Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/10/30
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Fellow Leicaphiles, We have no Ministry of Culture in the US. But we have numerous agencies dedicated to promoting and protecting trade. We're business oriented here. Art has a role to play in the marketplace. It helps to sell goods. It creates a demand for style in clothes and cars. It upgrades inner city neighborhoods. It creates a clientele for the cultural industries. Government makes loans to small businesses. Government underwrites infrastructure like roads to facilitate interstate commerce. Government invests in research and development which eventually becomes manifest in products marketed commercially. [If you read this, you use one.] Art is no different. It too has an economic value the government can justifiably support. The trick is to support 'safe' art. The government can't promote safe religion for constitutional and psychological reasons. Religions trade on their exclusivity. Art trades on its universality. I reckon a successful administrator of a government agency charged to support art would probably be successful if he or she encouraged that universality as its standard. Am I making a pitch for symbolist straight photography, in which subject isn't obvious or blatant? You bet I am, as my fellow Oregonians would say. Subtlety is the name of the game. That quality of thought also encourages first rate photography. Is it easy to do? No. But I have talented colleagues who don't fear hard work and thrive on challenge. And they don't look down their noses at government as a patron or client. Bob