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Interview with Spyros Mercouris
Spyros Mercouris
- What are the challenges of spreading art and music when varying degrees of censorship are a reality in today’s political climate?
Answer by Spyros Mercouris:
The challenge to artists is enormous. Today artists must pander to the wishes of commercially-minded production companies, broadcasters and arts markets which want to exploit culture for financial gain and do not encourage the artist to create art with any kind of social meaning. Indeed, the priority is for artists to always produce art that will make the producer, broadcaster and financial manager richer and to bring in advertising revenue. The challenge is that in this commercial age, which is driven by the profit motive, a producer or music promoter has to be conscious of the financial perspectives of culture.
One way to meet this challenge, there has to a balance between commercial needs and needs of culture fulfilment. Here in Europe we have had a good balance between commercial demands on culture and public patronage of culture. It is important the government policy which patronises the arts, by subsidising theatres, museums, libraries, cultural events and gives support to filmmakers continues. While at the same time commercial needs are allowed to continue. The two – commercial needs and public needs – have operated, until now, quite well. But now because of the financial crisis this public-private balance is threatened with governments cutting back on culture spending. We see how in the Britain the British government suddenly in July announced the closure of the UK Film Council, which provided much needed money for new filmmaking. Such cuts must be resisted, or else the subtle censorship of commercial pressure will force artists to increasingly pander to the demands of the art market and needs of commerce.
2. You were in the Greek Ministry of Culture and have a lot of experience in promoting Greek culture and values abroad in other capacities. What advantages do you see in state sponsored initiatives in comparison to civil society initiatives and vice-versa?
Answer by Spyros Mercouris:
The state sponsored initiatives can draw on more money because they have political support from the government. Therefore state sponsored events are financially much more secure and the difficult work of fund raising and seeking private sponsors is not so necessary. Also state sponsored events can draw from the enormous reservoir of cultural heritage stored in state owned museums and state owned cultural facilities like national theatre, film-centres and other cultural organisations. Civil society has to seek money, often from the state and often from private sponsors many of whom are corporate. An advantage is that the civil society event is politically independent and therefore can afford to be critical of society. Independent artists who wish to use art as a tool to express or highlight certain aspects of society which they cannot do at official and government owned venues need civil society venues.
Both state sponsored and civil society sponsored cultural events are mutually compatible. One should not depend on a state only, because it too can enforce censorship. Indeed, state censorship can be brutal. However, a democratic state can promote art through well funded events which have a social (e.g., educational) meaning. While to a lesser extent civil society encourages new talents and permits artists to express a message without having to pander to the demands of a state policy.
3. How could arts and music help resolve the recent violent clashes in Greek society and state? What cultural implications does the conflict have?
Answer by Spyros Mercouris:
Art and music cannot resolve the economic crisis in Greece. This crisis is a consequence of free market economics which has permit and encouraged a piratical capitalism to flourish in Greece and throughout the world creating social devastation, which in Greece has on some occasions expressed itself in violent incidents.
However, art, and especially music is a great communicator, especially for young people. I hope discontented people will resort to music and other forms of art like painting and literature to express their frustration, but also to express alternatives and above all to stimulate debate, with recourse to violence.
At the moment the crisis is having a devastating effect on Greek culture. The public-private balance is undermined with cultural institutions and organisations owned by the state, like archaeological sites, museums, libraries, public funded TV and radio and state-aid sponsorship schemes are being drastically cut. For artists and musicians, commercial pressures are now enormous. Indeed, production budgets are being cut by the private sector as it too struggles to find finance to promote new productions. We now see in Greece television channels only importing ready-made TV programmes from abroad, repeating old programmes, otherwise the only ‘new’ programmes are shows and reality TV. New dramas and educational and scientific documentaries re seldom made.
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You are quoted as saying that “...the determining factor of a European identity lies precisely in respecting this diversity with the aim of creating a dialogue between the cultures of Europe.” If European culture can only be represented as being a mosaic, how would you propose the European Union, which has struggled to unify its members, become one unit and conduct its cultural policy?
Answer:
The European Union is failing to unify in its objective to get the citizens of our countries to identify with it. We see this in spectacular fashion when the people reject in referendum in France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Ireland the EU constitution and various treaties. This failure is nothing to do with culture, it is all to do with economics. The European Union is obsessed with the single market and turning Europe into a free market space. We have seen now, with the financial crisis the economic and social devastation of the free market. Millions of people are unemployed, millions more live on benefits and there seems at the moment no end to this crisis.
The politicians of the European Union have talked about ‘social Europe’, but this social Europe is not visible. What is visible is the obsession of the free market.
It was obvious that the single market was never going to work because it fails to recognise the culture of the people. The European Union is made up of 27 countries, all have their own language and traditions. And by tradition, I also mean their approach to culture policy. For example, funding of films. The European Commission is constantly under pressure from supporters of the free market to put an end to subsidies to filmmaking, because these subsidies are seen as an infringement to the smooth operation of the free market – but there is no demand by the citizens of any European country or by the film industry itself to do away with state-funding schemes. Instead of respecting this difference and allowing countries to fund films to be made in their own languages, the European Union sometimes is actively trying to sabotage this. What the European Union could do instead is to better promote each others films in all our countries, this of course means improving the distribution of films, and this could include showing films on each others TV screens and in cinemas, or using the Internet more and making the films produced in each country more easily available. This would be popular and encourage a common European identity.
As for cultural diplomacy. If European countries and the European Union develop a legal and funding framework that encourages new artistic creations of high quality, with artists and creators well paid, and which are accessible to many viewers and listeners – such a model could be exported, which of course means that non European countries develop their own set of culture policies, including subsidies, having state owned museums and libraries, supporting filmmakers, and at the same time appreciating culture made in other countries.
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