By the end of the Costakis Collection' exhibition at the National Gallery, I contacted Ms. Aliki Costaki, heir and owner of a substantial part of this collection, and Ms. Anna Kafetsi, curator of the National Gallery, of this exhibition, as well as of the its impressive two volume catalog. My goal was to find a sponsor to present in Internet the whole -if possible- collection, which, to my opinion, had not the adequate international promotion when it was exhibited at the National Gallery.
Ms. Costaki and Ms. Kafetsi found my idea quite interesting. But, as I could not find a sponsor for such an expensive publication, I have decided to make a summary presentation of this important event, with some photos and excerpts of texts from the catalog of the exhibition. So, I asked Ms. Kafetsi to select an appropriate excerpt from her text and some photos from the catalog, as I did with all the other contributors to this issue of ART TOPOS. She has kindly responded to my request and designated her suggestions.
But later the same day, she has been informed that she had no right to do this because of intellectual property problems: the National Gallery, holder of the exhibition catalog's copyright, had a commitment to the Greek Ministry of Culture: this material should only be published on ULYSSES, the web server of the Greek Ministry of Culture.
In the web pages of ULYSSES, the web server of the Greek Ministry of Culture, which by the way was created with the contribution of European Union funds, some really strict copyright rules are set for the reproduction of text and pictures. So, considering the situation, I have decided to avoid getting entangled in complicated legal procedures related to intellectual property laws and, on the other hand, financial burdens resulting from transmission of any copyrighted information related to Hellenic culture matters. It has to be noticed that in the above mentioned copyright text, the Greek Ministry of Culture is referred as the sole owner of the whole Hellenic Cultural Tradition. It also assigns the "Archaeological Receipts Fund" as the responsible body to handle the relevant financial issues.
So, ART TOPOS is directly ushering its visitors to the relevant pages for the Costakis Collection of ULYSSES, the web server of the Greek Ministry of Culture (sorry, available only in Greek), hoping that we will all soon have something to see there. Besides, according to some press publications, the Greek Ministry of Culture is trying to buy this unique collection -the part ,of course, belonging to the Costakis family.
As far as I am concerned, as a tax-paying citizen of a democratic country, I prefer a state cultural policy that would promote instead of monopolize any information about Hellenic Culture and Greek cultural events. As the curator of ART TOPOS, I feel very proud: a whole state mechanism is considering ART TOPOS as an opponent.
PS: The many references to ULYSSES, the web server of the Greek Ministry of Culture are rather obligatory: it's not allowed to have any link to its web pages without explicitly referencing the whole server name.
