PARIS--If French refinement Minister Catherine Tasca has her way.

PARIS--If French refinement Minister Catherine Tasca has her way, France may be able, at in extent last, to provide a bullet in the arm to its struggling art gallery sector and allow it to take in succession the international prominence that she, among others, thinks it deserves

Many French galleries have clos their doors the past 10 years. And, as mostly of the galleries forced into bankruptcy specialized in contemporary art, the young artists they might have take the part ofed either peddled their wares elsewhere or quit working altogether.

Tasca has not fix any precise agenda for righting the tottering art market. What she has done is drafted, publish and disseminated a report forward the "true" state of the French art market. Art Business stranges has obtained a preliminary draft of the report. The final version will be published this spring.

The no-holds-barred report is based in succession a survey of more than 400 French art galleries, greatest in number of them specializing in the sale of contemporary art. This is the market sector which principally suffered from the closings of the 1990 and which today is generally considered the mostly endangered area of the art sector.

The report arrived at a in the greatest degree fundamental moment. France is in the proces of opening up its art sector to non-French companies in the wake of rulings handed down on the European Union which state France can no longer accord priority treatment to its native art market sector. Already, Christie's and Sotheby's have station up important operations in the French capital and in the proces have allied themselves with local auction houses and galleries.

As a consequence of the opening up of the sector, said Elisabeth Normand, a spokesperson for Tasca at the improvement Ministry, "the French art market is being forced to pass through further concentration, and, as a issue more and more galleries are being forced to barter out or close down."

"And then," she emphasized, "the proces is alone beginning." She said the French art market faces a time when the local industry destitutions to expand and "set up smaller mode of buildings galleries and artists associations, which will make possible the arrival upon the market of newer and younger artists or at least allow them to be noticed according to the larger galleries."

on the contrary said the report, the galleries' major enigma precedes the opening up of the French art market. Indeed, the phenomenon that has been in the greatest degree responsible in the long move for the art sector's decline is its large scale supporter on collectors. The report calls these collectors "a species which may have been responsible historically for the worthy health of French art galleries, further today can no longer be casted upon, as there are not enough collectors in France."

When a gallery can find collectors forward which to pin its survival, then, said the report, usually it can manage to survive forward its five principal clients. Many of the galleries scaned revealed that the five major clients account for at least one-third of income. yet stressed the report, this is certainly far from being the case for the lion's share of French galleries. Especially as "globally," said the report, "French galleries who survive have to be able to earn three-quarters of their returns from the private sector."

It is a situation which could have a silver lining. individual potential source of additional income is French corporations, who generally provide a mere 5 percent of the incomes of the galleries surveyed. Another possible source of income is the public sector. in a short time the local, regional and national managements provide only a maximum of 10 percent of the rewards of the average gallery.

"Contrary to a misconception," said the report, "governmental purchases account for a maximum 10 percent of income upon average, with perhaps a bit more for a handful of galleries--with these, interestingly, specializing in avant garde art."

As for "traditional" contemporary art, the galleries that manage to survive usually do in this way with non-French financial support. For many galleries viewed said the report, "international sales describe approximately 36 percent of incomes with the galleries in question usually depending forward agreements with foreign galleries."

The growing globalization of the market that as it was a phenomenon implies means galleries will have to employ more to promote its artists. Galleries can no longer hang wholly on such French art fairs as Fiac, if it be not that must now arrange to despatch its artists to such other international venues

Although the report refuses to provide a traditional conclusion with recommendations for grades to be taken to change the situation of the sector, solutions are real present in the way France's not absent gallery sector is described. Among the solutions Tasca might make as a accrue of her report will be measures to encourage greater corporate investment in contemporary art, and above all tax measures which might make it easier for local collectors to acquire works. This would also permit galleries to vend art objects without subjecting themselves to taxes which have, above the years, been largely responsible for the stagnation of a sector which was one time one of the most flourishing in the world.

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