What is the connection between banking and (plein air) art?
I was amused by a recent blogpost about the ING Art Collection. Somehow I did not get no further clue what the connection between banks and artists is other than what I knew already but wasn’t said in the post : The artists want the money and the banks want public relation.
What I understood was that the blogpost functions as public relation for the bank and that for some reason the parallels between banking and art or art market were not touched at all: for example highly speculative profits, non transparent price and profit manipulation.
Today I found another piece of evidence why artists should not stay away from banks and their lucrative sphere of influence. Perhaps I should burn a drawing of Deutsche Bank and auction it on Ebay? I certainly could ship that domestic!
If that is not enough you can read what the NYT says about the correlation between art and banking
How to draw a tree- Publication on Blurb
Forest diary- the sketchbook re-print on Blurb
Buy Print on Redbubble
on 15. December 2011
I think you’re reading much too much into this post Martin.
The fact of the matter is it’s a post about a bank’s art collection – pure and simple. I go the exhibition of the art competition that this bank sponsors each year. In the past I’ve been invited to the exhibition by one of the artists who has won their Purchase Prize. I admired the art they had in their offices at the time. That’s it!
If you think it’s PR for the bank fair enough – I happen to think it’s a blog post about an art collection!
The fact of the matter is that I really don’t feel the need to give an exposition on the relationship between banking and art in every post I write where a bank has a relationship with the exhibition I’m reviewing. Quite apart from anything else it would be extremely boring for my readers given their major presence as sponsors of a multitude of art competitions and other exhibitions in London.
We all know that “the banks” (and many others eg BP, Dow Chemicals etc) have contributed to some of the ills which beset the world but we don’t need to harp on about it all the time. There are lots of other places people can read about the economic and ethical aspects – I’m just writing about the art!
If you feel strongly about this why not try examining the state of the art economy if banks and bankers were not omnipresent? I think you’d need to go back rather a long time to find a period on art history when they were not influential sponsors of art.
The fact of the matter is they have always been major players in the sponsorship of the arts and will continue to be so. It’s a fact of life that we need to learn to live with.
My personal feeling is that the if there ever are any ethical considerations to be satisfied that the art economy should not reject sponsorship but rather make them pay out even more for the privilege of providing a “good” to try and offset any “bad”.