ABSTRACT
In times gone by, the patronage of the arts fell to the Minister and the Secretaries, almost exclusively. Today, you go from door to door, cap in hand – whether you end up with a bowl of gruel or a horn of plenty depends on your intimacy with the powerful and rich impresarios. For businesses, delighted to be authorised to use tax revenues for the aesthetic publicity of their products, it is a great deal. For artists, it isn’t: let me give my own particular testimony on the subject.
