Spanish culture industry becomes bank collapse casualty

Visitors queue for the Caixa Forum arts centre in Madrid. The Spanish culture industry has been badly hit by the collapse of savings banks, which have traditionally funded cultural and arts centres. Photograph: Paul White/Associated Press
Amid all the talk of bailouts and sovereign debt, less attention has been paid to another victim of the financial crisis – the arts. The Spanish culture industry has been hit by a double whammy: the public spending cuts that began in 2010 and the collapse of the savings banks that have been a main source of funding.
These banks, known as cajas, grew out of montes de piedad – which were basically pawn shops – in the 19th century as an encouragement to the poor to save. They became something akin to friendly societies and were technically not for profit, and so had no shareholders. As they grew, they channelled their surplus into foundations that spent it on la obra social – anything from old people's homes and drug rehabilitation centres to opera houses and art galleries. To put this in perspective, the obra social budget of the Catalan Fundacío la Caixa for the current year is €500m (£403m).
"The savings banks have been the main sponsors of culture, even more than government," says David Camps, head of communications at the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, who also co-founded the Spanish fundraising association. Spain has many layers of national, regional and city government, each of which until recently had a generous budget for cultural activities. On top of that, virtually every cultural event – from exhibitions to rock festivals to village fiestas – would carry the logo of the local caja that was sponsoring it.
Nearly all the cajas have succumbed to debt or corruption claims and, furthermore, have become banks. "Now that they have changed from being savings banks to banks all this funding is going to disappear," says Camps. "Now they are not mutual societies and they have no obligation to fund the obra social."
The Fundación Caja Madrid, which funds the prestigious Casa Encendida arts centre in Madrid, has been forced to close 48 cultural and social centres it runs in Spain, 33 of them in the capital, while work has come to a halt on the €15m Palacio de Música in Madrid's Gran Via, which it was funding. The foundation's director, Pio Diaz de Tuesta, says it will have to have to get funding from Caja Madrid's huge capital assets, principally property, claiming these assets are protected from demands made by the bank's creditors. The value of the assets is still being assessed, he says.
In the autonomous region of Castilla-León the €92m earmarked by the local cajas for culture and good works in 2005 fell to €34m this year. According to a study by the Swiss bank UBS, five of the major savings banks will have no social budget at all in 2013.
"The only one that is safe for the moment is la Caixa because, although it is a bank, it has publicly stated its commitment to the obra social and it is, as far as we know, solvent," says Camps. "Caja Madrid will disappear in terms of its social profile. My prediction is that we will end up with only one bank that will commit a large budget to obra social, and that's la Caixa."
Ironically, the funding shortfall comes at a time when there are more and more Spaniards who are unemployed and have more free time for venues such as galleries and concerts. Camps predicts that large cultural institutions will have to rely more on sponsorship, while smaller ones will have to develop new ideas such as crowdsourcing.
He is involved in a campaign to persuade the government to improve tax incentives for corporate cultural sponsors, which at present can only write off 35% against donations.
"We don't have the culture of philanthropy that you have in the UK and the US," he says. "We did up until early into the 20th century but not now. The upper class here hang on to their money, they don't donate to social projects or the arts."
"It will be very difficult to introduce a privatised system in Spain, given what the country is going through at the moment," says Diaz de Tuesta. "Perhaps people are going to have to learn to pay for what they used to get for free."

Spanish Culture

When it comes to culture, the question is sometimes asked: what is culture, exactly? Is culture what people do on a daily basis, namely, live? Or is culture, rather, a lofty expression of the more sophisticated and complex ideas developed by the intellectual elite of any given society? Whether you advocate for the supremacy of high-brow culture, or consider it to be constituted by every aspect of interaction within a social compound, in Spain you will find myriad examples of both kinds, forming a rich and diverse phenomenon.
Rich and Varied Heritage
From the most ordinary habits, such as the variety of dishes that together form a mouthwatering cuisine, to the institutional support for the artistic establishment, Spain holds a surprise around every corner. Ranging from the largely simple and straightforward characteristics of a Mediterranean diet, with plenty of fresh produce from land and sea, to the ingenuity of a number of recipes from the rustic center of the country, such as roast piglet or the famous sopa castellana, to the crafty use of offal throughout the land, Spanish culture is hugely heterogeneous, due both to geographic as well as historical circumstances.
The fascinating mosaic formed by the cultural differences found from region to region across the country extends far beyond matters of eating habits and dress code, however. From patxarán in Navarra, to orujo in Galicia, from sherry in the region between Jerez and Cádiz, to the sweet wine from Málaga, somewhat similar to port wine from Oporto, the various traditions that have defined each of the regions permeate deeply to every aspect of Spanish culture, from what digestive to follow your meal with, to the style and material used to erect buildings in the area.
Popular vs. High-Brow Culture
Intrinsically, the distinction between popular and high-brow culture, which emerges with the question "what is culture?" might not be as drastic as it seems. A good example of this proximity can be found in the characteristics of Spanish architecture. Dating all the way back to Roman times, there are still perfectly solid examples of buildings as ancient as 2000 years old. And then, from Roman to Romanesque, Gothic, Mudéjar, Renaissance and every artistic style to emerge thereafter, Spanish architecture has been shaped as much by aesthetic considerations as it has been by the specific conditions prevalent in the country.
Thus, the emergence of red brick in the region around León as the material of choice in the construction, not only of regular homes but also of official and even religious buildings owed less to taste than to necessity. Similarly, the development of adobe as a viable building material shaped the landscape of the countryside indelibly, much in the same way as the tendencies arrived from the Frankish counties on the other side of the Pyrenees spread from coast to coast and ultimately determined the triumph of Romanesque architecture.
Spectacular as it is, Spanish architecture is indebted in equal measure to circumstances of daily life, such as the coexistence of Muslim, Christian and Hebrew communities, and to the conscious development of aesthetic ideals. This is true of architecture, but it is equally the case with the literature that sprung in parallel with the culture that produced it as a reflection (in both meanings of the word) of the reality of its time. As a matter of fact, this is true of a vast majority of Spanish culture, from the forging of true national forms of expression, such as flamenco, to the paintings of grand masters, such as Goya.
Spanish: A Lot More than a Language
We understand that when you come to Spain to learn Spanish, it's not only about the language... you also want to see and experience new places, take plenty of pictures, meet new people and immerse yourself in the country's fascinating cultural scene. After all, some of the world's top museums and wholly unique festivals are found in Spain. Nevertheless, in order to get a genuine taste of Spanish culture, you need not spend hours in libraries and dusty rooms: just go out there, communicate with the people and experience first hand the cultural paradise that is Spain.
In order for you to be able to do just that, our schools, located in Spain's most interesting destinations, are open all year round (yes, even during festival seasons!), and offer classes focusing on such cultural facets as literature and art history, organizing all sorts of interesting cultural activities and excursions for our valued students!
Below you can read up about a wide range of Spanish cultural topics, ranging from history and festivals to food and drink and everything in between.