the name of Maecenas, corporations give themselves an aura of altruism. The
American term
sponsorship
more accurately reflects that what we have here is
really an exchange of capital: financial capital on the part of the sponsors and
symbolic capital on the part of the sponsored. Most business people are quite
open about this when they speak to their peers. Alain-Dominique Perrin, for
example, says quite bluntly that he spends Cartier’s money for purposes that
have nothing to do with the love of art.
(Bourdieu and Haacke 1995: 17–18, 17; emphasis in the original)
Haacke seeks to highlight the contradictions inherent in the business–arts nexus,
issues those most involved in forming alliances and collaborations feel are unim-
portant, or are quick to gloss over. According to Bourdieu, Haacke has ‘a truly
remarkable “eye” for seeing the particular forms of domination that are exerted on
the art world to which, paradoxically, writers and artists are not normally very sen-
sitive’ (Bourdieu and Haacke 1995: 1). Two works are highlighted which seek to
offer
an intervention, as Haacke puts it:
The more the interests of cultural institutions and business become inter-
twined the less culture can play an emancipatory, cognitive, and critical role.
Such a link will eventually lead the public to believe that business and culture
are natural allies and that a questioning of corporate interest and conduct
undermines arts as well. Art is reduced to serving as a social pacifier.
(
Art in America
, May 1990)
On Social Grease
(1975) was Haacke’s attempt to emphasize the extent to which
initiatives by corporations in the arts originate ‘from the public relations depart-
ment of a company that wants to project an image of modernity, optimism, effi-
ciency, and reliability’ (Sheffield 1976: 122). Integral to the work, and framed as a
plaque, on an august corporate edifice, was a pronouncement attributed to Robert
Kingsley, an Exxon executive, ‘Exxon’s support of the arts serves as a social lubri-
cant. And if business is to continue in big cities, it needs a more lubricated environ-
ment’. Haacke used
MetroMobiltan
(1985) to draw attention to unease he felt with
a specific relationship, namely that between the Mobil Corporation and the Met.
Nuanced references were made to the brochure distributed by the Met’s Corporate
Patrons Program and Mobil’s activity in supporting recent exhibitions at the
museum, including a show of ancient Nigerian art (1980) and works by New Zea-
land tribal artists (1984). At the same time, Haacke included as part of the piece the
justification proffered by Mobil to opposition demands to terminate petroleum
supplies to the South African police and military:
Mobil’s management in New York believes that its South African subsidiaries’
sales to the police and military are but a small part of its total sales … Total
denial of supplies to the police and military forces of a host country is hardly
consistent with an image of responsible citizenship in that country.
(text from
MetroMobiltan
1985)
50
Collaborations in the arts
From Haacke’s perspective, there is the sense that multinational enterprises use the
arts as a qualifier of character, hoping that symbolic associations with well-known
arts institutions will be more important than the pragmatic description of what the
firm
produces, and its commercial relationships.
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