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Al-Ahram Weekly 31 August - 6 September 2000 Issue No. 497 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 31 August - 6 September 2000 Issue No. 497
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Plain Talk
By Mursi Saad El-Din
An issue which is raised from time to time in Egypt is corporate sponsorship of the arts. A number of business companies sponsor sports and tourist events but very few of them, if any, bother about the arts.
I was reminded of this when I read an interesting article in the latest issue of the beautifully produced magazine CIRCA, subtitled Irish and International Contemporary Visual Culture.
The article, "Corporate Insight: A Review of Corporate Patronage of the Visual Arts in Ireland", starts with a quotation from John O'Neill, Chief Executive of Axn Insurance Ltd, in which he underlines the two-way benefits that can accrue from well-considered corporate patronage of the arts.
"Sponsorship and the arts," he claims, "is a growth area for business... I think that the arts community needs to remember that it is a two way process. Business must get a return. I feel that there is a more enlightened arts community today... I am confident that business will become more involved in the future."
The article is by Marianne O'Kane, a lecturer on the visual arts on Boston University's Internship Programme and Curator at Cavanacor Gallery, Lifford.
She explains that the concept of corporate patronage has most commonly manifested itself in the provision of grants to museums and other arts organisations or in the direct support of artists' practice through the establishment of corporate collections. In Ireland, the writer goes on to say, corporate patronage is a relatively late development in the history of painting and sculpture.
The writer then traces the development of this patronage: the first major sponsors of visual arts in Ireland were the tobacco manufacturers. They were soon followed by a number of banks which, apart from establishing permanent collections in their headquarters and in some branches, also sponsor art exhibitions and in some cases award annual prizes.
Corporate interest in the arts went a step further with the creation of the Business Council for the Arts, a body founded to increase corporate collecting. The Council acts as "a public relations and marketing institution" and through its efforts encourages business awareness and involvement in the arts.
The work of the Council soon witnessed results. According to the National Arts Sponsorship Survey published in June 1998, in 1997 corporate sponsorship for the arts reached 10.2 million Irish pounds, an increase of 38 per cent since 1995.
But while big business is making money available for the arts they have created certain principles regarding the selection of art works. Their choice is concentrated on exhibitions based on centrist ideas and uncontroversial subject matter. The aim is to promote what the writer calls "the officially accepted type of current trends in the art market."
The author then goes on to give the names of companies and banks and the kind of acquisitions they have made. The general objective has been to reach a wider public, to encourage the involvement of local communities and to open up dialogue about Irish art. Another important role corporate art collections, though, is to actively support living artists through the purchase of their work and by introducing it to a bigger audience.
The writer concludes her article by saying that corporate collections provide a source of stimulation and creativity for the organisations' employees. They also have the potential to break down the barrier of fine-art elitism in that the work force have the opportunity to see art in an everyday context.
Going through this article I could not help thinking about the situation in Egypt. I know of only one business institution which has established a major collection. When the National Bank of Egypt inaugurated its new building, it created a gallery which housed a largish number of paintings mostly by living artists. This, as far as I know, remains the only collection of its kind in Egypt. Let us hope it does not remain so for much longer.
