SÃO PAULO - WORLD CULTURAL FORUM
2nd JULY, 2004
LECTURE 5 – LARGE AUDITORIUM
REJANE XAVIER
The first question that we face when considering the title of this lecture is really to define what values we are talking about. Economic value and cultural value are frequently placed in opposition to each other and the ‘mercantilization’ of culture has been seen as a threat in these times of accelerated globalization, when cultural production is increasingly thought of as merchandise that has to fit the same rules that apply to the international trade in goods and services.
(Representing the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP))
According to the old rule (‘the cultural good is that in which meaning is more important than usefulness’) today nearly all goods are ‘cultural goods’: the brand is worth more than the training shoe or the pair of jeans, the label is worth more than the spectacles, the design is worth more than the chair.
Prada shoes, with Burberry pattern
The first question that we face when considering the title of this lecture is really to define what values we are talking about. Economic value and cultural value are frequently placed in opposition to each other and the ‘mercantilization’ of culture has been seen as a threat in these times of accelerated globalization, when cultural production is increasingly thought of as merchandise that has to fit the same rules that apply to the international trade in goods and services.
The growing importance of cultural industries in an increasingly globalized marketplace is an unquestionable fact although it still creates doubts and conflicts of interest. On the one hand the ability of these industries to generate value, work and income is celebrated; on the other, fears are generated concerning their effects on traditional cultures and the pressures they exert on the creativity and freedom of artists.
Writers, musicians, cinematographers and painters justifiably aspire to seeing their work exhibited, recognized and well paid, and see in the cultural industry a chance of achieving these aspirations. However, they either refuse or are reluctant to make their art conform to the ‘rules of the marketplace’: producing a new record album every year, even when they have no new work ready; making films that the follow the dazzling action sequences of American cinema (we may consider here those wonderful Iranian films that the public often feels are ‘slow’ and ‘tedious’ because their ways of seeing and appreciating films have been moulded by Hollywood productions); producing paintings and sculptures adapted to western decorative taste, and writing novels following publishers’ models of best sellers.
Writers, musicians, cinematographers and painters justifiably aspire to seeing their work exhibited, recognized and well paid, and see in the cultural industry a chance of achieving these aspirations. However, they either refuse or are reluctant to make their art conform to the ‘rules of the marketplace’: producing a new record album every year, even when they have no new work ready; making films that the follow the dazzling action sequences of American cinema (we may consider here those wonderful Iranian films that the public often feels are ‘slow’ and ‘tedious’ because their ways of seeing and appreciating films have been moulded by Hollywood productions); producing paintings and sculptures adapted to western decorative taste, and writing novels following publishers’ models of best sellers.
It is about this tension between market value and cultural value that I would like to reflect, if possible broadening the scope of the analysis in order to bridge the contradiction between them without ignoring the differences and even the points at which occasionally their differences cannot be avoided.
