INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON CULTURAL ECONOMICS

The symposium Economics of the Visual Arts is intended to bring together experts from the field of cultural economics, to discuss key issues of economics of the visual arts: arts markets and art auctions, copyright in the visual arts, economics of museums, policy and non-profit issues in the visual arts, labor market in the visual arts, etc. The topics will form guidelines for the lectures, performed by renowned experts from the field, coming from all over the world, mostly from countries where cultural economics has gained prominence in the past decades. Speakers will include:

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Prof. Victor Ginsburgh
Prof. Ginsburgh studied at the Solvay Business School at the Free University of Brussels (now split into the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel) and mastered in econometrics. He holds a Ph.D. in economics, 1972. He is professor at Université Libre de Bruxelles since 1975. He has been visiting professor in several US universities (Yale, University of Virginia, Chicago University), as well as in France (Paris and Marseille), and in Belgium (Louvain and Liège). Very active as a researcher, Ginsburgh wrote several books of reference and more than 130 scientific articles published in reviews such as Econometrica and the American Economic Review. His research areas are general equilibrium, microeconomic theory and cultural economics in which he is recognized as a world authority. Prof. Ginsburgh will lecture on the economics of prizes in art.

Prof. Arjo Klamer
Prof. Klamer is professor of the Economics of Art and Culture at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and holds the world’s only chair in the field of cultural economics. Prior to that and after acquiring his PhD at Duke University, he taught for many years at several universities in the US, including Wellesley College and George Washington University. In 1984, he attracted a great deal of attention with his Conversations with Economists. In one of his latest books, Speaking of Economics (Routledge, 2007), he pursues themes that emerged from that book. He has collaborated with Deirdre McCloskey to promote the rhetorical perspective on economics. The Economic Conversation, a textbook forthcoming in 2008 (Palgrave) and co-authored with McCloskey and Stephen Ziliak employs a groundbreaking “open-method” approach to teaching first-year micro- and macroeconomics. His current research focuses on the cultural dimension of economic life and the values of art. Prof. Klamer will lecture on value of culture.

Prof. Ilde Rizzo
Prof. Rizzo is a professor of Economics of Cultural Resources at the University of Catania. She holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Finance and D. Phil from University of Buckingham, UK. She holds several academic appointments, board-positions in non-profit Italian cultural organisations and memberships in world cultural economics organisations. She is author of more than 50 publications in world respected journals. Among her most recent works mention the books The Heritage Game. Economics, Policy and Practice (2008), which she co-authored with Sir Alan T. Peacock, and The Economics of the Heritage: a study of the political economy of culture in Sicily (2002), which she co-authored with one of the leading world cultural economists Prof. Ruth Towse. Prof. Rizzo will lecture on the economics of cultural heritage.

Prof. Victor Fernandez- Blanco
Prof. Fernandez-Blanco holds a PhD in Economic Sciences and a chair in Fundaments of Economic Analysis at the University of Oviedo, Spain. His research focus is on cultural economics, economics of movies and cinema, and economics of museums. He is author of numerous articles in world respected journals, and has co-authored two recent books on El cine y su público en España. Un análisis económico, (1998) and Cinéfilos videoadictos y telespectadores. Los perfiles de los consumidores de productos audiovisuales en España,(2002), the latter being co-authored with Juan Prieto Rodríguez, Cristina Muñiz Artime and Rubén Gutiérrez del Castillo. He is member of editorial board of Journal of Cultural Economics as well as member of board of Association for Cultural Economics International. Prof. Victor Fernandez-Blanco will lecture on economics of museums.

Prof. Hans Abbing
Prof. Abbing is an artist, economist and sociologist based in Holland. In 2005, he was appointed as professor of art sociology (the Boekman Chair) at the University of Amsterdam, where today he is Professor Emeritus in art sociology. He has presented extensive papers on the relationship between art and economics and in 2002 his often cited book, WHY ARE ARTISTS POOR? The Exceptional Economy of the Arts was published. Prof. Abbing is also an active visual artist. Prof. Abbing will lecture on economics of labor market and incomes in art.

Prof. Kathryn Graddy
Prof. Graddy is an Associate Professor of Economics at Brandeis University, USA. She holds an M.B.A. in Columbia University and a PhD at Princeton University, USA. Her numerous publications (several of them co-authored by Prof. Orley Ashenfelter) are mostly from the field of art auctions, arts markets, and copyright in the arts. She has co-authored (with P. Krugman and R. Wells) the valuable textbooks on Essentials in Economics (in publication ) and Economics (2007). Prof. Graddy will lecture on art markets and art auctions.

Prof. Bogomir KovačProf. Kovač is a full professor for Philosophy of Economics, Macroeconomics and Environmental Economics at the Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana. He holds or held numerous important faculty and other positions, and published extensively in home and foreign journals. He was advisor to several governmental bodies, both in former Yugoslavia as well as Slovenia. He is one of the rare scientists who are connoiseurs and supporters of the field of cultural economics in Slovenia, and has authored numerous journal, magazine and newsletter articles on the topic. His research interest in cultural economics include art and development studies and arts markets. Prof. Kovač will lecture on art and development studies.

Prof. Vesna Čopič
Prof. Čopič graduated in 1981 at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ljubljana. Between 1991 and 1997 Prof. Čopič was evolved in the evaluation of Slovenian cultural policy. As an author and co-author she published some major publications in this field as for instance: ‘Elements for the Shaping of the National Cultural Policy’ and ‘Cultural Policy in Slovenia’. Throughout the nineties Prof. Čopič prepared the legislation in the sphere of culture for the Ministry of Culture of Slovenia. She participated, moreover, as an expert in some of Council of Europe programmes, research projects of the European Union, and activities for the European Cultural Foundation. Since 1999 Prof. Čopič has been a lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana, where she teaches about cultural policy and cultural management. In 2006 she received a PhD on Social Sciences at the University of Ljubljana. Prof. Vesna Čopič, furthermore, publishes in various scientific journals at home and abroad. Her principal interests are legislation, public governance and cultural policy. Prof. Čopič will lecture on cultural policy in visual arts.

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Apart from the invited speakers, the symposium will also host two panels, one with presentations of good practices in financing visual arts in Slovenia, and the other with presentations of selected young researchers.

Each invited lecture lasts 40 minutes (plus discussion)
Each lecture of young researcher lasts 25 minutes (plus discussion)

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The Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia which will host the event will provide a place for the two-day symposium. The Faculty is one of the most renowned economic institutions in the region, hosting number of distinguished home and foreign lecturers, and having both EQUIS and AACSB International Certificates, which puts it among less than 50 economics institutions in the world, which hold both most valuable certificates of educational quality. The Faculty is located 15 minutes from the centre of the town, in a cluster of faculties, and has good capacities of place for lectures and supporting events.

Distinguished partners of the event are Erasmus University Rotterdam, Kecskemét College Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, and sculpture network.

The main organisation part of the project will be the work of the chosen Organisation Commitee and partnership from co-organizer organizations. We must pronounce that this symposium will be the first one of this size on Slovenian level, and that for most of the renowned professors from the field this will be the their first time to present their research in Slovenia. As the issue of financing culture has gained many interest in the past years, we also expect good feedback from participants.

Each participant will receive a certificate, aknowledging his participation.

Co-organiser consortium:
Ekonomska fakulteta Univerze v Ljubljani / Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana (SI); Erasmus University Rotterdam (NL); Kecskemét College Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Automation (H); sculpture network (D)

Scientific Commitee:
dr. Victor Ginsburgh, dr. Bogomir Kovač, dr. Arjo Klamer, dr. Károly Belina, dr. Vesna Čopič

Organisation Committee:
mag. Andrej Srakar, mag. Lyudmila Petrova, mag. Ákos Tóth, Isabelle Henn, dr. Aleksandar Kešeljević

REGISTRATION:
On http://www.cecee.eu/index.php?page=registration,form
Deadline: Friday, September 3rd 2010

PLACE OF THE EVENT:
Faculty of Economics, Univ. of Ljubljana

DATE OF THE EVENT: Friday, 17th – Saturday, 18th of September, 2010

ACCOMODATION:
Best Western Premier Hotel Slon, Slovenska cesta 34 (center of the city), http://www.hotelslon.com/
Art Hostel Celica, Metelkova ulica 8 (in-between faculty and center of the city), http://www.souhostel.com/

PARTICIPATION FEES:
Individual Participant: 50,00 EUR
Institutional Participant: 70,00 EUR
Student or Member of Sculpture Network: 35,00 EUR

Payment is either by credit card, bank transfer, or on-place registration, depending on which payment you choose when registrating through website.

Contact:
Andrej Srakar
coordinator of the event
sculpture network and Faculty of Economics, Univ. of Ljubljana
Prušnikova 23
1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
T: +386 (0)31 643 414
andrej_srakar@t-2.net

University of Nova Gorica.

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Klamer is chair of 3rd Session, “Socio Spatial Analysis” :

• From things to relations: landscape as a socialization factor (HUL social practices: from historic monument to museum to social factory)
• Preservation of HUL- a matter of use? (Preservation of HUL through social capital building)
• How to realize Landscape as a common good?

From “Sustainable Development and Cultural Capital”, Paul Dalziel and Caroline Saunders, Official Statistics Research Series, Vol 5, 2009:

“Arjo Klamer (2002) is another economist who argues for going beyond economic values when measuring cultural capital (see also Klamer, 1996). He is particularly critical of approaches that focus only on the contribution of cultural capital to economic well-being (Klamer, 2002, p. 462) [The Value of Culture]:

Implied is the suggestion that additions to social and cultural capital serve the purpose of increasing flows of economic income. Yet, often the opposite may apply: people invest in their cultural capital in defiance and even denial of economic returns. People spend time on and with the arts and do not even want to know what the economic consequences of their choices are. Economic calculations interfere in friendship and may actually destroy it. The maximization of economic returns may therefore actually end up damaging the capitals that really matter to us.

Klamer (2002, p. 467) defines cultural capital simply as the capacity to inspire and be inspired: ‘Cultural capital enables us to award meanings to so-called symbolic goods and to lift us up from the drudgery of daily life. It enables intellectuals to have those energizing sparks of insight and, if I understand the theologians well, enable us to experience the grace of God. Immeasurable as it is, cultural capital appears to generate the most important values of all, the values that can give meaning to our life.’ He concedes that there are shortcomings in this definition, including problems with making it more concrete, but argues that immeasurability does not signify irrelevance. “

Richard Veryard, 6 January 2010, “Notes on the Value of Culture”

… [A]n organization without culture – well, it just wouldn’t be an organization at all. Culture is what gives an organization its identity – it is a kind of deeper structure that protects the organization from incoherence, instability and inconsequentiality. Culture tells us how an abstract business model is embodied in a particular organization.

Arjo Klamer identifies several ways of talking about the value of culture. In an anthropological sense,

“‘culture’ … refers to the shared values, stories and aspirations that distinguish one group of people from another (think of a community, an organization, an ethnic group, a nation or a continent). The economic value of culture would be the economic contribution that those shared values make. As the sociologist Max Weber famously argued, the culture of Calvinism may have contributed to the rise of capitalism and the economic growth that came with it. A particular culture may improve economic performance or hinder it. A culture of distrust can seriously hamper the market process. A culture of consensus, such as exists in Japan and the Netherlands, can stifle entrepreneurship but may also be responsible for stability in the event of crisis.”
[See Value of Culture at www.Klamer.nl]

Edgar Schein identifies three levels of organizational culture – behaviour and artefacts, values, and assumptions and beliefs. [See Wikipedia. See also notes by Ted Nellen.] We can use the VPEC-T lens to unpack and identify these different elements.

An organization has various mechanisms to prevent random changes to the way-we-do-things. Much of the time, these mechanisms are accepted uncritically as part of normal management control – like an immune system that prevents the organization being taken over by destructive memes. @AndreaMeyer calls these mechanisms corporate antibodies. However, when managers themselves want to change things, these mechanisms turn out to be inconvenient obstaces, whose aggregate effect is to suppress innovation.

Vincent Kenny and Philip Boxer describe culture as follows.

“Anyone who works in businesses will have encountered the notion of culture, and the incredible extent to which a culture lives on in a way which defies anyone’s attempts to bring about change. It is not only a question of dealing with the issue of anxiety as an individual issue – the whole fabric of the organisation seems to be caught up in the conservation of identity however much change individuals may make.” [Economy of Discourses, 1990]

Kenny and Boxer go on to talk about “the levels of extreme inflexibility and ‘stuckness’ which we witness in large companies” and ask “how can we explain the increasing degrees of rigidity and loss of power for self-transformation evident in the invariant identities and cultures of organisations?”

The reason leaders struggle with culture is because there is a creative tension or asymmetry between culture and identity on the one hand, and viability (or effectiveness or survival) on the other hand. This is a critical element of the Asymmetric Design lens, which Philip Boxer describes in When is a stratification not a universal hierarchy? (See also the sociological distinction between structure and agency.) This provides a rigorous framework for reasoning about complex structural change.

The inaugural Guggenheim Forum, titled Between the Over- and Under-designed, coincides with Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward, an exhibition co-organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation on view through August 23. The forum runs June 22 through July 2 with live chat sessions scheduled with Aric Chen and panelists Arjo Klamer and Ellen Lupton on Thursday, June 25, 11 a.m. EDT and with exhibition co-curator David van der Leer on Tuesday, June 30, 2 p.m. EDT.

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“Ambachtslieden zijn de kern van de samenleving zou je kunnen zeggen. Het staat voor kwaliteit. We zijn er afhankelijk van, loodgieters, dakwerkers, noem ze maar op. Je hebt ze ook geregeld nodig als je een huishouden runt. Maar ik denk dat het wel om meer gaat dan alleen dat. Ambachtslieden dragen ook bij aan de versterking van de Nederlandse economie.”

• Focus op de ambachtseconomie Home pagina
• Platform ambachtseconomie: VIDEO op Klamer
• Publicaties ‘vakmanschap’

Anne Helmond
“Arjo Klamer addresses the question of how we can bridge the gap between economics and culture”
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