Plural public funding and Canada's contemporary art market system.

This article address public funding, free markets, and contemporary art in Canada as shaped by forces integral to the formation of Canada as a nation state and its continual development. Canada has a network of publicly funded institutions in support of contemporary art. Public funding for the arts is direct and plural: it operates at three levels of government - federal, provincial and municipal - and is distributed by government departments and arts councils. Canadian institutions in receipt of public funding relevant to contemporary art include art schools, artist-run centres, non-collecting exhibition venues and art museums. A perception that this creates and maintains a circular system for contemporary art that is co-ordinated via state funding is reconsidered. In addition, it is misleading to consider a boundary divide, with state and not-for-profit sector organizations separated from private and commercial ones. The role of art market intermediaries, namely contemporary art dealers (or gallerists), who are responsible for representing artists and promoting their work for the first time (on the primary art market) to collectors, is integral. It also represents one measure of the overall health of Canada's contemporary art market system. Attention is drawn to the situation where few contemporary art dealers based in Canada have the economic resources to compete in the international arena, with one consequence being the adoption of non-Canadian dealers to represent leading contemporary artists from Canada. The emergence of a generation of aboriginal artists living and working in Canada is another development, one that speaks to the hybrid representations of Canadian identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]