Manifesto of the
4th Inter-Professional Contemporary-Art Congress
27-28 November 2003 at the Arsenal, in Metz (France)
The European Challenge in Contemporary Art
Exchange and Co-operation
The fourth edition of the inter-professional contemporary-art congress will foreground the issues raised by French professionals in the European context. At a time when France is in the throws of a new phase of decentralisation, it is important to question the “French model” both with regard to artistic and cultural organisations, and to the economic, political and institutional mechanisms in Europe.
Contemporary creation, as we see it, does not enjoy the status it should in a citizen-based, open and dynamic society. In coming together in a congress, visual-art professionals are anxious to foster the emergence of a Europe with a cultural dimension, and are convinced that Europe will never be built unless this dimension is taken into account. This issue takes on great importance in the perspective of the expansion of the Union and the discussions around the European constitutional project put together by the Convention.
Culture has remained on the sidelines of European construction, which has focused on economic union and the development of a common market. Though one article is devoted to culture, the dynamics of the Treaty of Europe remain essentially economically driven. The public policies of the member states in favour of culture are part of a principle of exception rather than a positive rule and a means in service of a cultural project. We question both the form that Europe is currently taking and its underlying model, and focus our efforts on enabling the professionals involved in artistic creation to become actors and not merely passive spectators.
The tasks and duties of contemporary-art professionals stem from a collective responsibility, in which the public service (a notion not even mentioned in the Treaty of Europe) is, alongside the market sector, an essential component. Today in France, these tasks and duties appear threatened by the realities and perspectives of budgetary cutbacks in the cultural realm in general and in that of contemporary art in particular.
Territorial decentralisation is doubtless driven by legitimate needs for proximity and territorial networking ; we are nevertheless attentive to – and preoccupied with – how it is being implemented as well as its effects within the professional domain. Thus, we are opposed to the fact that French decentralisation in the realm of culture and, still more acutely, in the realm of contemporary art, take on the form of regional close-mindedness – a situation of which artists stand to be the first hostages. Far from such locally based aberrations, we believe in the importance of living creation as a factor of openness to difference.
In the face of these preoccupations, we seek to initiate discussions and exchanges with other professionals in Europe in order to put together hypotheses and put forward proposals for the future.
We assert the need for co-operation and exchange between all the professional fields of art (both market-driven and non-commercial), in order to foster the production, distribution, conservation and mediation of the contemporary artwork. We are committed to the emergence of principles and means allowing for the genuine mobility of professionals and artists, corresponding less to any principle of flexibility than to the specific needs of activities concerned with upholding their independence and their freedom.