Promoting the business of art

For the most part, visual artists sell their masterpieces to relatives, friends and kin during times of dire need therefore the price at which they sell are not truly reflective of their actual market values.

This highly personal trading of art, however, must be stopped and artists must learn to deal with art brokers and art galleries to professionalize not just their works but their status as artist as well, said Sid Gomez Hildawa, department manager for Visual, Literary and Media Arts of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. He also heads the National Committee on Art Galleries, which is spearheading the 1stNational Arts Fair in Bacolod this Feb.28 to March 3, 2007.

Hildawa said quite often the artist becomes the sole judge, marketer and designer of his product and chances are he will not be able to do justice to his work in terms of pricing it right.

"When one buyer finds out that the same artist sold his pieces at a lower price to another person, then that will disastrously affect the trading of his future pieces. But this can be corrected if he dealt with a professional trader like a gallery owner," Hildawa said.

Galleries, he added, have been growing in number but artists continue to do their own selling– even if they do not get the real price for their work– because they know their personal needs and wants since they do not know that galleries can also help them in these personal areas of concern.

At the press launch of the 1st National Arts Fair, Lyn Gamboa, president of the Negros Cultural Foundation, said Bacolod "with its rich artistic history is willing to play host to the NAF to showcase not just our valuable pool of visual and performing artists to local art patrons but to show Filipino artists–budding and masters–their works and creativity are of global quality."

The event will gather in Negros all the gallery owners, collectors, art brokers and artists with the objective of raising the people’s awareness of Filipino cultural heritage and promoting the Filipino art as a major component of the creative industry.

Invited to this event are all ambassadors, local government units, government agencies, art enthusiasts, business communities, the academe and even students.

She recalled that the art scene in Negros was at its peak when sugar export prices were so high but plunged in the early eighties after export quotas declined and the industry suffered a big blow.

But with the industry now back on its feet, "I can see a resurgence of the art scene in Negros this is why our governor decided to host this first National Arts Fair," Gamboa said.

"Disorganized and highly personalized as Filipino artists are, they deserve all our support and attention so that their genius will continue to live on," Gamboa said.

Present at the press launch were the owners of major galleries in Metro Manila including Heritage and Contreras Sculptures. They said sales are starting to pick up locally with mostly locals buying the art pieces.

"We do a lot of export too but these are mostly to private individuals abroad. There are some galleries that also trade with their counterparts in other countries," said Tala Isla-Contreras, artist owner of Contreras Sculptures established in 1994 with an outlet at SM Megamall.

Executive Director Cecile Guidote Alvarez of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts the National Arts Fair is just one of the major components of the Philippine Arts Festival being held in February to "provide a nationwide dissemination of artistic and cultural products."

She said the Fair is just a follow through of the inter-agency effort in 2005 to support the creative industries of the Philippines. "With this we can definitely and positively answer what was once asked in an art forum: sining at kultura, makakain ba yan?"

In the coming years, the NCCA and the National Committee on Art Gallery hopes to bring the Fair to Davao, Cebu, Baguio and ultimately Metro Manila.