Its interesting, from a british viewpoint, to see these comments on the
shotgun weddings of art and commerce. [See "<a href="/cgi-local/query.cgi?action=grab_object&kt=kt0692">art, money, and the
corporate world</a>" in the RHIZOME CONTENTBASE.] Although the sponsorship
of a site, project or exhibition is always problematic, it has become such a
neccesary condition for making new work that the negotiation of terms and
conditions on both sides of the equation (artist/sponsor) almost becomes a
fine art in itself. One of the deciding factors in the distribution of the
huge influx of arts funding since the introduction of the National Lottery
over here has been the need to provide up to 25% of the grant as match
funding.

The result of this has been an expansion of bureaucracy within arts
institutions, as plans for expansion hinge on attracting funding
partners, normally from the private sector. Time and effort normally
spent on researching artistic or interpretative programmes is spent on
dressing up the instituition's profile in order to land a increasingly
hard to find commercial sponsor. This is not always a bad thing however,
as Becks sponsorship of Artangel's excellent installation projects has
shown. Artangel have no permanent location, and exist purely to realise
one or two major projects a year, usually of a scale way outside the
possibility of a site-bound institution (Rachel Whitread's excellent
'House' project was an Artangel production). Becks support has matured
from simple revenue sponsorship to the total funding of one complete
project a year (called the Artangel/Becks commission).

Elsewhere, as the ICA in London has seen public funding slashed in half
this year, support from Toshiba (and a recent auction of artworks
donated from the yba crowd), has been more crucial than ever.

I can understand how this may seem all to cosy from the other side of
the atlantic, but there's something in the nature of these partnerships
that is more than a simple co-opting of cultural initiative by the
commercial sector.

It does not just stem from the fiscal need (via the National Lottery)
for institutions to embrace sponsors, but partly from attitudes formed
at the ground level of the current artistic generation. For the last
10-15 years, the enterprise of young british artists in curating and
exhibiting their own work has become almost legendary. Whether it is the
legacy of the hard-core free market economy that 'Thatcher's children'
grew up with or not, there has been a 'can-do' attitude to controlling
the production & distribution of artist's own work outside of the
existing gallery structures. From the seminal exhibitions 'freeze',
'gambler' and 'modern medicine' to the current healthy state of various
artist-run spaces, such as the Transmission in Glasgow and City Racing
in London, there has always been some commercial support, whether it is
from specialist technology companies assisting the production of works
or simply a drinks company helping everyone get pissed at the opening.

For the drinks companies in particular, art is the new rock and roll,
and bankrolling the exploits of hirst, lucas, emin et al provides good
pr and a crucial credibility with that difficult 18-30 marketing group.
Some kind of apothesis was reached recently with the painting survey
show 'About vision' producing advertising that carefully halftoned the
name of its sponsor so the show's title switched between 'About Vision'
and 'Absolut Vision'.

But somehow, the bouyant economy of the British art scene mirrors a
general post election feel-good factor so that art/commerce divisions
become slightly irrelevant. We're all having a party right now, right?,
so who cares who picks up the bar bill?

What will prove interesting is how strong these love affairs may be, and
whether any future economic turn-down results in commercial partners
slipping away, leaving arts organisations reliant on radically stripped
public funding for support.