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About the Situation in Estonia
In modern society, art is not only existing as a test-tube baby of contemporary philosophy and as a „criterion of truth“, but it also has taken the responsibility to function as the catalyst for culture industry, being implemented as the engine for national design and production. Thus, the suggestion to pay more attention to the social protection of artists and creativity is becoming increasingly important in Estonia. As by nature, the artist community cannot be compared to a social group with special needs, quite the opposite – as the prototypes for lifelong learning and self-employment, artists in many ways are the pioneers of modern employment in the contemporary post-industrial society.
State support to the field of art can be considered very poor. The budget amount for gallery support by Estonian Ministry of Culture, initiated three years ago, is 1.2 million kroons per year. Therefore, Estonian Artists’ Association as one of the few European artist organisations has to find its own ways to earn the money for its organisational functioning, for the art projects of its sub-unions, and for supporting the daily work of the principal art galleries. Among the tenants renting the real estate belonging to artists’ association since the Soviet times are mostly single artists renting studio spaces or art-related companies, workshops and small industries – which would make it immoral to implement the market rental charge. This situation makes it impossible to earn profits with real estate, since renting single studio spaces does not cover the expenses of their maintenance.
The benefit support system for financing Estonian art is still in an early development phase. According to experts, the system should be based on a so-called social agreement, as the business based system would form art according to the preferences of financially capable audiences and as for Estonia, the proportion of such audience is almost non-existent. Also, there is the lack of tradition preferring high culture. Therefore, the situation of Estonian art would be compatible best with the fund-based support system. Today, Estonia can offer only two matching institutions – Estonian National Culture Foundation and Cultural Endowment of Estonia. Nevertheless, the majority of their supports goes to financing institutions instead of boosting creative individuals.
As for the artists’ social guarantees, Estonia has introduced the draft Act of artistic associations in 2006, the most important being its symbolistic value – culture and creative individual lawfully catching the state’s attention. Every single law is a compromise reflecting the development of social ideas and the current attitude towards the creators of culture; at the same time it clearly shows the progress from where we were only yesterday. For the first time, the state has prescribed liability in the form of the capitation fee (one-fifth of the average monthly salary per creative individual), making the artistic associations lawfully responsible for delivering the crises support to those in urgent need, the maximum amount of the support being the minimum salary plus the social tax paid from this sum and the maximum length being six months including a two year break. Artistic associations have the right to use the remaining resources of the crises support for creative grants and continuing education.
Estonian art market is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary where artists are simultaneously using more than one art form. At the same time, art keeps integrating with other fields of culture. According to the survey on creative industry in 2004, Estonia has educated more than 1800 professional artists during the last 45 years – involving about 600 currently active artists. The field of visual art is based on single artists and tends to have a poor organisational side. There are just a few artists whose artistic creation is the only source of income. Annual gallery sales in Estonia include about 700 to 800 pieces of fine art with the total amount being about 21.2 million kroons while the proportion of gallery sales in professional visual art sales is only about 50% (the rest being sold directly by artists). Therefore it could be estimated that the value of Estonian professional visual art market is about 40-45 million kroons a year. According to experts, the competition between galleries is extremely little as the properly managed and organised art sales take place only in a small number of galleries.
The studies show that Estonian art has strong reputation abroad as well as effectively functioning international relations. According to Statistical Office, Estonia exported paintings, drawings and pastel paintings for about 10.7 million kroons in 2004. Estonian contemporary art sells better abroad, whereas in Estonia there is a greater demand for Estonian classic art pieces.
Estonian society lacks the lawful instrument for bringing the artists’ creative potential into the open. Western Europe has the long practice of the so-called ”1-2% law” where a certain percentage of every construction value goes for making art that values environment and humanity. Implementing similar practice would result in a low number of those artists in need of crisis support. For the first time, Estonia has the goverment that has included the ”percentage art” in culture-related chapters of the coalition agreement, however, the respective work group will face complicated times when introducing the law in 2007.
Among the most positive events in Estonian art life has been the accomplishment of the new building of Estonian art museum in 2006.
Jaan Elken