SCULPTURE AS A PROMOTER OF CULTURAL TOURISM

In the recent period, when leisure, entertainment and culture have come to take up a large part of our free time, certain striking social phenomena have gradually arisen such as mass visits to temporary exhibitions with a big media impact, the injection of new life into certain cities through the building of spectacular franchise museums and the proliferation of arts centres and museums, run by the autonomous governments in Spain, which have been turned into huge art containers.

Within this scenario, sculpture is playing a very important part. Who does not associate the sculptor Jorge Oteiza with the Basque Country? Who does not visualise San Sebastian’s “La Concha” bay through Chillida’s Wind Comb?

The configuration of an artistic itinerary of sculptures, together with a good educational and cultural programme, may no doubt attract the attention of a large number of visitors and succeed in economically buoying up a certain place through tourism. At the same time, installing sculptures may help raise awareness of a certain environment and, consequently, help spectators to “discover” spaces which they had previously failed to notice and which now, through sculpture, may succeed in acquiring an identity of their own.

The complete identification of César Manrique’s sculptures with the cultural and tourism promotion image of the island of Lanzarote, and the close link between Hernani and the Chillida open-air sculpture museum in that Basque town are two well-known examples of this phenomenon.

Moreover, outdoor sculpture allows the public to approach art effectively without the need to invest in huge museum infrastructures, which translates into the opening up of a broad spectrum of management possibilities and an evident reduction in the spending required for those intending to make a commitment to contemporary art.