Dernières nouvelles de la FISAE

1. The financial facts are reality

For the first time its history, the FISAE congress was arranged in Finland, and that’s why

Exlibris Aboensis trusted on the support of the society as well as the sponsors – a support

that, after all, was received a lot less than expected. During the five years time we had before

the congress, we applied for support from more than 250 sources in vain. We used, in fact, all

our savings viz. 15,000 € in order to be able to realize the congress.

Fortunately, Naantali City gave their full support but nevertheless plans had to be curtailed and

adapted to funds on hand. In spite of difficulties we were able to arrange the congress and we

are pleased to say that we have received merely good feedback.

A surprise was the support offered by the Japanese, Taiwanese and Chinese artists, who

arranged a wonderful exhibition of woodcut art. The thanks go to the organizers: Ichigoro

Uchida, Wang Rong and Yuan-Shih Pan. Mr. Pan had also published a magnificent exhibition

book: Pearls of Asia.

2. The high-class ex-libris competition

We made a mistake when we did not send the invitation to the ex-libris competition directly

to participants of the former competitions and to art colleges that will secure the future of this

art. It would be nice if we could gather on the FISAE sites contact info to such educational

institutions that provide art education.

Many participants of the competition expressed their annoyance, quite understandable,

when they did not receive the exhibition catalogue, which was distributed to the participants

of the congress. But according to Rule No. 11 of the Competition, we promised to send the

catalogue only to those who had succeeded best in the competition i.e. the rewarded and

those who received honorary mentions. It would have cost us an additional 20,000 € to send

the catalogue to all participants, taking into account printing and shipping costs, and we,

unfortunately, did not have means for that.

You can still obtain the catalogue for the rock-bottom price of 50 €, which includes shipping

costs. For many inquirers that, already, turned out to be too expensive.

3. The number of participants has to increase

In order to cover the general costs, we have to get the number of participants to stay

permanently over 200 in the future. We knew this would turn out to be difficult, because

usually the basis has been on your own country added with the neighbouring countries, from

which little was to be expected. In fact, from our neighbouring countries we received only five

participants from Scandinavia, one from the Baltic States and 11 from Russia.

Naantali 31.12.2012

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Time to Thank

Self-criticism about FISAE’s XXXIVth Congress is sound

www.exl.fi tauno.piiroinen@exl.fi

Exlibris Aboensis, Mertatie 12, FI-21100 Naantali

To get the interest in ex-libris growing, you have to profoundly understand the importance of

the congresses as well as marketing the societies effectively everywhere. We were missing

the participants from, among others, countries with long traditions, like the U.K., Italy and

France. Some language disputes that occurred earlier feel selfish – it should be understood

that you cannot expect to get services on your own language. We have always been able to

understand each other. FISAE’s official language is English, which most of us master.

In the net we had advance advertising on nine languages. We had not been prepared for the

post-congress expectations with sufficient pictorial and info supply, the resources simply were

not there. The number of personal inquiries was a big surprise - we replied to approximately

1,000 emails.

4. The Delegates’ plenum

In the official plenum there was a discussion that got a proportionally too central focus in the

introduction in which we heard about the confiscation of an ex-libris collection on exportation.

The decision on this matter was that you have to obey the exportation rules of that particular

country you are visiting.

It was very pleasant to notice that the future of the FISAE world congresses that have been

organized since the beginning of the 1950’s, has been secured by organizers long into the

2020’s.

5. The cooperation of the Societies

Concentrating on your own country only is a mistake of the members of an international

organization. Already a minor cooperation could turn out to be an important stimulus that

may forestall the diminishing of the local interest. It is worthwhile to increase visits to ex-libris

events abroad – even in smaller groups.

There are totally 249 states and countries out there from which only 33 are represented in

FISAE. Most likely the majority in most countries doesn’t even know what an ex-libris is. That

is, for us, a great challenge. You can imagine the potential!

6. The future has to be secured

I would say that we can remain confident with regard to the future; the younger generations

will certainly find the hobby through Internet.

We should appreciate the versatility of our hobby. It is great if you will be able to exchange

an ex-libris with all participants in the congress. You can personally do your own decision in

that respect so that the way the ex-libris has been designed will not pose a hinder that would

offend and chase away a new collector, a novice.

My chairmanship of the FISAE ended with the Finnish congress and this is the right moment to

thank everyone that works for this experiences-bringing hobby of ours, because we all in the

various societies, as well as FISAE, work entirely unpaid on our own time.

I wish you a fruitful ex-libris year 2013!

Also all success to the organizers of the XXXVth congress,

see you in Catalonia 2014!

 Tauno Piiroinen
FISAE Chairman 2010-2012