How to put Canadian Art on the map?

So I looked up the auction sales results for 2008. You can find it on artprice.com or elsewhere.

It has the top 500 artists in terms of worldwide auction sales.

No surprise, the top Canadian is way down the list, in 110th place: Jean-Paul Riopelle had $10 million of sales in 2008 auctions ($12 million in '07)

Next is A.Y. Jackson in 333rd spot with $3.2 million of sales

Then Emily Carr, in 382nd spot at $2.8 million, just ahead of Lauren Harris at $2.7 million (Harris sold $10.5 million in '07).

The last Canadian on the list, the only living artist, Jeff Wall comes in at 487th spot with just over $2 million of sales. A really nice jump into the top 500 after '07 auction sales of $382,000. Who knows I could have missed one or two whom I didn't know were Canadians or just skipped over...

I just want to say that these numbers are a disgrace.

A country with Canada's wealth and creative opportunities should be producing a much larger portion of the world's art, both in terms of dollars and recognition.

Just to put Riopelle's $10 million in perspective, the total of the top 100 is about $4.3 billion... So we see that Canada's total share is probably somewhere below a tenth of 1%!

What's worse is that, to a larger extent than many are aware, I believe the art of a country is related to the international public image of the country, not to mention its psyche and self-image.

This affects prosperity, lifestyle and future prospects in many other ways. Tourism, academics, investment, architecture, quality of life, advertising, creative endeavor of all types are all affected by a country's international profile in terms of art.

France, for example, is the world's #1 tourist destination. It also has +/-7 of the top 20 worldwide artists, in terms of '08 auction sales, depending how you count Chagall whatever...

Obviously there are countless reasons for France to be the #1 tourist destination on the planet ~ many of these, such as a location in the middle of the Europe, have nothing to do with art.

However, you cannot deny the obvious - that France's cultural profile is hugely important for its prosperity and vitality as a nation and that its visual artists are a huge part of that profile.

Canada, fortunately (and thanks in no small part to Canadian content laws), has been blessed with a disproportionately strong profile in music, so that saves us from being a total cultural wasteland.

The reasons for our pathetic placing in visual art are numerous. I couldn't even guess half of them. One reason is probably simply the same reason that our banks are about the safest in the world - we are all about safe, secure, boring and blue chip!

Probably another of the most important reasons is the aggressive defense of the top market positions by those who hold these spots. As if France or Germany or the U.S, etc.,. are the least bit interested in giving up their powerful positions - so they defend from a position of strength!

Another reason, probably the nature of our country. The large distances, small, spread out populations and two languages have worked against the development of a super-fertile source with a critical mass of creative energy. Toronto and Montreal ignore, if not actively disparage, each other. That kind of sets the trend for all the other cities... regional jealousies, etc., blah blah blah... all the way down to the gallery level.

Which, by and large, are also infected with the same diseases... regional biases, laughable pretensions, Asian reproductions, eBay, etc. fighting a losing battle to capture the interest of a conservative, skeptical buying public who see little of interest to them in the Canadian art landscape beyond, you said it, Robert Bateman!

All the well intended and costly (however tiny) efforts of the Canada Council, the National Gallery, provincial initiatives, etc., seem to go for naught...

Beyond that, you have the Canadian artists' individual and collective modesty. They are the antithesis of promoters!

sigh...

what to do... what to do... ?