the arts is also something present in more recent strategic documents of the EU. One also found this idea in the policy documents of the New Labour government in Great Britain. In sum, all of this can be connected with, so to speak, the “neo-liberal strand” in EU and its member states “governance”.

UJ: And apparently, Eastern European cultural space and policy are also welcoming this “neo-liberal strand”.

MP: The case of the Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Arts is important in that, it seems to me, it also marks the final charge of this kind of thinking onto the Croatian cultural scene. Up until the moment when Höller’s Toboggan was bought for MCA Zagreb, or when the Museum contemplated Gilbert and George as the opening act for the new premises, the priorities of public funding of culture in Croatia were elsewhere. This marked the entry of populism, spectacle and entertainment into an area previously reserved mainly for the support of the local cultural production.

Of course, this is still largely so, and incursions like the one described above should not be overestimated. However, it seems to me that these events symbolically marked a certain turning of the tide. And the new Museum is certainly a beast that will eat up a lot of money that could otherwise be devoted to other causes. Having said this, I would also want to add that even money given for such “popularization” of culture is better spent than on many other causes one could think of. The only problem is that, because of this, autonomous, local cultural production could seriously suffer.

Namely, if, on the one hand, there is the pressure of the neo-liberal impulses that are essentially alien to the understanding of culture funding in these parts, there is, on the other hand, a strong calling into question of culture as a source of legitimation of the state. And it was exactly this that created a propensity to fund culture to a tune unimaginable in the English-speaking world. This kind of relationship has been compromised by the nationalistic excesses of the 1990s, and by the current erosion of the region’s “failed states”, whose elites see as their goal the entry into supranational integrations, in the first place the EU.

The result is an ideological confusion, and the current economic crisis results in less and less money being available for culture. In centralized states like Croatia – and many post-socialist countries seem to be organized this way, as well – the added problem is that the bulk of the funding for culture has been invested into national capitals, leaving the periphery hungry in more ways than one: hungry for institutions, events, educated people.

This is a situation in which, in my opinion, a new cultural policy should be formulated, in which autonomous cultural production and education that takes places in schools and not in weekend sessions at museums should be put into place. I repeat, “autonomous” does not mean “self-financing”. Such production of art and culture that deserves the label “autonomous” should be funded by public money. More precisely, public money should be invested into creating the structural conditions for such autonomous production – autonomous in terms of the content produced. And this does not cost all that much money. Compared to other expenses, the sums set aside by national and local authorities for culture are negligible, or at least give back – when viewed in the long term – much more in return than other kinds of “investment” of public money.

Up until relatively recently, the funding of the structural preconditions for arts and culture in Croatia was actually quite generous. I still remember the surprised faces of my British hosts during a site visit to a cultural center there, when I explained that many non-commercial visual artists in post-socialist Croatia had at their disposal studios much better equipped than the ones we were being shown as signs of the special generosity of the local authorities to artists. I also mentioned that artists enjoyed free health and social security coverage, provided by the state. This was received with a mixture of surprise and perplexity.

I remarked that the situation was changing, and that the benefits that the artists still enjoyed were actually leftovers from the socialist times that had begun to be deconstructed in the period of transition. But I really do not see this as a good development, in spite of all the misplaced decisions one can use as arguments against such generosity. Yes, there are people whose health coverage expenses are covered by the state on the grounds that they are artists and who make more than enough money to cover these expenses by themselves. Yes, studios were given to some artists as political patronage in socialist times. Yes, “art” that is trivial is sometimes supported by public funds. But all of this does not mean that art and culture should not be supported at all by public funds.

UJ: You were lecturing at the Arts Academy in Split and now at the University of Zadar. What are the expectations of the younger generation of artists and intellectuals regarding public support for arts and culture?

MP: What I find worrying is actually the mindset ever more present in the youngest generations of artist. Their expectations of public support seem to be shrinking. In an empirical research of “new media artists” in Croatia at the beginning of the 21st century, I noticed that the younger they were the less expectations of public support they had. This is understandable in view of the circumstances they matured in as artists, but it is actually playing into the hands of those who would like to see much less public money set aside for this purpose.

I repeat, the kind of money that is needed to support arts and culture is negligible compared to other allocations of the state budgets. On top of that, the money needed for education could be obtained by simply re-channeling a part of the funds already allocated to the educational sector. A larger part of the educational expenditure should be spent on subjects connected with the arts and culture than is presently the case.

To mention but one example: in Croatia, a number of actions were taken by the civil society to protest the situation in which only one hour a week is devoted to visual culture in elementary schools in the country. According to the OPA civic association, this means that in their entire elementary school education, children in Croatia will experience only 280 hours of visual culture. In Sweden, the number of hours is 1680, and neighboring Slovenia fares comparatively well with its 445 hours, although this is obviously also insufficient. In cases like this, some rearrangement of the entire educational framework is obviously needed.

UJ: What about the Ministry of Culture – what is their policy regarding this matter?

MP: The same can be said about the use of funds of the Croatian Ministry of Culture. This is where the mentioned Museum of Contemporary Art comes into play again and can serve as a good illustration of a set of practices. During a large part of the Croatian transition, the Ministry invested into buildings rather than into people and programs. Heads of cultural institutions complain in private that it is much easier to get money for maintenance of buildings or even for the construction of new buildings than for any cultural program that should actually be taking place in these buildings. 

This should be changed by all means. More funds should be spent on the development of the potential of cultural practitioners. The feedback that one used to get from organizers of various art residencies around the world used to be that artists from Croatia are well above the average in their knowledge of both art history and contemporary art practice. They are well-informed and feel to be part of the international scene they see themselves as operating in. But these are also largely reflexes from a previous time. If the situation with education and lack of investment into people is not changed, then in the not too distant future this can all change.

Of course, whenever it comes to investment into people, the question is how you choose who to support. Buildings may seem a safer bet in this regard, and they could well be. But we need to take risks, I would argue. The current culture of amateurism – which is advancing most obviously in the online media environment – can perhaps be taken as a threat, but there must be ways to overcome this situation. To begin with, I think that the principle of committees operating independently in their decisions on cultural funding should be reaffirmed. In countries like Croatia, it has been largely neglected, although technically it exists. Elsewhere, the same is increasingly happening, and the explanation is that the speed with which events are happening dictates the need for swifter distribution and re-distribution. All of this is understandable, but public bodies must never get into the situation in which they operate like some private sponsors do.

UJ: I would like to return to the idea you were talking about before of the usefulness of art and culture. Recently, this pressure on art and culture in Slovenia is no longer so much coming in the name of art-for-social-cohesion, but more and more under the name of cultural and creative industries, and, in this regard, with the rhetoric of economic development, products with added cultural value and concurrency. The Ministry of Culture went along with this line as well – cultural policy decision-makers have accepted this terminology into their cultural strategies and what this terminology contains will for sure change the supporting cultural policy. This acceptance of the creative industries concept has happened precisely in a time when cultural budgets are drastically shrinking; but what I find perverse is that the public money for culture would now go into projects which should, according to my understanding, be supported from the economic sector. 

MP: The irony of the whole situation is that European policy meetings and documents mention creative industries as an instrument for securing heightened social cohesion!  

It is not easy to disentangle the contradictions of the present situation in the cultural policy sector. In the case of contradictions surrounding the notion of creative industries, however, we at least have a couple of places from which to start our discussion. 

It is probably best to start from the fact that the idea of European integration in its current form includes both the continuation of previously more generous redistributive policies and an ever-increasing emphasis on the work of the marketplace. Some planning and regulation are of course taken for granted, but the bulk of future development – as many still seem to believe – would be brought about by setting the market mechanisms into motion.

This situation provokes complaints on both sides of the divide. Big business and so-called “international financial institutions” complain about excessive regulation and claims to various rights by the citizens in what once used to be national states. The population of these states, on the other hand, complains about the reductions of benefits they were used to at the height of the national welfare state. 

But “culture” in this situation seems to fare even worse than the average EU citizen. The national states have lost some of their prerogatives in the area of the funding of arts and culture. The advent of consumerism and the transnational focus of European integration have brought about a situation in which culture is no longer viewed as an important instrument for the legitimation of the national state. 

On the other hand, it is felt in these national states that the important social glue previously represented by “culture” (theaters, operas, heavily subsidized film production, literature, translations, and the like) is no longer there in the same way and to the same degree that it used to be. Something is missing. 

What can be done? What can the solution be? “Creative industries”, of course. Something that does not have anything “old-fashioned” about it, and that in addition to contributing to “sociability” in an uprooted, transnational context also allegedly has the power to bring about economic development. The problem is that such a concept brings with it an idea of “culture” that is alien to most of “Continental Europe“.

UJ: Are you saying that “creative industries” continues to be an exclusively British and Anglo-American concept even though it is increasingly endorsed across Europe and that they can not be adjusted to other contexts?

MP: “Creative industries” is by now a concept that has been firmly anchored in, at the least, the so-called “New Europe”, that is, in the former socialist states of Eastern and Central Europe. However, it remains recognizably British and US-American in origin.

This means that it brings with it a completely different relation to the public sponsorship of arts and culture than had previously been the case on the “Continent”. In spite of the precious tradition of Arts Council funding in Great Britain, culture and the arts in that country have been on the defense since almost the beginning of the Margaret Thatcher era. Due to the pressures of the Conservatives, already in the 1980s, the idea was developed of justifying arts on grounds of their “economic contribution”.

Although nominally of different political orientation, the New Labour government in effect continued this agenda by launching the concept and endorsing the practice of “creative industries”. It paid lip-service to “culture” by renaming the previously named Department of National Heritage as the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. But the concept of “culture” advocated by this ministry of Tony Blair’s and subsequent British governments really does not have much to do with what ministries of culture are traditionally supposed to do in the national states, regions and cities of the “Continent”.

Admittedly, the concept of “creative industries” recognized the need to subsidize culture, if for nothing else than because it was supposed to contribute to social cohesion and economic development. But to think that it would be enough to set up “start-up incubators” where young artists could get access to equipment and “create” to secure personal economic freedom and advancement for the community was ludicrous from a “Continental” point of view. 

On the Continent, cultural elites still emphasize the role of education in the process, and the students demand free access to education. Likewise, the middle-aged cultural workers still seem to conceive of culture in terms of its community role achieved by an “arts-for-art’s-sake” approach. This is changing, partly in view of governments and culture ministries becoming ever more open to the idea of “creative industries”, but the prevailing response still seems to be the one similar to yours: if an allegedly valuable part of culture is seen primarily as economically productive, that is, as part of the economic sector, then it should be supported by the Chamber of Commerce and not by public money previously given to the arts.

UJ: You were involved in a research project (2005–06) dealing with creative industries. Could you share with me what, according to your findings, are the biggest dangers, threats that the creative industries trend is bringing.

MP: Thanks to the funding provided by the British Council, several groups in South Eastern Europe received funding to spend on either the advocacy of or research on the possibilities of creative industries development in the region. The group from Croatia chose to do academic research and this brought about interesting results. To begin with, my colleagues and I have come to the conclusion that the notion of the “creative city” as a hub for “industries” that would be profitable in addition to “socially cohesive” is simply not possible in the regional context. The obstacles are too numerous, and the traditions of perceiving the role of culture in community life is very different from that in the English-speaking countries.

I hasten to add that this is true not only of South Eastern Europe, but also of that part of the world which historically served as a role model in culture development for many of its communities. Initial research conducted in the city of Vienna on the topic showed that whatever existed there that could be classified as “creative industries” largely depended on public subsidies! This was simply in line with the historical perception of the value and role of culture in a community. On the other hand, this situation shows that even in such an international city, British-style “creative industries” are simply not sustainable if viewed in purely economic terms. In the meantime, “creative industries” are gaining ground in Austria and there has been talk about their increased economic contribution; but the truth of the situation is that they even speak about “the Public Sector of the Creative Industries” in that country. 

At any rate, education for future cultural workers in Austria is still provided by state-subsidized institutions, “for free”, so to speak. And – in my opinion – this should stay that way, not only in that country, but also in the countries of South East European region. Namely, state-run schools definitely provide a better sense of orientation and develop a stronger community feeling than “start-up incubators”. Comparatively speaking, they cost very little money for what they give in return. 

There really is little that one can think of that is more detrimental to the health of a community and its future than budget cuts in the fields of education and culture. I hate to say this, but whatever cuts we have experienced in the funding of the arts, culture and education in Slovenia or Croatia are already being felt on the international scene. 

To end, I should say, however, that one should not exclusively vilify the “creative industries”. There should also be a place for the development of that line of culture-based activity in a community as well, and, in some places, they do indeed contribute to both social cohesion and economic development. Likewise, the idea of the “creative city”, at least in the way it was set forth by Charles Landry, can serve as a great motivator for engaged citizens. The biggest danger, in my view, is that public money is given exclusively or predominantly to activities that should indeed be financed by the Chamber of Commerce or government agencies supporting entrepreneurial development. Balance should be found, and, in my view, in this part of the world, it should be tipped very much in the direction of public art, including of course autonomous cultural production. In the end, in terms of the public image of a small nation or city, it brings about at least as much as “creative industries” do. But it also brings much more. To the community that helps to keep it alive.

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