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Cristóbal Toral (1940) asked yesterday to defend Spanish art and criticized that there are gallery owners who speculate with young talents where marketing is the … that puts the price above the value of the artistic work. This clear and direct was shown in his speech of entry at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Telmo, under the title ‘From the field to painting’.
He regretted that “art has become a business, a multinational company oriented to production and benefit, managed by expert entrepreneurs in galleristas, auction rooms, art fairs, museums, commissioners and collector millionaires.” Thus, it is these art entrepreneurs who have “works by great teachers to prestige and give credibility to the offers of their young artists, throwing them into the market as prestigious brands, in the same way that cars factories throw their novelties,” he said.
In this way “a banana that is worth 25 cents can be transformed into a work of art for which six million dollars are paid,” he warned. Personally, he considered that this example “should be enough to distrust marketing in art, because it shows that it does not serve to evaluate the quality of the works, but rather to legalize millionaire scams.”
Given this, he claimed to show off the Velázquez, Goya and Picasso, that if they had other countries they would promote them more than Spain does. Despite his direct criticism of this situation, he presented the other face in the artistic world. “I am sure that in the coming times” will continue to emerge great masters of the painting, “for many difficulties that are brought on the road.” Somewhere in the country, there will be a genius like «Goya, who was born in a humble people at a convulsive moment in the history of Spain; with the mood and economic difficulties of Van Gogh; With Velázquez, who painted the Meninas in the spare time they had left after serving the king, ”said Toral.
The act was chaired by the president of the Academy, Rosario Camacho, and the poet Francisco Ruiz Noguera, with the response of the entrance speech by José Manuel Cabra de Luna. Among the guests, the mayor of Antequera, Manuel Barón; The Territorial Delegate of Culture of the Junta de Andalucía, Carlos García, and the Vice President of Culture of the Provincial Council, Manuel López Mestanza.
