A question of resources

By Alicia de Arteaga

Twice in the last year, the National Bottom of the Arts not indeed occupied the center of the scene and for the reasons that have turned to the institution a pillar of the cultural activity.

It was the first point of the discord in the debate opened by the frustrated Law of Patronage, impelled by the ex- radical deputy Luis Brandoni.

The law, that was shipwrecked few hours after assuming president Eduardo Duhalde - sensible to the advice of the then secretary of Single Culture Teresa ' -, proposed to the Bottom of the Arts like only organism of application; person in charge of the handling and destiny of donations and sponsorships.

The mediatic crossing of judgments and opinions between the secretary of Culture, Rubén Stella, and the president of the Bottom, Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat, has left escaldados the spirits of many and the suspicion that "gift money" has returned to put the tail in subjects public who must not have political color.

In the days of cornered budgets, not to say nonexistent, the money of the bottom is almost a booty.

The management of Fortabat received the conduction with two million annual dollars; it got to collect nine million dollars, and the cut had by the Rúa left a budget annual of 6.3 million (now, in weights). It is money cash. The collection arrives via collection of author rights and it is spent less than what enters.

From its creation, in 1958, the objective of the National Bottom of the Arts was to fulfill a project of support to the arts, far from the policy and of the politicians. The directors, except for some recent exception, come from the intellectual and artistic world, as it is the case of Héctor Tizón, Oscar Barney Finn, Luis Benedit or Josefina Robirosa, who had a fleeting step by the directory of the organism and are from last night member of number of the National Academy of Beautiful Arts.

The proverbial political independence that must seal the action of the Bottom of the Arts does not hide a key fact, that he is enough more than a detail: their authorities are designated by the President of the Nation.

To Mrs. Amalia Fortabat she put in his position doctor Carlos Menem, in 1992, and since then the industralist, secundada by Guillermo Alonso, gave to the institution of the Alsina street an unpublished visibility him. The last initiative was of real estate nature, but with a clear cultural aim.

A year back, the Bottom bought the house that was of Victoria Ocampo in District Park, whose last renter had been Mauricio Macri. There the epígonos of Victory wanted to take the furniture of Villa Ocampo that harmonized with the rationalist spirit of the house projected by Bustillo.

That subjet is pending. So far there are other urgencies as to file the harshness of a crossing of opinions that has left injured.