Art galleries have given me many experiences that I have never had enough sense of justice to reciprocate. Most museums in the world cloy me like a meal of after-dinner coffee and desserts with cream, but galleries ---and forgive me the horrifying metaphor--- always give us the angelic brevity and the just measure of a vermouth. Many years ago, when I lived happily on my big island, every Saturday I would stroll through the galleries of Chelsea (the sumptuous Gagosian, the factory-like entrance of the Dia, the insulting esplanade of the Paula Cooper) and I would get excited with those wet-your-pants art exhibitions by my beloved abstract painters from New York. Everything was so absurd and cheerfully expensive that the gallerists had the kindness to hide the prices of their paintings and installations, disproportionately overpriced for so many voluntarily crude and kitsch pieces. But all that was not about art, but about showing the world that aesthetics are expensive.
The galleries in my city have also been an extraordinary refuge for a stroll. First there were the spaces on Consell de Cent, a beautiful place where illustrious families like the Mayoral, Gaspar and Mr. Barnadas still endure; and then, in Ciutat Vella, my beloved Sala Parés, which has just closed the magnificent Figuracions entre guerres 1914-1945, where I have been able to reconnect with the genius of Torres-Garcia and our great Joaquim Mir. But of all the galleries in the neighborhood, also on Carrer de Petritxol, I will always stick with bcn art/diffusion, run by Amor Marsé and my putative father, Antoni Valero, the wisest and most ironic man on earth; they recently programmed an exhibition by Francesc Artigau, one of our happiest painters. But Toni's home, which was by the way the address where Àngel Guimerà was making out with Mr. Aldavert, is much more than an art space; it is an unmatched den of coffee, pills and leisurely conversation.
All this nostalgic nonsense comes to mind because, as you know, Catalan galleries (and those of the enemy state) will end today a very fair strike with the aim of protesting the 21% VAT imposed by the state on everything related to the buying and selling of art. While some cultural products have reduced taxes ---the case of cinema is 10% and books 4%, if I'm not mistaken---, our gallery owners must go through the strangling box of a state skilled in larceny, which imposes this tax because it believes, in an absolutely illiterate way, that this art thing is for snobs. While most countries in the world show a VAT close to 5%, our beloved gallery owners (who must face the customary expenses of a generally central establishment and who open most days of the year to share their work with citizens for free) must survive in now unsustainable conditions.
Notice how outrageous the situation is that, to give a clear example, today it could be much cheaper for us to buy a piece by a Catalan artist in Paris or London than in Barcelona, where our gallery owners maintain heritage and newly created spaces essential for our culture (facing, with more difficulties than anyone, increases in rent and general expenses of a specially lit venue and so on). All this money thing is important, of course, but what I emphasize today is the disdain with which we have treated professionals in the art world, taking them for granted and often thinking that they are all daddy's boys who traffic in beauty to fill their free time. In this sense, the Barcelona tribe has been especially unfair and it would be necessary for fellow citizens (and the councilors and counselors of the sector) to exert all possible pressure so that the state reconsiders a cancerous stance for the country's art.
In my immodest opinion, apart from promoting an absolutely justified strike, I would say that the country's gallery owners should have put their pircarols (and equivalents) on the table and refused to participate in this year's Arco edition. I know there are professionals who risk part of their entire season's income ---especially gallery owners who have a catalog full of big names---, but it is often necessary to do unpleasant things to achieve just ends. For my part, dear art professionals, I will continue to visit you and, when the socialists stop robbing me as a poor freelancer, I will treat myself to a reasonably sized whim, as we are not in a position for too many adventures.