What to Do with the Leftovers of the Arts Industry?

Abstract

From 2009 to 2010, Barcelona artists Marta Galán and Juan Navarro held three staged events using the remains and leftovers of stage sets, costumes and props from major public and private Catalan theatres and production companies. Among others, they recovered materials provided by the Gran Teatre del Liceu opera house, the Teatre Lliure and Focus Serveis de l'Espectacle S.A. (the leading private production company for a broad range of artistic and political events, owning several theatres in the provinces of Barcelona and Madrid).Each one of the three performances (all one-off, unrepeatable events) featured guest performers and a large number of non-professional actors. With the title "Post-dramatic, disposable, high-budget productions that will never be profitable," Galán and Navarro proposed an ironic reflection on the imbalance between the cultural production systems of leading companies in the arts and the vehicles of survival for independent artists.Galán's and Navarro's pieces provides a paradigmatic example within this article, which offers a succinct observation of the development and recycling of Catalan cultural policies in recent decades.While careers in the arts have become increasingly precarious, gradually changing since long before the outbreak of the economic crisis (2007-2008), cultural events have been trapped between a utilitarian conception, the image of Barcelona that is conveyed abroad (leading to a culture of tourism that opposes the culture of sustainability) and its use within nationalistic symbolism (with the burning conflict of the current push towards independence as a backdrop).