To start off I would like to clear up a claim, attributed to me in the last issue of this magazine, that popularisation of art would make it possible (for institutions) to receive more state support. In truth, my long held belief, that still holds true today, of cooperation, even between very different institutions, is much broader – it would make it possible to achieve no matter what common goal and would also ensure transparency in art policy.

Today, the popularisation of art in Estonia is certainly not expressed as a unified overall aim (though there is clear and constructive cooperation between institutions in regard to internationalisation). The fact that the popularisation of art has recently been repeatedly referred to is a specific local issue; what is most relevant is the move towards the general rehabilitation of art and improving its attractiveness with words or actions – art has caused in part an aggressively negative reaction among the public since the 1990s – at least if we are to believe the picture painted by the media. Cooperation – actually simple congeniality among colleagues in the field, which could be expressed in an articulate and well argued critique, in discussions, as well as dialogue – would be very important here, but in my assessment this has been more of an exception. We cannot talk about “market development” as what the market offers is completely irrelevant for the general public. Therefore it is logical that the popularisation of art has a place in the work of all institutions operating in the area of contemporary art today.

Art funding practices in Estonia are quite different to those in Nordic countries and even the rest of the Western world. There is no developed tradition of private funding, and the public funding system is limited. Whereas the Estonian Cultural Endowment, with its peer decision-making body and focus on individual artists creates very broad opportunities for art practice. It is from this specific situation that we should base the “question of populism” in the Estonian context.

No public funding mechanism in Estonia makes decisions about assigning grants based on the fact of popularising art, visitor figures or other populist indicators. This, in turn, does not imply that the state places no value on art education or the public programmes in art institutions as part of a professional institutional practice, which both the Ministry of Culture and the Cultural Endowment commissions support. Comprehensive analysis of a proposed or already realised project, including information regarding the (expected) visitor statistics, is a natural part of any application and reporting process. There is little that can be measured in art; actual contact with viewers inevitably can. Colleagues of practitioners are doubtless more than competent at valuing these contacts, especially given, for example, the Cultural Endowment’s high level of competition, and therefore, large basis for comparison. Substance has always been regarded among colleagues as more important than figures.

However, no art organisation (incl. state owned art museums) in Estonia is capable of fully carrying out its programme relying on public funding (mainly Ministry of Culture and Cultural Endowment grants) alone. Much is expected from private sponsors and ticket buyers – and here figures take on a different meaning. Many sponsors look very carefully at both the substantive context and potential number of “contacts” for their sponsorship; ticket buyers, on the other hand, vote directly with their wallets. We have circled back (though this may, of course, be the wrong path) to the question of the popularity of art. I am unable to tell whether this is a vicious circle or a spiral with direction, but as a practitioner, there is probably little choice except to believe that each entirety created on the scene, each exhibition, event and initiative, has a broader impact than the immediate groups of makers and viewers. In addition, public funds cannot be endlessly spent on phenomena that have no positive reception (e.g. local or international critical feedback, an “afterlife” in the world of discourse or exhibitions), except on the makers themselves, without asking critical questions.

It would be all too easy to explain things “economically” here, but the rivalry on the “populist front” between organisations that depend solely on their own income is certainly the most visible. Maria Lind has described this problem based on the Swedish example as a much wider tendency. One might even say that visitor statistics as a whole is a “boomerang” thrown up by the field itself, a pre-crisis marketing technique by institutions in a blockbuster frenzy, still today threatening to strike the throwers themselves right in the face, forcing the same marketing departments, at times by ever more desperate means, to “take over” the institutions. In the global institutional major league, the danger of the marginalisation of curatorial work and Hollywoodisation of artist positions is completely evident. In Estonia, however, these dangers tend to be on the opposite side of the scale at the moment – too much of artistic life passes in relative obscurity, “transparent” even for us and for our colleagues. The struggle is under way in “shared containers”– publicly funded art institutions are fighting for public attention and recognition, and by the same token contributing to the popularity of the field.

Of course, we too already have quite a few “community-based” art initiatives – where we can talk about art as a certain shared value, even a measure, being taken to perhaps more distant target groups – which are globally being used on quite a large scale and sometimes referred to in terms of the “instrumentalisation” of art. I would suggest, however, that the topic of the popularisation of art takes on very different emphases depending on whether we are looking at the background systems of Estonia in particular, some other country or the “world of contemporary art”. Thus, here too, a more limited focus is crucial to bring the discussion to a conclusion.

Maria-Kristiina Soomre works as the Visual Arts Adviser for the Estonian Ministry of Culture.