White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 14income for the state would be modest,given the size of the sector and couldeven be offset, since this measurewould probably lead to many moreunofficial businesses coming into theopen and declaring their activities. Atpresent, for these non-registeredbusinesses VAT at 20% is quite simplyincompatible with making acceptablemargins on the collecting market,which, as we said, is lively but usuallyvery vulnerable to the price factor.14.4 The difficulties ofyoung Italian artists andshortcomings in theeducation systemIn books providing internationalrankings, such as Cream 3 or FreshCream published by Phaidon, we findthat the Top 100 artists only includestwo Italians: Luisa Lambri and GraziaToderi. In another classification (2002)– Art Now. 137 Artists at the Rise of theNew Millennium published by Taschen –the Italians artists mentioned areMonica Bonvicini, Maurizio Cattelan,Paola Pivi and again Grazia Toderi.There are few Italian artists in theinternational lists of young illustrators,painters and photographers. We rarelyfind Italian galleries in the major artfairs, such as Frieze (London), ArtBasel, Art Basel Miami and so on. TheItalian galleries often prefer to takeinternational stars to fairs rather thanrisking not making sales. Moreover, in2008 the Italian fair MIART (Milan),made its latest attempt to renew thesections dedicated to young Italians,but in so doing probably decreed itsown end.One of the key reasons why Italianartists struggle to make a name abroad,at least as a category (there are strikingsuccess stories, but always involvingisolated individuals and never membersof a national group), may be attributedto shortcomings in educationalstructures.For centuries, the Accademie di Belle Arti(art colleges/fine arts schools) havebeen the only specialised institutionsfor teaching the figurative arts. Basedon the master-apprentice relationshipand on the repetition of historicmodels, they were founded at the endof the 16th century, when art haddecorative functions. The Accademiethus produced decorative, stucco andfresco artists who had a clearlyrecognisable style. The first element ofweakness in the Accademie is thatexperimental art, as conceived today,has taken such different new paths,characterised by technical, theoreticaland aesthetic experimentation, thatturning out students with a uniformstyle is no longer feasible.The system of Accademie still mainlyfocuses on teaching technical expertise,which is sacrosanct in some cases suchas Carrara, where the local areaprovides marble and thus requiresspecific skills, but not in the majority ofcases.Another problem with the Accademieconcerns the very long time thatstudents spend with only one teacher.This is an important issue, especiallywhen there are no uniform teachingsstandards. For four years studentsbasically study only one creativemethod in one approach to theWHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 325