Art attack
Why the boundaries between commerce and the arts are blurring
CULTURE AND COMMERCE ARE BLURRING AS ARTS SPONSORSHIP BECOMES INCREASINGLY ATTRACTIVE
Words: Boyd Farrow
THE INTERNATIONAL CHIEF of venerable German pen company Montblanc probably spends more time schmoozing bespoke-suited business leaders than smiling for the cameras in South London with a sixtysomething fashion designer done up with shocking pink hair, lurid eye shadow and an even brighter outfit. Yet last November, Wolff Heinrichsdorff found himself at the grittily-sited Fashion and Textile Museum presenting Zandra Rhodes with the 15th Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award.
While the fashion pack rhapsodised about Rhodes, guests were exposed to Montblanc’s own trademark, a snowflake, prominently displayed behind the dais from which the speeches were being made. By the time the designer collected her €15,000 prize and an outsized fountain pen, Rhodes was obviously sharing her billing with another attention-seeking brand.
Like dozens of European companies, Montblanc has long cultivated a seat at art and culture’s top table. Its beneficiaries include Philharmonia of the Nations. And in 1992 it established the Foundation d’Enterprise Montblanc de la Culture “to support and honour modern-day patrons of the arts”. Companies love sponsoring the arts, “because they can position themselves with world-class activities,” says Colin Tweedy, chief executive of London-based Arts & Business, launched 30 years ago to create mutually beneficial partnerships. “It is a way for businesses to entertain clients and subtly associate themselves with something very important.”
More companies are embracing this outlook. Swiss bank UBS now sponsors 19 orchestras. The bank’s UK managing director, Richard Hardie, insists that it achieves far more for a company capitalised at more than €150bn than mere marketing and brand building. Not that UBS is shy about branding. Last spring it sponsored Tate Modern’s first major “rehang” since the hip London gallery opened in 2000. For an undisclosed sum, UBS can bear its name and display its own photograph collection there.
Tweedy says that when Arts & Business was set up it was approached by businesses who felt that they should be doing something worthy. “Now, however, corporate sponsorship of the arts is driven by hard commercial decisions.” HSBC recently sponsored Frida Kahlo at the Tate and most of the paintings for the show came from Mexico, where HSBC is the fourth-largest financial institution.
With soaring advertising costs and ever-splintering media, sponsoring the arts is increasingly cost-effective. Ernst & Young is one of Europe’s biggest sponsors, currently involved with the Rodin exhibition at London’s V&A. The accountancy firm “would typically pay between £400,000 and £600,000 for a blockbuster exhibition, sometimes up to £1m,” says Tweedy. “It is cheap compared with advertising and the best use of its promotional budget.”
Which might well be why the biggest sponsors of the arts now tend to be financial institutions such as Citigroup, Deloitte, JP Morgan and BNP Paribas. Deutsche Bank owns the world’s largest corporate collection of contemporary art and sponsors several bodies. France’s energy giant, EDF, is a huge sponsor. Tellingly, many of these are privatised companies who want to be seen to be doing something good for the community. This is an extension of the tradition in Europe where corporate behemoths such as Renault or Fiat or the banks sponsor major arts projects.
Arts & Business estimates that companies now spend around €1bn on arts sponsorship in Western Europe. French arts are the largest recipient, with around €450m a year, then Germany, with around €400m, and then the UK, with around €175m.
The tricky part in this competitive era, points out Tweedy, is actually securing the right event. Japan’s Nippon Television Network recently refurbished the Mona Lisa room of the Louvre, for example, while British furniture chain MDF and Sky Television both sponsor the English National Opera.
And culture and commerce is increasingly blurring. Francois Pinault, who owns Gucci among others, is creating a museum for contemporary art inside Venice’s 18th century Palazzo Grassi – formerly Fiat’s cultural showcase. And Pinault’s luxury rival, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, is building its own €100m art centre designed by Frank Gehry. The Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation is to contain modern and contemporary art – as well as a few classic handbags.
