At the end of the 1980s, art critic and historian Elza Miles wrote a scathing article titled “Kuns en die Groot Korporasies ” in which she suggested that corporate art collections “result in nothing more than self-aggrandisement and self-promotion”, recalls Stefan Hundt, the curator of theThe article set the Sanlam art advisory committee on a path that led to “a shift in consciousness … towards more contemporary artists and the realisation that there were serious gaps in the collection with...
Yet when you take a close look at how big corporates — particularly those focused on investments, commerce and banking — have absorbed art not only into their lobbies but through structured acquisition strategies and programmes to support artists, have sponsored art fairs and, importantly, conceive of the role of art, you can’t help but think art and commerce make the best of bedfellows.
“Do corporates disclose what they’re actually purchasing? We haven’t. We’ve never really gone out to market to say this is what we are purchasing and this is how much we spend. You would only really notice what we’ve purchased if you walked around our offices and looked at what is hanging on our walls,” says Paul Bayliss, the curator of the Absa collection and director of the gallery and Absa L’atelier Award.
The public can view the collection by appointment because most of the works are displayed in working environments, she says. The Sasol Art Gallery also hosts a variety of exhibitions, once again open to the public by appointment.In 2004, it published, celebrating a decade of collecting art since democracy.
An edited selection of the 2 000 works in the Sanlam collection was exhibited in 2018 to mark a centenary of its existence. As Sanlam’s annual budget is fairly low at R450 000, it relies on an ad hoc committee assembled around the time of each purchase, according to Hundt. Those on the committee are typically art experts; the same has been the case with Sasol acquisition committees in the past. At FirstRand, the selection committee is made up of employees, as they presumably have to live with the artworks.
Sanlam seems to have undergone a similar shift. “The idea of buying good quality works by established artists seems to have been a guiding principle,” observes Hundt in a publication on its collection. He notes that there was a shift towards the “acquisition of important work by younger artists and those of the younger generation. This formed the basis of a collecting policy that is still largely applied today, with an emphasis on representative quality.
A commitment to supporting artists at the early stage of their careers is perhaps easier to manage. But what is striking are the deeper links corporate collection curators hope to make between the staff at their companies, their clients and the art. Absa L’atelier Award“We have offices in New York and London. So whatever we do has to be reflected in our offices, we need to reflect who our brand is,” says Bayliss.