38
The Point
| MAY/JUN 2017 | ISSUE 103Marrying Culture and
Commerce in Arts Patronage
BY MANU PARKFrom a historical point of view, arts patronage
has undergone a great change since the
birth of the museum as an institution. This
has brought about revolutionary changes
qualitatively different from the changes that
arrived with the introduction of the Royal
Academy of Arts and the Salon exhibitions.
As art became systematically managed and
exhibited by public institutions, works are
no longer private property but public and
national heritage goods. Therefore, with the
development of the art-museum system,
traditional arts patronage has gradually
been transformed into sponsorship and
indirect funding, such as donations, to aid
the activities of museums. The activities
of the artists who were supported by royal
courts and the church in the past became
autonomous in the middle of the 19th
century. The artist’s economic freedom,
acquired through the art market, could
be sublimated into artistic values through
institutional filtering such as acquisitions
and exhibitions.
In the late 19th or early 20th century,
major Asian countries imported these
Western museum systems, although they
still have not achieved cultural maturity
alongside rapid economic growth. It will take
some time for these countries to develop
arts patronage through the public domain
of the museum, such as philanthropic and
charitable activities outside the field of arts.
Given this context, the question now
is whether it’s possible, within the Asian
ecosystem, for contemporary art to take
advantage of this unbalanced modernization.
Interestingly enough, the lack of a proper and
stabilized art institution system invites diverse
subjects to be involved in art patronage,
resulting in multi-angled yet meaningful
initiatives that deserve our attention. But
therein also lies the negative aspects of the
dynamic arts patronage scene in Asia.
Inside the art world, the commercial and the
institutional are bound to be interdependent.
But one thing to keep in mind is that arts
patronage is not an act of commerce but an
activity within the public sphere of art.
Those involved in arts patronage in Korea
are familiar with the current status of the art
See our website for Arabic and Chinese versions of this article.environment in Asia. For example, there
are many new art institutions established
and funded by Korean corporations, which
makes the art ecosystem complex. To adopt
a reductionist’s point of view, art sponsoring
pertains to the realm of the commercial,
and patronage to that of the institutional.
But what happens when a private, corporate
founder of an art institution hosts in their
own department store an exhibition organized
by their art center? At the moment, this type
of art sponsoring is not controversial, but it
does raise issues relevant to the ideal practice
of art patronage. As a matter of fact, the
borders between the public and the private,
the nonprofit and the corporate, are blurring.
Artists, curators and collectors may go back
and forth between two sectors. But for art
institutions it should be different: there
remains, still, the crucial question about
public responsibility of institutional filtering
in terms of aesthetic judgment. To organize
an exhibition implies an act of evaluation,
which is supposed to provide warranty to the
value of its exhibits.
In the early days, Korean art patronage
subjects were very keen to promote art
awards that recognized and supported young
and established artists, in helping them
organize exhibitions. These organizers of art
awards are now diversifying their activities
and have recently introduced a variety ofsupport methods for artists. They partner
with public institutions to reinforce programs
that are necessary but lack resources and
they engage with production support, artist
residencies and distribution and promotion
for artists’ projects in the country or overseas.
Platform–L Contemporary Art Center
has a clear and determined position, not
to say one that is modest. The founder of
Platform–L is a fashion-brand company.
They did not set it up for purely aesthetic
reasons; they established it because they
needed an institution. The parent company
was seeking a transition from fashion goods
to a wider range of lifestyle designs, and the
art center was expected to be a powerhouse
that provided creative energy for innovation.
But the key question from the outset was
how to secure sustainable development for
the center. Of primary concern are strategies
in which the parent company and the art
institutions could both prosper in order to
avoid activities being reduced or closed after
several years, due to the economic downturn
or the management’s change in vision.
One of the characteristics in regard to the
current practice of arts patronage in general
is an intention to be part of the practice
of creativity. Platform-L makes efforts to
share all kinds of creative experiences not
only with the parent company’s design
development team but also with all members
of the company. The center aims to become
a place for creators in all fields of visual
art, architecture, design and performing
arts. Therefore, we can inspire the spirit of
creativity by sharing meaningful processes
with companies, from commissioning and
art production, to the process of curating.
Furthermore, if this experience is repeated,
the results of major art commission projects
may serve as a guide in setting the creative
direction of the parent company for the next
season. If the spirit of creativity in the art
world can be extended to the outside world,
the reason for the existence of an art center
will not be easily denied within the enterprise.
ILLUSTRATION BY SARENE CHAN