Economy of our post socialist culture

State and Municipality (and recently NGO distributing municipal and state funds) are both the largest producer (through the act of entrustment) and the largest customer of art of professional quality or of imitating professional standards quality. This is a self-sufficient process that aims at presenting a non creative environment as normal and "market". The gallery is the place of presentation. The work done is a selection on a given topic, a presentation the collected and its reporting in the media. This system functions due to the regulations of the economic team, which first grants money and then approves the cost. The comparative analysis of the work done has demonstrated that the results of money spent are comparable with international practice and from this perspective the presentation is art. I'll tell you - once in the gallery it is art. Otherwise might be a hellhole. It’s called Social art. Not long ago such an act was "curated" in the National gallery.

The only difference between this "creative work" and normal is that in this post-socialist practice, the creative result and the artistic contribution that should be the result from a creative process is defined preliminary before the creative act, its result is set as known and comparable with international practice.

It is the same like to discover America before you left and to prove before departure, it has been discovered like that (there is no risk whether it will be discovered, it is already discovered) and there is no risk to venture. What if you don’t discover it, you will get fired - right? Wife, children, family? The absurdity is obvious, but the only real existing practice carried out by the state and municipalities is the management of  cultural process. The requested expert potential is the economic skills to budget "some money" and later lawfully from an audit perspective, not from art perspective, that money to be absorbed and spent.

A funny story some years ago beautifully illustrates the practice. The organizers of an International Music Festival decided to steal (to absorb lawfully :) one million lev for the festival. To get away with that, the  Accounting division of the budgeting organization should match the amount with fees and expenses of the world-famous violinist, the chief economist should have at least heard about, in order the overspending to sound convincing. They wrote down that Yehudi Menuhin would be performing. The money was allocated. The failure occurred when a famous journalist, a month before the concert of Yehudi Menuhin called him into his office to ask for an interview prior to his arrival in Bulgaria. Surprised that the Maestro has not even heard that there is such a festival, let alone that he should participate. The journalist, outraged, reported the case in the newspaper.

You will ask what happened with the money!? Well, the money has already been allocated! They absorbed them :)

For the auditors they wrote that the maestro was sick and so the concert failed. There is a subtle detail. Budgeting in Bulgaria is precedent-based - meaning if you got away with that once, it becomes a successful practice for insiders. Did you get it? I will tell you. The next year it was no longer necessary to seek a world famous violinist for the scheme. They just copied last year's budget.

Medium level culture budgets are copied with variations of at least forty years. There is no art market in Bulgaria as you can see. There is a market of schemes. Do not expect the so cultivated experts of spaces representative for the authority, such as city and state galleries, to organize market, let alone fight for your art at the international market.

The boss of the Institute of Biotechnology, whose Design department I created, was very funny. He was completing the budget as follows "Over the coming year we will create three ingenious discoveries, fifteen talented innovations and about forty standard scientific contributions in our research activity." After this bombastic statement the figures were filled in. He had them, because he was our guy. That’s what I wanted to tell you. Seven years after the October Revolution Ilf and Petrov have already described it. So there over the counter of the pavilion a notice in red letters is displayed: BEER ONLY FOR UNION MEMBERS.

Socialism is one of the greatest achievements of our civilization. In socialism selection is done according to belonging, not according to qualities. This freedom of natural selection and the accompanying freedom from responsibility for the consequences of the actions – that is the victory of Socialism over Common Sense.

And "common sense" as Einstein says is the accumulated prejudices up to 18 years. Take it easy. The party is going on. You are such losers! Take your bucks and listen to what daddy has to tell you!?

Now seriously. The creator in this kind of creativity apparently is not the artist. The artist is only the performer. He is salary remunerated – looking for the budget. He has the position named artist. In fact, he is a contractor and not an author, he only performs works by already known artists. These works are usually foreign, and their subjects, time, work and ideas have nothing to do with our reality – therefore they are politically and socially toothless. But as in the Yehudi Menuhin scheme you can complete with quasi creative, pseudo cultural activity the European standards for culture expenditures in a normal European country.

Money for AUTHORS  - artists, playwrights, writers and any other art creators is not provided. Right, uh? Write something to change the pattern! And moreover culture dominates the minds. It is not just a tool of the authority, it is authority itself. The rest is administration. We will import culture. From abroad. The proper culture. Not ours. We with our own resources, we reproduce foreign potential. Foreign creativity. And we'll be just performers. Elegant, isn’t it?!

Culture and Freedom are natural human rights. Culture is generating and cultivating of values ​​and their free exchange. The only real capital are the ideas and creativity.

The entrepreneur is a person whose ideas and practices create opportunities. The artist is an innovative entrepreneur who has the potential to continually generate opportunities. Realization of potential is the economy of culture. Culture of the economy. Art is personal contact with the Spirit and the Truth, which we can experience together, which is Culture.

Have you got 5 stotinki? Look at the coin from one side  - there is a picture – it is called edge. There is a digit on the other side. Without the image, the digit does not cost anything. The image represents authority, within whose patrimony the standard of value exchange ​​is secured. Value is Culture. Culture is authority. The authority defines the objectives "evaluating" them. A digit is quantitative, not qualitative measure of comparability with other value. The free exchange of comparable values ​​is the foundation of our society. Without culture and without freedom it is impossible.