White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 14and the perception of the culturalindustry as being focused on marketvalues. Hence the little interest shownby publishers in serious essays ortranslations of leading theoretical andhistorical experts. The rise inpopularising texts on art has led to theproduction of what are little more thanbooklets with a cynical and complacentundertone of “anybody can do this”,typical of those with no real knowledgeof contemporary art. There are alsovery few translations of Italian studiesinto English, and this situationcontinues to encourage the selfreferentialisolation of Italian scholars.Arts booksItalian publishing houses tend to consider contemporary art books as products to bepaid for in advance by a client. Even when there are no costly illustrations, translationsare not considered worthwhile business ventures because of the small size of the Italianlanguage base and the costs of publication (translation, rights and distribution). Seminalanthologies for an understanding of the thinking of 20th-century artists and critics, suchas Art in Theory (Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, Blackwell, 1995) or Theories andDocuments in Contemporary Arts (Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, California Press, 1996) havenot even been published in Italy or only in abbreviated editions. Some hope has comefrom new initiatives: although we had to wait until 1993 for a translation of a work bythe classic American critic, Clement Greenberg (Allemandi, Turin), the most significantbooks by his rebellious heir Rosalind Krauss have been translated by various publishers(e.g. Bruno Mondadori and Codice). Moreover, there is every reason to suggest that thiswillingness to publish translations is not so much due to an interest shown by art schoolsto meet their requirements, than the visitor boom to visual arts events from the 1980swell into the 2000s and the interest in the non-specialised press. This kind of publishingis thus an epiphenomenon of the growing number of exhibitions, which are the outcomeof local cultural policies catering to a wider public.This could also explain the fact that the costly, hefty Art since 1900 by Hal Foster,Rosalind Krauss, Yves-Alain Bois and Benjamin Buchoh (Thames and Hudson) has beentranslated and published by Zanichelli.Further food for thought comes fromthe fact there are very few teacherswho cover the various aspects of thehistory, criticism and sociology ofcontemporary art: this is an inevitablelegacy of the belated introduction of artteaching in universities and in turn, alegacy of the belated, reluctantacceptance of contemporary art notonly by science teachers, but also artsfaculty teachers and, most significantly,art historians who deal with art fromother ages. There are no faculties anddegree courses on the production andproject aspects of visual arts, and it isnot even a subject in degree courses inliterature, the cultural heritage, historyor philosophy, i.e. in the so-calledWHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 329