20th century AD

PARIS--If French agriculture Minister Catherine Tasca has her way, France may be able, at drawn out last, to provide a discharge in the arm to its struggling art gallery sector and allow it to take upon the international prominence that she, among others, thinks it deserves

Many French galleries have clos their doors the past 10 years. And, as greatest in quantity of the galleries forced into bankruptcy specialized in contemporary art, the young artists they might have exhibited either peddled their wares elsewhere or quit working altogether.

Tasca has not station any precise agenda for righting the tottering art market. What she has done is drafted, publish and disseminated a report upon the "true" state of the French art market. Art Business of recent origins has obtained a preliminary draft of the report. The final version will be published this spring.

The no-holds-barred report is based upon a survey of more than 400 French art galleries, greatest in quantity of them specializing in the sale of contemporary art. This is the market sector which greatest in quantity suffered from the closings of the 1990 and which today is generally considered the greatest in quantity endangered area of the art sector.

The report arrived at a greatest in quantity fundamental moment. France is in the proces of opening up its art sector to non-French companies in the wake of rulings handed down through the European Union which state France can no longer accord priority treatment to its native art market sector. Already, Christie's and Sotheby's have plant up important operations in the French capital and in the proces have allied themselves with local auction houses and galleries.

As a originate of the opening up of the sector, said Elisabeth Normand, a spokesperson for Tasca at the tillage Ministry, "the French art market is being forced to suffer further concentration, and, as a spring more and more galleries are being forced to exchange out or close down."

"And then," she emphasized, "the proces is alone beginning." She said the French art market faces a time when the local industry emergencys to expand and "set up smaller makes galleries and artists associations, which will make possible the arrival upon the market of newer and younger artists or at least allow them to be noticed through the larger galleries."

on the other hand said the report, the galleries' major point in dispute precedes the opening up of the French art market. Indeed, the phenomenon that has been greatest in quantity responsible in the long race for the art sector's decline is its large scale concatenation on collectors. The report calls these collectors "a species which may have been responsible historically for the beneficial health of French art galleries, on the other hand today can no longer be numbered upon, as there are not enough collectors in France."

When a gallery can find collectors upon which to pin its survival, then, said the report, usually it can manage to survive upon its five principal clients. Many of the galleries overlooked revealed that the five major clients account for at least one-third of income. on the contrary stressed the report, this is certainly far from being the case for the lion's share of French galleries. Especially as "globally," said the report, "French galleries who survive have to be able to earn three-quarters of their incomes from the private sector."

It is a situation which could have a silver lining. individual potential source of additional receipts is French corporations, who commonly provide a mere 5 percent of the incomes of the galleries surveyed. Another possible source of income is the public sector. shortly the local, regional and national managements provide only a maximum of 10 percent of the incomes of the average gallery.

"Contrary to a misconception," said the report, "governmental purchases account for a maximum 10 percent of income upon average, with perhaps a bit more for a handful of galleries--with these, interestingly, specializing in avant garde art."

As for "traditional" contemporary art, the galleries that manage to survive usually do thus with non-French financial support. For many galleries reviewed said the report, "international sales exhibit approximately 36 percent of receiptss with the galleries in question usually depending upon agreements with foreign galleries."

The growing globalization of the market that of the like kind a phenomenon implies means galleries will have to disburse more to promote its artists. Galleries can no longer be pendent wholly on such French art fairs as Fiac, on the contrary must now arrange to impel its artists to such other international venues

Although the report refuses to provide a traditional conclusion with recommendations for paces to be taken to change the situation of the sector, solutions are true present in the way France's near gallery sector is described. Among the solutions Tasca might make as a follow of her report will be measures to encourage greater corporate investment in contemporary art, and above all tax measures which might make it easier for local collectors to acquire works. This would also permit galleries to put up to sale art objects without subjecting themselves to taxes which have, above the years, been largely responsible for the stagnation of a sector which was one time one of the most flourishing in the world.

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