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There are some obvious reasons why corporations buy art, like to decorate their walls with
images other than stock photography and inspirational quotes.
But in the last few decades, the number of large corporations forming significant artcollections has ballooned, and it’s not just because they’ve got walls to fill.
What are their motivations?
And is this an entirely virtuous endeavor, or is there something murky afoot?
(Spoiler alert: something murky is afoot.)
Before we question it, let’s celebrate the good parts!
Like having art on the walls.
Corporations that collect are acknowledging the significant impact art can have in improving
the daily wellbeing of their employees.
Your employer might acknowledge your humanity by offering you occasional breaks or stocking
the tampon machine or it could do so by more extravagant means, offering free food and
drink, nap rooms, or installing a slide, and yes, by adorning office lobbies and walls
with art.
Like other workplace perks, art can help attract and retain employees, inspire them, maybe
even improve their productivity.
Even if you don’t like the art, it might still stimulate ideas, or at least give you
and your colleagues something to gripe about together.
Art on the walls can serve the clientele, too, communicating a variety of messages,
like maybe a Hudson River School painting in a wood-paneled law office says: “Hey!
Not only do we have money, but we’ve had it a heck of a long time!
You can trust us.”
Or maybe an enormous painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat snatched for millions at auction
might say: “We grew our pile of money super fast, and we can grow yours fast, too.”
Or something like this might say: “Look how hip and ahead of the curve I am.
I am hip and ahead of the curve in other ways, too, which I could share with you.”
Or it might be more literal: The headquarters of the Campbell’s Soup Company was long
decorated with expensive antique soup tureens, a way of saying, “We make soup.”
(They also collected a Warhol, of course.)
Along with architecture and furnishings and branding, art can communicate corporate identity.
Not who they are, necessarily, but who they want to be seen as.
This why a bank that’s over a hundred years old actively commissions new works from emerging
artists for their buildings.
The image they, and lots of companies want to project is not one of the stodgy past,
but of the now.
Hence a pretty narrow focus on modern and contemporary art.
Art can be a super direct way of making you think that, say, a warehouse full of quiet
coders are actually the next transformative tech company with its finger on the pulse
of tomorrow.
Corporate art collections usually have had organizing principles.
Like the Folger, Coffee company collected silver coffee pots.
Most take a more subtle approach, like South Africa’s Standard Bank tends to collect
work by artists based in Africa or in other countries where they conduct business.
Many collections originate with art-loving founders or leadership, like David Rockefeller,
who in 1959 began the collection of Chase Manhattan Bank.
He was a lifelong patron of the arts, who served on the board of the Museum of Modern
Art and whose mother founded the museum.
While some considered this new practice frivolous, others soon followed suit, and Chase became
the model for other companies worldwide.
By the mid-1990s about half of all Fortune 500 companies were collecting art.
Today, collections usually still begin with someone higher-up’s personal interest in
art, but they’re quickly dispatched and overseen by experts and advisors, many of
who have art history backgrounds and curatorial credentials?
These experts help craft a collection that’s intended to protect the company’s vision
and mission and values.
It can be seen as an extension of marketing and communications efforts, improving or shaping
their public image over time.
The Norweigan energy company Equinor not only displays its collection in and on its prize-winningthe architectural marvel of a headquarters, but it has also hung its artworks on its North
Sea drilling platforms.
Companies might buy and display the work of local artists to invest in their communities
and cultivate support.
It can be a way of saying: “Hey, we might be a giant multinational corporation, but
we also know what’s going on here in your town.”
More and more companies consider their collections to be part of their social responsibility
policies---a way to interact with the wider community, spread the proceeds around, and
maybe lessen the chances of a proletariat revolution.
Corporate art isn’t always kept inside offices, either.
Many collections are made available to the public through rotating galleries, or full
blown museums, like the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art that opened in Paris
in 1994.
Or Panasonic's Shiodome museum in Tokyo that displays some of the company’s hundreds
of works by French Fauvist Georges Rouault.
Companies also share their art through loans to public institutions.
And we’re not just talking about individual works: Sometimes entire museum exhibitions
are devoted to single corporate collections.
This can spread brand awareness, cultivate an aura of sophistication, give them a fancy
party to invite top clients to, and let other people know that they aren’t soulless overlords
but conscientious philanthropists.
Oh, and showing art in a venerable museum can definitely increase the appraised value
of a work of art!
Which is why museums usually tread carefully in this area.
But it’s often worth the risk because there’s a chance the art could later be donated to
the museum, or that the company might sponsor other shows.
And that brings us to the money.
Business is for-profit entities with profit-driven missions, and art is an asset class.
Like stocks and bonds and precious metals and real estate.
Art is a risky investment, one that may or may not pay off in the future, but there are
worse ones to make (boats).
Art is often considered an expense during building projects, like architecture and interior
design.
But unlike wallpaper, painting isn’t necessarily going to deteriorate over time.
Hired experts play their part here, making educated bets on artworks that both align
with company identity and have a reasonable chance of appreciating in value.
Liz Christensen, the curator of Deutsche Bank’s art collection explained it this way in 2012:
“We’re not buying for investment.
But we’re not buying for not investment.”
And then there are taxes.
The tax strategies corporations use in the collection of art vary widely by country.
But for companies in some places, purchasing expensive art can be a strategy for delaying
or even avoiding taxation.
Because art is usually considered a business expense, every hundred million dollars of
your company’s profits you spend on art is a hundred million dollars you don’t have
to pay taxes on, which often has the effect of discounting art purchases just as it does
with other corporate purchases.
Put another way, almost all individuals buy art with money that has already been taxed.
Almost all corporations buy art with money that has not yet been taxed.
So it’s not about avoiding taxes, but it’s not about not avoiding taxes.
Most corporations do not buy art for pure speculation, to turn around a sell it for
a profit a few years later.
They tend to keep their work for a while, which makes artists and galleries more likely
to sell to them.
But they do indeed sell works sometimes like German Commerzbank sold a single Giacometti
work at auction in 2010 for 65 million pounds!
The contents and valuation of a corporate collection are usually kept private, that
is until the company falls on hard times or gets sold or dissolved.
Then the stakeholders or creditors have to decide what to do with it.
Like when the Seagram Company sold to Vivendi Universal, Vivendi acquired its entire collection
of modern art and decided to sell it all at auction.
With the exception of one work, a beloved monumental Picasso curtain that had hung in
the Seagram Building since 1959, which Vivendi was persuaded to bequeath to the New York
Landmarks Conservancy.
Because corporations are balancing a number of interests when collecting!
They want to be good community partners and seem like good community partners, but never
at the expense of their own financial interests.
Abraaj Capital, based in the United Arab Emirates, collects and directly funds emerging artists,
many of whom live and work in the Middle East and have been historically overlooked.
Abraaj sponsors and runs an annual art prize and purchases works by the finalists to build
their collection.
The artists win--they get funding and recognition--and Abraaj wins because they’ve not only cultivatedgoodwill but also given their collection artists an accolade that can boost their market
value.
While art collecting seems to be a resoundingly positive practice for corporations,
what doesit mean for everybody else?
It’s great that companies are responsible for bringing new and innovative works into
the world, not only supporting artists but also a host of other art professionals who
help make it happen.
The art world has grown tremendously because of it, with some of the rewards tricklings
down into communities.
But what happens when private collections are larger and even more impressive than public
ones?
And what does it mean when corporate leaders no longer give their art to museums with public-focused
missions, and make their own art palaces instead?
Whose interests do these companies have in mind when they’re selecting works, and when
they’re deciding who can see it and how?
For the most part, you’re not going to see controversial or challenging work on corporate
walls.
You’re not going to visit your local bank and come across, let’s say, a haunting,
unforgettable cut paper installation by Kara Walker, evoking and subverting the imagery
of America’s slave-owning past.
I like pleasant art, too, but wonder what effect large-scale corporate buying has on
gallery owners when they select which artists to show, and on artists as they determine
their own directions and try to make a living.
Corporate collections don’t tend to include nudes, or anything violent.
Some avoid any kind of human representation whatsoever.
Companies have come a long way in embracing the work of a diverse range of artists, but
they’re never going to buy or encourage the creation of work, like, say, this.
Which I think we can all agree should be encouraged to exist.
No matter how good their intentions, Corporations answer to their shareholders and not to you.
Their collection may be to some extent open and available now, but what about in the future?
Having art and funding its creation makes a company seem not just more trustworthy but
more … human.
Less like a purely profit-focused entity, and more like something or someone you can
feel good giving your money to.
How do we feel about art being used so flagrantly and effectively as a tool to get us to buy
goods and services?
Here’s what it leaves me thinking: If big corporations have acknowledged the centrality
of art to well being, why can’t our federal and local governments?
And if companies have figured out that art is an extremely powerful tool, when will the
rest of us realize it, too?
Thanks to all of our patrons for supporting The Art Assignment, especially our grandmasters
of the Arts Vincent Apa, Josh Thomas, and Ernest Wolfe.
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