/ARTS WEEKLY/CULTURE-VENEZUELA: The Death of Arts Patronage

By Humberto Márquez Reprint | | Print |

Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Apr 22 2003 (IPS) - Private foundations promoting the arts are headed towards extinction in Venezuela, disappearing amidst the acute economic crisis and the lack of legislation that would provide incentives for their efforts.

Of the 172 business foundations dedicated to the cultural field that were operating in Venezuela in 1993, only some 20 remain, according to the Federation of Private Foundations and a report by the Venezuelan-American Chamber of Commerce.

The most active today are those that are related to the banking industry or big companies, like the food and beverage giant Polar and the Bigott tobacco company, promoting initiatives that range from the publication of a dictionary of Venezuelan history to workshops on pop-culture.

Already suffering profound economic difficulties, Venezuela endured a two-month strike in December and January that all but paralysed industry. The country is still recovering from that crisis.

And today even the cultural organisations created by private banks have begun to change their focus, as is the case of Banco de Venezuela (of the Spanish Santander group), which recently closed its arts programmes in order to shift more funds to a more traditional education project.

María Eugenia Cruz, who served as vice-president of the bank’s cultural foundation for five years, explained to IPS, "The changes are not the result of lack of funds, but to the fact that the country now has other priorities."

The emphasis on the education sector is also a reaction to the policy line established by the bank’s main offices in Spain, she added.

While the Banco de Venezuela Cultural Foundation was active, it organised weekly concerts of classical music, hosted expositions of art, held conferences and showed films and videos.

But the private sector’s endeavours to foment the arts in Venezuela do not have economic or tax incentives.

An arts patronage project, drawn up jointly by representatives from business and from the governmental National Council on Culture, was turned into part of a law that has not yet been presented for parliamentary debate.

Omaira Botello, former chief of communications at the Banco Consolidado Foundation, noted in a conversation with IPS that promoting culture has a unique bonus: "it reinforces the name of the company involved."

"It forms part of a corporate strategy aimed at an important audience, so that companies are perceived from another point of view, one that is seen as more benevolent," said Botello.

But it is precisely the lack of material benefits that has led to the closing of so many cultural foundations.

"If the companies dedicate part of their capital to cultural activities without tangible compensation, coinciding with a decline in their revenues, there comes a time when they realise that it doesn’t make much sense to keep the foundations operating," Carmen Sofía Leoni, of the Bigott Foundation, told IPS.

Support from the private sector turns out to be very important for Venezuela’s cultural life, particularly given the budget cuts suffered by the National Council on Culture.

The government entity had a budget this year of 90 million dollars, 30 percent less than in 2002, and most of the funds earmarked for programmes in artisanry.

In addition to foundations rooted in private companies, individual and family-based institutions operate in Venezuela, many of which hold important artistic collections, like Narváez, of the sculptor Francisco Narváez, and Herrera Luque, of the author Francisco Herrera Luque.

Another form of arts promotion is private sector initiatives that take place without the existence of a foundation, but which finance cultural activities. In this category are some local telephone companies and the transnationals Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble.

But even the most deeply involved foundations, like the Corp Group (heir of the Banco Consolidado, following its collapse in 1994), have cut back their investments in the arts.

Corp Group Foundation director Maite Espinasa said in a recent interview with El Nacional newspaper, "The current economic situation forces readjustments, which is why we are redefining hours in order to reduce operation costs, and we will review the calendar of expositions, which have always consumed a large portion of our budget."

In addition to art exhibitions, the Corp Group Foundation annually sponsors Poetry Week, which entails numerous activities and draws poets from inside and outside Venezuela.

Likewise, an important annual guitar festival is organised by the Mavesa Foundation, of one of the country’s leading food manufacturers.