Corporate Art

RB Murari, 2010, Courtesy: Monsoon Canvas

Corporate Art – History and time line

Corporates as art collectors existed right from the 15th century. The Medici bank is said to be the first recorded corporate art collector. The Medici bank commanded respect and good reputation in whole of Europe and were promoters of art and architecture. The Medicis were responsible for sponsoring most of the Florentine art during their reign. There were other banking houses during the Renaissance period that collected art and displayed them in their corporate offices.

In the 19th and the early part of the 20th century art was mainly used as part of a company’s marketing strategy to attract customers and promote the companies brand name. This was art used in a commercial sense.

Around 1940s it became prestigious to support art and culture and multi national corporations like IBM and others supported art shows and events to establish their importance in the corporate world. This trend caught on and by 1980s there was a boom in corporate art purchases. By the late 1980s, it had become such a popular phenomenon that the majority of the Fortune 100 and a large number of the Fortune 500 companies collected and displayed art in their workplaces.

Deutsche Bank, Microsoft, Progressive Insurance, UBS are some of corporate that maintain a world famous collection of art. It is also to be noted that these collections are primarily focused towards contemporary art. After the Monarchy, the Church and the Nobility, corporates have become the new patrons of art.
With well over 1500 corporate collections around the world, described in the International Directory, it is a very important phenomenon in the art market. The corporate art buyers have over the years become a lot wiser and more knowledgeable about art.

Why do corporates invest in art?

There are several reasons for corporations to invest in art. Although pure financial investment is one of the reasons, it does not fall into the primary motive of investing in art. Corporations are more interested in enhancing their corporate image by developing and maintaining art collections, as part of Corporate Social Responsibility programs. The Corporates being the new patrons of art are shouldering the responsibility in promoting art and culture within the society they belong to.

But the fundamental reason that encourages corporate art collecting is the fact that there has been several studies that indicate an increase in productivity and work satisfaction among the employees. A survey conducted, quite some time a go by BCA (Business Committee for Arts), with more than 800 employees working for 32 companies throughout the United States showed that art in the workplace helps businesses address some key HR challenges like: reducing stress, increasing creativity and productivity, enhancing morale, broadening employee appreciation of diversity and encouraging discussions, and expression of opinions. Art at workplace also helps in enhancing customer and community relations by promoting networking opportunities.

Corporations however are not overlooking the capital appreciation that art could bring them. They pay reputed art consulting companies to select, organize and maintain their collections. Since the selection of the artwork has been outsourced to professionals, it ensures investment of corporate money in high potential artists and artworks.

Earlier art was purchased without much planning but now art is chosen by, corporations with great care to match the organizations culture, brand and outlook. The works are closely examined for their capital appreciation potential too.

The Corporations have now become a very high determined of the contemporary art market due to their large purse strings and the number of works purchased.

Top Corporate Art Collections

There are approximately 1500 serious corporate art collectors. Here are some of the famous collections.

Progressive art collection – consists of 6500 artworks

Deutsche Bank art collections – 56,000+ works of art

UBS art collections – consists of 35,000 works of art

Microsoft art collection – 5000 works of art 



Sources used in the article:

List of Corporate Art Collections
http://www.art2vu.co.uk/patronage_and_investment/corporate-art-collections.php

The corporate art brief -
http://home.earthlink.net/~corporate.directory/id4.html

Mordern Indian Art Market Returns to Peak Levels

Butterfly Woman by Asma Menon, courtesy Monsoon Canvas

So far, 2010 has been a very good year for the Indian art market.Both volumes and average auction prices in the Modern Indian art market are now back to levels seen at the peak of the Indian art market in June 2008 – a remarkable recovery after volumes in the Modern Indian art market dropped 63% between September 2008 and March 2009, and prices fell 46% in the same period.


The sharp recovery in the Modern market is also starting to rub off on the Contemporary Indian art market, which has remained subdued after market confidence evaporated during the downturn. The Contemporary Indian art market dropped 93% in volume and auction prices plummeted 85% between autumn 2008 and spring 2009. However since then, average prices are only 35% below its peak, and volumes have more than doubled since June last year.

Arttatic, Indian art report, June 2005

Seminal Masterpiece by Syed Haider Raza Leads Christie's Sale

Syed Haider Raza (b.1922), "Saurashtra", 1983. Estimate: £1.3 million-1.8 million. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd., 2010.

LONDON.- On 10 June, the day after Christie’s unprecedented sale of art works selected from the Estate of Francis Newton Souza, the momentum continues with Christie’s South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art auction. The renewed confidence in the market for this category was signalled by the success of the New York sale in March, which realised $8.9 million and was 95% sold by value, with many new private collectors bidding. The international appeal of this field continues to grow, with participation from buyers in Singapore, Hong Kong, U.A.E, the United States and Europe. The London sale is led by Saurashtra, 1983, a seminal masterpiece by Syed Haider Raza (b.1922) (estimate: £1.3 million-1.8 million), which is the most valuable modern Indian work of art ever offered at auction. This auction presents an exhilarating array of important works from private collections, with excellent provenance by the leading Indian and Pakistani artists of 20th and 21st century. Featuring the celebrated masters of the Progressive Artists Group, through to the biggest names in contemporary art, attractive estimates cross the spectrum of artists, styles and media with estimates ranging from £1,000 to £1.8 million. The sale is expected to realise in excess of £4 million. Please see the separate press release for details on the sale of art works selected from the Estate of Francis Newton Souza.

Yamini Mehta, Christie’s Senior Specialist, Director, South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art, London: “The global art market is receptive to the best. As international collectors converge in London this June prior to heading to Art Basel, where an increased number of South Asian Art will be on view this year, we are thrilled to be offering iconic works by the masters as well as important contemporary works, including examples by Pakistani artists. It is important that Christie’s, as well as galleries, art fairs and institutions, continue - as they do - to broaden concepts of what constitutes Sub-Continental art.”

Modernism:

The top lot of the sale is the most valuable modern Indian art work ever to be offered at auction: Syed Haider Raza’s Saurashtra, 1983, (estimate: £1.3 million-1.8 million), from a Private French Collector who acquired it directly from the artist, illustrated above. This large work (78¾ x 78¾ in. / 200 x 200 cm.), by one of India's leading modern masters, belongs to a key period in Raza's career when his artistic path brought him full circle and he began to integrate vital elements of his Indian childhood and cultural heritage into his paintings. Combining powerful and expressive brushstrokes with a very rich palette, Saurashtra provides a transitional bridge into his structured geometric works which are characteristic of his most recent body of paintings. Exploring landscape and nature; gesture and expression; geometry and spiritualism, this painting is one of Raza's most ambitious works to date. This is a remarkable opportunity for collectors and institutions around the world.

Further Modern Highlights:

• Untitled (Arjuna and Krishna), circa 1980s, by Maqbool Fida Husain (b.1915) (estimate: £500,000-700,000) which portrays the heroes of the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. The strong influence of classical Indian painting and sculptural traditions upon Husain is evident in this work, which exemplifies the characteristic energy of Husain’s canvases.

• Falling Bird, 1999 is a tour de force by Tyeb Mehta (1925 -2009), one of India's greatest Modernist masters (estimate: £400,000-600,000). Having executed only a relatively small body of work, it is very rare that such an important example comes to auction. With mythological thematic roots, this work skilfully combines concept, line, colour and composition.

• Untitled (Gulammohammed Sheikh with Tom Hancock), circa 1970s by Bhupen Khakhar (1934-2004) (estimate: £100,000-150,000). Gulammohammed Sheikh was Khakhar’s lifelong friend; Tom Hancock (1930-2006), a British architect who taught at Baroda during the seventies and designed the Battersea Peace Pagoda in London, also became part of the artist’s circle. Drawing inspiration from the West and India, this painting stylistically alludes to early Italian painting and Bengali pata painting from Kalighat, but also imbues the spirit of Henri Rousseau and David Hockney.

Contemporary Works:

The strong array of contemporary art featured provides collectors with an opportunity to acquire significant works by some of the best known South Asian practitioners today. Subodh Gupta is one of India's leading contemporary artists, whose powerful vocabulary is firmly rooted in the vernacular of everyday India. Chimta, 2003, (estimate: £200,000-300,000), transforms hundreds of stainless steel tongs or 'chimta' - a common Indian kitchen staple used for handling chapatti and naan bread - into a metallic explosion of wonder. Offered from a private European collection, this semi-globed constellation continues the legacy of Duchamp’s ready-mades whilst simultaneously revealing the sensuous splendour of familiar objects, as if they are precious or luxurious commodities. Gupta stirs questions about the dramatic changes and shifts that accompany India's strengthening economy and its effect on the country's deeply spiritual and ancient culture.

Further Contemporary Highlights:

• Untitled by Ravinder Reddy (b.1956) (estimate: £90,000-120,000), who contemporises traditional Indian goddesses, whilst referencing Jeff Koons and playing with the American concept of "super-sizing." Through such transformations and re-appropriations of ancient Indian temple sculpture, the artist is possibly commenting on how India's religious and cultural histories are being diluted and Westernised by the surge of ‘progress.’

• Dis-location 3, 2007, by Rashid Rana (b. 1968) illustrated left (estimate: £60,000-80,000) who charts a new course with his ‘Dis-location’ series by using one location photographed over a duration of twenty four hours to create the large composite image of the same location. Disorienting the viewer’s sense of time and place, the 'pixels' of the work illustrate the frenetic nature of busy street life in contemporary Lahore, whilst the overall image possesses the charm of a historical photograph.

As printed in http://www.artdaily.org/, 2nd June 2010