Spanish contemporary art galleries will close their doors from February 2 to 7 to demand a reduction in VAT (21%) that puts them at a disadvantage compared to their European colleagues. The strike is the main measure of the package agreed on Friday between professionals in the sector, some 125 grouped in the Contemporary Art Consortium. The closing week will occur in the midst of preparations for the 45th edition of Arco, which will be held between March 4 and 8. It is not the first time that the sector closes its doors. It happened in 1991, for the same economic reason that now threatens its activity, VAT.
In their statement, the gallery owners recall that they have been forced to act in the face of the paralysis and lack of response from the Government and request the adoption of a cultural VAT for artists and galleries, transposing Council Directive (EU) 2022/542 of April 5, 2022. “We are forced,” the professionals write, “to adopt these measures in the face of a situation that is seriously threatening the sustainability of the work of artists and galleries.” “The lack of action by the Government regarding the adoption of a cultural VAT, as all European countries around us have done, is being extraordinarily detrimental to contemporary art in Spain since it undermines the competitiveness of Spanish art galleries, making their work to defend, support, promote and internationalize the work of our artists practically unviable,” they argue.
The forgotten of Culture
The managers and artists who work in contemporary art resurrect a complaint that they have already expressed on different occasions: they are a forgotten sector of cultural policies. “We find ourselves,” they say, “at a disadvantage compared to other creative sectors, such as music, performing arts or cinema, whose professionals have a reduced VAT rate on the sales of their creations through distributors.”
In addition to the closure of the premises, the gallery owners have decided to suspend for three months the collaboration that they usually altruistically maintain with museums and private entities. Galleries help by lending works, but also by sharing their files on artists and pieces that only they have information about. “For a week, we are no longer free cultural spaces, open to citizens. In this way, the largest museum in Spain is closed,” they point out.
In a massive event held at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, in December of last year, gallery owners and artists read the manifesto titled IVA Culture isa document in which they denounced the disadvantages that maintaining 21% VAT has for Spanish contemporary art, while France, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and Portugal have already lowered it in order to apply European regulations, between 5% and 7%. There was no response from the Minister of Culture.
The document released today indicates that the situation is being extraordinarily detrimental to contemporary art in Spain “since it undermines the competitiveness of Spanish art galleries, making their work to defend, support, promote and internationalize the work of our artists practically unviable.”
The consortium text concludes by lamenting that “this situation is unfair and unsustainable, and contradicts the principles of cultural equity that should guide the action of any government committed to culture.”