10,000 to 50: Contemporary Art from the Members of Business to Arts by IMMA, Irish Museum of Modern Art

10,000 to 50

Contemporary Art from the Members of Business to Arts

Irish Museum of Modern Art

10,000 to 50

Contemporary Art from the Members of Business to Arts

Irish Museum of Modern Art

Published by Irish Museum of Modern Art Áras Nua-Ealaíne na h-Éireann Royal Hospital, Military Road Kilmainham Dublin 8 Ireland T + 353 1 612 9900 F + 353 1 612 9999 E info@imma.ie www.imma.ie

Contents

Forewords 4 6 8 9

Essays

ISBN 978-1-903811-83-2 Irish Museum of Modern Art Rights Texts © Irish Museum of Modern Art and the authors, 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electrical or mechanical, including photocopy recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher All works are © the artists

Enrique Juncosa Stuart McLaughlin Terence O’Rourke David Drumm

Christina Kennedy A Multiplicity of Views

Gemma Tipton Making Art and Making Money

The Works

143

Ronan McCrea Medium (Corporate Entities), 2008

277

Colophon

We apologise if, due to reasons wholly beyond our control, some of the photo sources have not been listed

Foreword from Enrique Juncosa A couple of years ago Business to Arts approached IMMA with the idea of organising an exhibition engaging with the holdings of corporate art collections in Ireland. Previously, in 2005, we had organised an exhibition entitled SIAR 50, about the art in the collections of individual members of the Contemporary Irish Art Society. This particular project was very successful in different ways. It attracted enthusiastic attention but also put the museum in contact with several people and companies with philanthropic interest: like Brian Ranalow, who eventually facilitated, among other things, the acquisition for the IMMA collection of a major work by Louis le Brocquy; or visionary companies like KPMG and Anglo Irish Bank, who helped at the time, and now again, sponsoring both exhibitions. It is still difficult to find sponsors in Ireland, especially if one compares our situation to countries like the USA or Britain, so we celebrate the courage and generosity of these companies and individuals. Several people have worked on this project which has been curated by Christina Kennedy, Senior Curator: Head of Collections; Karen Sweeney, Assistant Curator: Exhibitions; both from IMMA; and Jenny Haughton, independent curator. Their initial plan was to choose work from the different corporate collections associated with Business to Arts. They soon discovered that there was an enormous wealth of works to choose from, which is reflected with humour in the title of the exhibition. The curators finally decided to concentrate specifically on the most recent works in the collections rather than present the ones by major historical figures. This has proved to be an exciting approach, and the resulting exhibition is fresh and shows the strength of the latest generation of Irish artists, some of whom have already achieved significant international recognition. The contents of the show also suggest that corporate collectors are becoming more adventurous. Arising from the process of making a new work for the exhibition, the artist Ronan McCrea has made a new piece titled Medium (Corporate Entities). The work engages with eight sites which the artist visited and responded to. It takes the form of a projected slide installation in the exhibition, and also appears here as an artist’s intervention within this catalogue, taking the form of sixty-four images; like a book within a book. We are extremely grateful to Ronan for his enthusiasm and commitment to what grew into a large undertaking. The companies involved are A&L Goodbody, Allianz, Dublin Airport Authority, Dublin Docklands Development Authority, Harcourt Developments, Irish Life & Permanent, McCann FitzGerald and RTÉ, and we thank them and their staff for giving so generously of their time. Their involvement was crucial to the making of this new work, and we hope it has been a rewarding experience. I also wish to thank Marguerite O’Molloy, Assistant 6

Curator: Collections at IMMA, for editing this catalogue, and Georgie Thompson Assistant Curator: Collections, for coordinating the exhibition with Christina Kennedy. IMMA’s Education and Community Department will deliver a variety of different education programmes to coincide with 10,000 to 50, including talks, tours and special projects. Both Stuart McLaughlin and Rowena Neville of Business to Arts have done an immense amount of work to secure sponsorship for this project along with Andrew Hetherington who facilitated contact with, and visits, to lenders. It celebrates twenty years of their organisation, but also demonstrates that companies have a strong interest in the arts and in the community. We pay tribute to Anglo Irish Bank, KPMG, Image Now and The Irish Times who have sponsored the exhibition. The Irish Times is our media partner for the show, as they have crucially been for several of our projects year after year, and Image Now have helped with the production and design of this catalogue and other printed material. IMMA would like to thank David Drumm and the marketing team from Anglo Irish Bank; Terence O’Rourke and the marketing team from KPMG; Gerry Smyth and the promotions team from The Irish Times; Darrell Kavanagh, Aiden Grennelle and the creative team from Image Now for having made this exhibition and book possible. Finally, of course, we have to thank all the members of Business to Arts who have been so generous with their time in facilitating access to their collections, and especially those who have eventually lent works to this exhibition: A&L Goodbody; Boyle Civic Collection c/o Fergus Ahern; AIB Group; Anglo Irish Bank; Bank of America; Bank of Ireland Group; Beechwood Partners; Bruce Shaw Partnership; Experian; Four Seasons Hotel; GMIT; IONA Technologies; Irish Life & Permanent; KPMG; Mason Hayes+Curran; McCann FitzGerald; Murray Ó Laoire Architects; National University of Ireland, Galway; OPW and University College Cork. We hope that they will keep on collecting and that their staff will be able to enjoy seeing the artworks in a new context at IMMA.

Enrique Juncosa Director Irish Museum of Modern Art

Foreword from Stuart McLaughlin Twenty years is a period of time that seems both significant in its passing but, at the same time, a fleeting period in our mind. 10,000 to 50 has been programmed by IMMA in collaboration with Business to Arts to mark the twentieth anniversary of the organisation and to celebrate the remarkable tradition of corporate collecting in Ireland over this period. All too often in Ireland our examination of the dramatic period of change in the country from the late 1980s until today is viewed through the lens of the property section, the number plates of the cars on our roads or those super-brands which did not exist in 1988, but on which so much of our economy is founded. Rarely, if at all, do we get the opportunity to consider this change from the viewpoint which this exhibition offers us. Twenty years ago, the foundations of what is now Business to Arts were laid, under the name of Cothú, by a group of people who were, in essence, patrons and supporters of the arts in Ireland and who recognised the important role that the business community could play in the development of culture. It is fair to say that those who founded the organisation had strong links to the visual arts and, as this is the area that one might argue has benefited most strongly from patronage of those in the private sector, it remains a strong passion for our organisation and our members today.

10,000 to 50, a collection of works drawn by the expert hands of IMMA’s curatorial team from the great glass cages and corridors of companies in Ireland, is a testament to the importance of this passion. In recent years it has become a trend of the management magazines that thump onto our desks, with an authority charged by our economic success, to seek ways for us to dispose of the fruits of our labour. One of the most prominent and regular suggestions has been the ‘new’ notion of collecting and investing in art.

Not only are we considering something that is not new, but we are also seeing one of the major factors in the development of the visual arts in our country. Considering that 10,000 works were put forward for selection from companies and organisations involved with Business to Arts, it makes one wonder what the true number of works owned by businesses is. Contained within this exhibition are stories of creative practice between artists and businesses, of considered collecting strategies, of investment, of mutually rewarding commissioning and, importantly, of those individuals whose enthusiasm has sparked a long-term commitment to visual art. From the outset, one of the core aims of Business to Arts has always been to broker and enable relationships between the two communities we support. As such, 10,000 to 50 is a wonderful way to celebrate the bond between our corporations and our artists and demonstrate their interdependency and the mutuality of the benefit. As I said at the outset, change in Ireland is so often a cliché of conversation. I hope that this exhibition serves to provide a new, fresh perspective to the last twenty years and encourages appreciation of the development of contemporary Irish art, and the role business has played. More importantly, I hope that 10,000 to 50 will encourage those of us who are lucky enough to be surrounded by art in the workplace to pause for a moment and consider the beauty that surrounds us. And then we should ask for more.

Stuart McLaughlin Chief Executive Business to Arts

If you are fortunate enough to spend time in IMMA during this exhibition, or in perusing this catalogue, I would urge you to consider the first element of the name of the exhibition – 10,000. This represents the number of works that the curators reviewed before making their final selections.

Foreword from KPMG

Foreword from Anglo Irish Bank

When we were originally approached by Business to Arts about 10,000 to 50, we were immediately enthused by the idea. KPMG is fortunate to have a broad selection of contemporary Irish art, chosen wisely over the years, which is now exhibited on our premises. Like many other Irish businesses, we are strong supporters of the visual arts. However, unavoidably, the wider public doesn’t always have the opportunity to see corporate collections. So when we were asked to support this particular exhibition, it was an easy decision to say yes.

We in Anglo Irish Bank would like to congratulate Business to Arts on their twentieth anniversary of bringing two diverse parts of our Irish culture together so well, for so long.

10,000 to 50 is vibrant proof of the creativity and talent of Irish artists, past and present. It brings together a hugely diverse range of art from a number of exciting collections for the benefit of a wide audience from Ireland and abroad. And the location of the exhibition, in the stunning premises of IMMA at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, was another great reason to lend our support. We are glad that our involvement has helped to make this exhibition possible and we are proud to support Business to Arts and the Irish Museum of Modern Art in this project. We hope you are as intrigued, entertained and inspired as we are by some or all of the pieces you see on display. More than anything, we hope that they bring you enjoyment.

Terence O’Rourke Managing Partner KPMG

The manifestation of their celebration in this exciting exhibition, 10,000 to 50, inspired us to participate as a co-sponsor. When we learned that the theme of the exhibition was to show great Irish art that has been produced over the past twenty years, and displayed in the workplace, we saw a clear connection to our own business growth and our connection with the arts during that time frame. Anglo’s business has gone from strength to strength, year on year throughout that period and we have been fortunate and pleased to invest in and display beautiful Irish art on the walls of our bank for our staff and clients to appreciate. We are proud to co-sponsor this event and to show our respect and continued support for Irish artists, the great work of the Irish Museum of Modern Art and Business to Arts. Anglo Irish Bank wish everyone involved in this great project continued success.

David Drumm Group Chief Executive Anglo Irish Bank

A Multiplicity of Views Christina Kennedy Art collections are dynamic entities in their own right. How they are formed, by whom and why, what they represent and what they may point to in the future – these and many other questions are increasingly absorbing current artistic and curatorial attention. This reflection is not limited to public collections but also includes the proliferation of significant corporate and private collections of contemporary art that have been assembled in recent decades. Creative interest these days in the abstract notion of the collection may in part flow from a perceptible shift once again towards the ‘object’, that sense of ‘thingness’, or at least a degree of palpable fixity, that allows for the possibility of accumulating meaning. Perhaps it reflects a societal need for solitude, a reduction in our permeability to the outside world. In the cyclical sort of way that these things happen, maybe it hints at an incipient withdrawal from the stimulating interconnectivity and flux that have characterised so much art production of the last decades and the discourse around it. That is not to suggest that there is some perceived group swerve towards material permanency in all art production. In fact, the temporal, dialogic and participatory nature of much of contemporary practice remains a dominant and highly significant development in the art of today and is deserving of ever more inspired nurturing in terms of art patronage. Whatever the impetus, the phenomenon of the art collection is increasingly a subject for discussion and investigative exhibitions. Picking up on this, IMMA’s Collections and Education and Community Departments in the coming year will collaborate on a schedule of exhibitions, events, seminars, talks and screenings that will address in various ways some thought-provoking issues surrounding the curation and display of collections, its multiple meanings and how they emit and are mediated within physical and psychological space. Looking beyond the museological model to begin with, to the broad realm of corporate collections, the exhibition 10,000 to 50: Contemporary Art from the Members of Business to Arts provides a fascinating survey of the origin, nature and direction of those corporate collections in Ireland which are grouped by membership of Business to Arts. The exhibition marks the twentieth anniversary of the founding of Business to Arts and calls attention to the activities of this organisation as advocate, facilitator and broker between corporate businesses, artists and art in society. That IMMA should host such an exhibition is appropriate and also a self-reflexive gesture. When the Museum opened in 1991 – apart from inheriting The Madden Arnholz 12

Collection, an earlier significant donation to the Royal Hospital Kilmainham in 1987 of 2,000 Old Master prints – IMMA’s Collection featured just forty-one artworks by leading Irish and international contemporary artists. This predicament galvanized IMMA in a certain ideological direction. Its exhibition, education and artists’ residency programmes, and a few years later its National Programme of loans from the Collection, channelled a philosophy that promoted a multiplicity of views of what constitutes art while continually seeking to expand public participation in the visual arts. Down the years, those founding axioms have provided a robust sounding board for the incremental growth of the Collection, a growth which has been enhanced in no small measure by the generous loans and donations offered by members of the business community, among other notable patrons. IMMA’s Collection today is in excess of 4,000 works. It is largely through the philanthropy of such enlightened individuals as Gordon Lambert, Vincent and Noeleen Ferguson, Maurice and Maire Foley, George and Maura McClelland, Noel and Anne Marie Smyth, Lochlann and Brenda Quinn and, latterly, donations from US business people through the American Ireland Fund, and companies such as P.J. Carroll & Company that IMMA’s core collection of twentieth-century Irish art, in particular, has been amassed for the nation. The title of this exhibition throws some light on a fundamental part of the selection process. The combined collections of the members of Business to Arts who sumitted their collections for consideration total over 10,000 works. Because the exhibition marks twenty years of Business to Arts, it was decided to consider only those works created in the same period, which made for a natural, if dramatic, cull. It was also an opportunity to concentrate on recent practice and therefore avoid too much overlap with artists previously seen in SIAR 50, an IMMA exhibition in 2005 that celebrated fifty years of Irish art from the Collections of the Contemporary Irish Art Society. The final selection of fifty works for 10,000 to 50 arose from the configuration of the architecture and spaces of the first floor galleries of Imma’s west wing where the exhibition is presented. Although all the work selected has been made in the last twenty years, the artists are of all ages. It is intriguing to see early works by young artists whose careers have really grown in the last ten years and get a sense of the road travelled. It shows, too, how important early patronage is for that development. The selected works range from collections countrywide, with the greatest concentration from Dublin, reflecting the geographic location of most. While some non-Irish works were encountered – such as those by Marielle Neudecker and Markan Christensen, both of 13

approaches. But those that occur are very striking: such as Corban Walker’s architectonic glass Grid Stack 1/6, Marielle Neudecker’s atmospheric fibreglass and plastic landscape in a waterfilled glass vitrine, Andrew Folan’s conflation of traditional print-making, new technologies and sculpture, a needlework assemblage by Isabel Nolan or a totemic life-size polychrome wooden figure by Janet Mullarney.

whom in fact have some link with Ireland – the majority of works viewed are by Irish artists or artists based in Ireland, and the exhibition reflects this. Because of the nature of the member collections, the exhibition draws heavily on the wealth of paintings and works on paper that abound, and there is great diversity of approach within this focus. In fact, what has come out of this exploration is a fresh and alternative perspective on the character and variety of such contemporary art practice in Ireland, which includes many of the international names but also others beyond those perceived as mainstream. Many examples of the perhaps more ‘corporate’ choices of cool minimalism and abstraction have on this occasion been bypassed, as their perceived equivalence with that environment creates a mental proximity.

A particular curatorial interest for 10,000 to 50 was in the possibility of a new artwork arising out of the exhibition’s preparatory process, and this has come about in a very organic and fortuitous way. What began as a straightforward ‘art in the corporate environment’ documentation assignment for artist Ronan McCrea proved a virtual impossibility, given the people, foliage, security cameras, signage, fire cylinders, various architectural details and tight angles, which all conspired to impede any clear view of the artworks in question. The upshot of all of this, however, has been very positive. McCrea has used these impediments as a jumping-off point for more extensive photographic exploration of a number of corporate spaces, resulting in a new artwork for this exhibition.

As evidenced by this exhibition, the medium of painting is being ever more challenged beyond its material means to explore ideas, conditions of being, ambiguities and uncertainties about the meaning of contemporary experiences. The interaction of nature and urban culture is invoked by artists such as Blaise Drummond and Oliver Comerford. Elizabeth Magill uses landscape as a device for personal engagement and emotional recollection, while William McKeown explores the abstracted atmospheric space of nature. Stephen Loughman investigates notions of spectatorship, the cinematic, and the interplay between the real and artificial, while Gavin O’Curry’s hyper-real images evoke advertising and mass media. The synaesthetic qualities of paint and notions of process and temporality variously underlie works by artists such as Paul Doran, Ronnie Hughes and John Kingerlee. Although there are notable exceptions, such as John Gerrard’s Smoke Tree V – a realtime, 3D piece – and mixed media installation work by Peter Maybury and Mark McLoughlin, there is a dearth of audio-visual and digital artworks in the collections of Business to Arts members. This is a pity, given the burgeoning IT innovation engaged with daily by all member companies, and the fact that art in this idiom by Irish artists is regarded as a distinctly rich seam of creativity in international circles. However, this is compensated for somewhat by a number of significant photographic works such as that by Gerard Byrne, a silver gelatin process on aluminium by Willie Doherty, performance artist Amanda Coogan’s Reading Beethoven (a Lambda print ‘still’ made from her performance of the same name), works by Paul Seawright, Nigel Rolfe, Gary Coyle, Aoife Geary and more. When it comes to sculpture, there are relatively few examples of diverse materials and

Confronted with the array of architectural, design and social conditions, as interesting for the artist as the artworks themselves, McCrea saw the possibility for both a more complex and partial representation of the situation. Some images feature artworks, some merely glimpses or fragments; others represent the architecture, staff and incidentals around the corporate environment. McCrea states of the project: ‘The work is a representation of my brief encounter with various corporate spaces and riffs on various genres and traditions of photography at this particular intersection of capitalism and the autonomous art object. The project itself is ambiguous as to its own function within the context of this exhibition – and for me was a productive exploration of what a photograph in this situation can and cannot make visible’.1

1 Ronan McCrea in email correspondence with the author, December 2007.

As Brecht observed in 1931, ‘less than ever does the mere reflection of reality reveal anything about reality. A photograph of the Krupp works or the AEG tells us next to nothing about these institutions. Actual reality has slipped into the functional. The reification of human relations – the factory say – means that they are no longer explicit. So something must be built up, something artificial, something posed.’2

2 Berthold Brecht in Walter Benjamin, ‘Little History of Photography’, in Selected Writings: Volume 2, Part 2, 1931 - 1934, Michael W. Jennings, Howard Eiland and Gary Smith (eds.), Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, UK, 1996.

The work is comprised of two manifestations: a projected slide installation, which will be presented as an intrinsic element of the exhibition, and a distinct contribution to this publication. The realisation of the latter aspect of the work has been greatly facilitated by the ‘support in kind’ of design company Image Now, a working example of how business can help in the making of new art. The participant companies are: Allianz, A&L Goodbody, Dublin Airport Authority, Dublin Docklands Development Authority, Harcourt Developments, Irish Life & Permanent, McCann FitzGerald and RTÉ. The member companies of Business to Arts vary enormously in size – from those with thousands of employees to those with fewer than ten. What has become obvious through the selection process is a growing commitment to engagement with the visual arts in the corporate workplace and an increasing understanding of the social and creative value therein. In some companies the employees contribute to discussions on collecting strategies while, in others, professional curatorial advice is out-sourced. Significantly, as Gemma Tipton’s illuminating text in this catalogue bears out, practically all commissioning of artworks in Ireland to date has been due to the vision of a few notable architectural practices like Murray Ó Laoire , for instance, who have worked directly with artists such as Hughie O’Donoghue and Vivienne Roche. As well as providing IMMA’s audience with the opportunity to experience artworks that are often behind the scenes in corporate settings, one of the exciting considerations is what new meanings may attach to works as a result of their absence, for those whose walls and offices they normally grace, and conversely what effect their inclusion in this exhibition has. As well as inspiring IMMA’s usual audiences, it is hoped that this exhibition, in all its aspects, will spark long-term relationships between the business community (and by extension its workforce, families and clients), IMMA and the artists and programmes that it presents.

Dorothy Cross Ghostship, 1999 Nissan Art Project in association with IMMA

From IMMA’s point of view, the hosting of this exhibition – as well as fulfilling a programming theme – is to acknowledge the contribution of the members of Business to Arts towards the growth and development of contemporary art in Ireland and also to emphasize the importance of now raising the bar. The art produced in this country and by Irish artists abroad is of the highest standard and has a growing international following. It is hoped that, as well as more buying for commercial shows, this exhibition will stimulate greater confidence and conviction by corporations to commission new work from artists, whether in the context of new buildings or to enhance existing locations, and to recognize the social and cultural benefit in supporting art projects of a temporary nature out in the world. 17

It would be an inspirational step if companies would take the plunge in supporting types of art that may not necessarily result in an object on the wall or floor but are of a more ephemeral nature and whose significance may reside in that very temporality. In this respect, a very worthwhile initiative by Business to Arts, with the support of its members, would be the funding of a professional curator who would be particularly well-placed to guide companies who recognize the international distinction and cultural capital that would attach to their name through exciting and innovative art patronage, and want to move in this direction but do not know where to start.

To be contemporary is to be open to change. This exhibition celebrates support to date and encourages companies to draw further on the ideas and creativity that flow out from contemporary art. Through purchasing, commissioning artists to make new art and partnering with arts organisations to bring art to the widest possible audience, companies encourage innovation and creative entrepreneurship across the board. Collections tell the history of their own making. Susan Stewart in her essay ‘An After as Before’ proposes the notion that collections are allegories of thought and embody a series of acts of interpretation in time.3 As time proceeds, old knowledge does not disappear but, in juxtaposition to new devices of thought, acquires a transformed meaning.How more meaningful the histories of today’s collections will be if the identities they project into the future take account of new models of thought implicit in the art of now.

Significantly, we hope that there may be potential successors among the companies associated with this exhibition to those Business to Arts members whose vision has benefited IMMA in the past. Memorable among these initiatives was Nissan Ireland’s enlightened endowment of the Nissan Art Project series which was curated by IMMA during 1997–2000 and included For Dublin by Frances Hegarty and Andrew Stones in 1997, Dorothy Cross’s Ghostship in Dublin Bay in 1999, and Dan Shipsides’s Bamboo Support on the façade of the Carlton Cinema in Dublin’s O’Connell Street in 2000. The financial support from National Irish Bank in 2002-2004 of IMMA’s Branching Out series of participatory art projects was a defining moment in the development of the museum’s National Programme in terms of local community access to the collection, for which NIB received the Business to Arts Special Judges Recognition Award in 2004. Glen Dimplex distinguished itself on an international scale for its seven-year commitment to excellence in contemporary art through its funding of a financial award that IMMA curated annually between 1994 and 2001. Needless to say, IMMA would be delighted to welcome any such initiatives by interested companies in the future.

Christina Kennedy Senior Curator: Head of Collections Irish Museum of Modern Art

Susan Stewart, ‘An After as Before’ in The Open Studio: Essays on Art and Aesthetics, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2005.

Making Art and Making Money Gemma Tipton ‘When bankers get together for dinner,’ said Oscar Wilde, ‘they discuss art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss money.’1 While both are equally fascinating, it seems far more acceptable to declare an interest in fine art rather than in filthy lucre. But is lucre actually so filthy, or is it more a question of what you do with it when you get it? And can’t the same be said, indeed, of art? There is creativity, of course, in both the business of art and the business of business, and a long history of connection. There have always been relationships between the two; always patrons, always collectors.

the value of contemporary art, culturally assessed on its own terms, change in an environment of asset value, balance sheets, net worth, profit and loss? Or is art tougher than that, its meanings intrinsic, and secure?

On Soap Bubbles and Sugar Lumps Some commentators put the birth of the real culture of corporate art collecting at around the 1960s in the USA and the mid-1970s in the UK,2 but there are examples of much earlier relationships in which art and business came together to the benefit of both. The rather wonderfully named Lady Lever Art Gallery at Port Sunlight, Liverpool, is home to such a collection. It was amassed by William Hesketh Lever (Lord Leverhulme) in order, as they put it, ‘to enrich the cultural and educational aspects of the lives of his workforce and the public at large.’3 Port Sunlight was built as a model town for Lever’s soap factory workers, and Lever paid for the church, hospital, technical school and art gallery. The collection was begun in the late 1880s (the gallery came later), and many of the works in it were bought to serve as advertisements for Lever’s Sunlight Soap. These include, improbably enough in those prudish Victorian times, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s rather louche Tepidarium (1881), a nude that A&F Pears had initially purchased to advertise their rival soap (incidentally the first transparent soap in the world). More obviously appropriate is Charles Burton Barber’s Girl with Dogs (1893), a nice example of gentle Victorian sentiment, in which a small red-haired girl cuddles some puppies as the mother dog looks on, and which was used around 1901 in a Lever advertisement under the title The Family Wash.

Those seeking either parallels in the past, or justification for future policy, tend to invoke the Medici, whose magnificent history (or Lorenzo’s at least – many of his antecedents were considerably less magnificent than il Magnifico himself) might be seen as the ideal marriage of art and commerce. Art was different back then. Artists were artisans and any thought of the necessity of freeing artistic endeavour from the depredations of business was as far in the future as the avant-garde itself. What patron today would see to it that the faces of his family were included in a procession of the Magi, as Lorenzo’s father, Cosimo il Vecchio, did of Gozzoli in Florence’s Medici Riccardi Chapel? What if they were to lock up an artist to prevent his drinking and womanising until a commission was complete (Cosimo again, this time with Filippo Lippi)? And what patron would threaten to throw an artist from his scaffold if he didn’t make haste to finish (Pope Julius II to Michelangelo over the Sistine Chapel, according to Vasari in his Lives of the Artists)? No, Renaissance patrons are not necessarily ideal examples to invoke when seeking to show the best ways of backing (and benefiting from) artistic activity today. So where might one look to find innovative, exciting and committed ways to support the practice of visual artists, and to enable the creation of new works? And what examples might we use to show how much such support matters to the arts, and how well it may also serve the supporter? While an eye to history shows us what has been done, a look at the more recent past, as well as the present, here in Ireland, offers plenty to inspire. It also provides interesting insights into the relationship between artists and some of the strongest supporters of their work. Who buys in Ireland? What do they buy? Where do they put it, and what do those who work in companies who collect art (whether they have twenty employees or two thousand) think of what goes on their walls? On the other side of the relationship, what do the artists think? If art, always so sensitive to context, looks different in a studio than it does in all its glory at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, how different again might it look or, even, how might the meaning change, in the context of a boardroom? Or a canteen? Or the office of a firm of lawyers? How might 20

1 Comment attributed to Oscar Wilde, from various sources, including, for example, art financing service Fine Art Capital (www.fineartcapital.com), where it appears it is generally used to underline the attraction the worlds of art and money hold for each other.

2 For example, see ‘Art Collecting: the benefits for your business’, prepared for Arts & Business (UK) by Peter Harris and Jonathan Flowers (2001), online at www.aandb.org.uk, accessed 22 February 2008. 3 From Port Sunlight publicity material, online at www.portsunlight.org.uk, accessed 22 February 2008.

How Burton Barber felt about this use of his work is not recorded, although, judging by his artistic output, it is highly unlikely that he would have minded. Nevertheless, it is interesting to realise that he would have been aware of the reasons why he, perhaps, might have been against it. For just as he was painting his pictures of cute moppets with dogs, elsewhere in Europe the avant-garde were insisting that art be used as a vanguard attack to promote social reform, smash the accepted norms, and otherwise shake up society. Meanwhile, the associated l’art pour l’art (art for art’s sake) movement was determining that art is only valuable when it is entirely separated from any function, whether radical, educational, moral or otherwise ‘useful’. Today we sit somewhere between Lord Leverhulme’s rather paternalistic patronage and the complete breakaway of artistic practice and product from any utilitarian purpose whatsoever. In addition to this, we know that, as well as its aesthetics, art ‘does’ things, for those who own it, and for those who simply come to look at it. Exactly what those things might be is something to be discussed later in this essay, but to get some idea of the power of art to establish a name, and then to enhance it in the minds of the public, one only has to look at Henry Tate. A sugar 21

which art is made and seen, the power structures of business have also changed, moving from family dynasties to corporate bodies. And with this move, the relationship between artist and patron is also radically different. Nonetheless, many of the motivations remain the same. What is it that drives art and business into each other’s arms? Whether for reasons of nebulous ‘good’, moral good, pure disinterested philanthropy, as a powerful motivational tool, to use as something attractive to cheer up a building, or as a subtle form of subliminal advertising, support continues. Considered together, Irish businesses’ holdings of modern and contemporary art make up a collection far larger than that of IMMA’s. It is one which has been collected for longer, and one which sees many of its works on display to a far wider public than any museum of contemporary art could hope for, no matter how engaged its outreach programmes may be. But who is buying in corporate Ireland? And what are they creating for our ‘other’ art collection?

refiner, Henry Tate was the owner of the patent to make sugar lumps, a patent which made him millions, but most people don’t think of that when they think of Tate – they think of the gallery he established, and its offshoots. Originally called The National Gallery of British Art, these are now known as Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. But does fine art make one buy more sugar? Not consciously but, nonetheless, when in British supermarkets, I tend to pick up Tate & Lyle sugar over its competitors, some unacknowledged impulse insisting that this one must be superior, must be the best. Whether it is direct advertising, or the more subtle messages of sponsorship, that have the best effect is as open to conjecture now as it was in Tate and Lever’s day, when Lord Leverhulme himself noted that fifty percent of the money he spent on advertising was wasted, it was just that he didn’t know which fifty. Such fame had not been Tate’s intention. He was known as a modest and retiring man, and many of his numerous donations (to libraries, colleges, hospitals) were made anonymously. While Lever used art as part of a deliberate tactic to create a happy and productive workforce, and to advertise his products, Tate’s philanthropy had a less directed motivation – art as an optional element in a series of opportunities for general ‘good’. But both have received the benefits that the attachment of art to their corporate names has brought. Combine these, over one hundred years later, with Unilever’s sponsorship of the Turbine Hall installations at Tate Modern, and you have something nicely circular, a conceit that, perhaps, wraps everything up in a tidy fashion. It doesn’t offer any such neat conclusion, of course, because to these positions we can also add the role of art as a form of dynamic decoration in corporate buildings, as well as in spaces such as hotels. In the Four Seasons Hotel, Dublin, for example, the display of contemporary art – including original works by Felim Egan, Tony O’Malley, Blaise Drummond, Nick Miller and Gillian Lawler, rather than the more usual generic prints – raises an indefinable sense of ‘cultural quality’ in the hotel. Meanwhile, in the context of aesthetics, architecture, and particularly Modernist architecture, demands some ornament to replace that which the architecture itself has so rigorously rejected. In fact, it’s not just Modernist architecture that has called for art to punctuate its walls. The word ‘gallery’ itself comes from gallerias, the connecting apartments and offices in such grand buildings as the Louvre, the Uffizi and the Vatican, whose monotony was relieved by portraits, landscape paintings and busts. And given that the Louvre is generally credited with being the world’s first art museum, and the word uffizi translates as ‘offices’ (which, indeed, the Uffizi Gallery originally was),the history of art and business is even more closely intertwined than one might have thought. As the changing nature of society has altered the ways in 22

Ireland’s Other Art Collection Visual art has always needed money to survive. In Ireland, the visual arts lack the strong historic tradition which is attached to our literature, theatre and music. The primary reason for this was money. You needed tools to create a work of visual art, and, in the past, you needed a patron. Storytelling and song, on the other hand, could take place independently of materials and money. They were also a way to keep histories alive in a time of colonial occupation and prohibitions. Money represents possibility just as surely as creativity does. Despite these cultural limitations from the past, the visual arts in Ireland have caught up, and, some might suggest, are in a position to overtake other artforms. One of the first official corporate collections that is still ongoing in Ireland (in the sense that its purchase was a deliberate policy on the part of the organisation, and that the works were paid for from company, rather than from personal, resources) was that of Bank of Ireland.

4 This sculpture later passed out of the family’s possession, and the bank repurchased it when it came back on the market at auction in 1998. It was then donated to the National Gallery of Ireland.

Buying art had taken place at Bank of Ireland since its founders, the La Touche family, demonstrated their interest by buying or commissioning works such as Canova’s The Amorino (1789).4 The main impetus to establish the bank’s contemporary collection came with its move to new headquarters on Baggot Street in 1974. These were designed by Scott Tallon and Walker, and are a (less tall) replica of Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building in New York. In a pattern that was to continue through the creation of a great many corporate headquarters in Ireland, the involvement of Ronnie Tallon as architect also generally meant that the company ended up with an art collection too, Tallon being a dedicated advocate for contemporary art. In fact, Tallon has probably created more wall space for showing the work of some of Ireland’s most famous artists than anyone else, 23

without ever having designed an art gallery here. At Bank of Ireland, he was given a generous purchasing budget, due also, in part, to the role of Basil Goulding (a passionate collector in his own right) as Chairman of the Board, and works by artists including Robert Ballagh, Cecil King, Patrick Scott and Louis le Brocquy were acquired. As Tallon himself puts it, ‘We have a long tradition in our practice. From the early conceptual design of our buildings, we think in terms of comparisons with works of art. Sometimes the building might be complete,’ he continues, ‘before we buy works of art, but generally we succeed in convincing the client that the building needs works of art.’5 It is true that his strong Modernist aesthetic requires strong art to counterpoint, almost to anchor, the architecture, in some instances. Michael Bulfin’s Reflections (1975) outside the Baggot Street building is a good example of this. The same is true inside; ‘If you keep the surfaces of a building simple, if you keep the interiors simple…’ Tallon says, ‘the most important thing is people. The colour and life of a building is people, and the next best thing to the people are creative works’.6 Following Tallon, Neil Monaghan, another architect, took up art-buying at the bank, and the present purchaser, again an architect (who also practises as an artist), Derville Murphy, notes that Monaghan’s acquisitions represent a different style in the collection. There are fewer geometries, fewer hard edges in Monaghan’s selection, she says, demonstrating that corporate collections may nonetheless still be idiosyncratic, and that they tell personal stories too. As Group Architect with responsibility for the art collection, Murphy has a brief to continue to develop a collection that represents the best in contemporary Irish art. With that in mind, she buys works that she will not necessarily site in the Bank’s offices or branches. Works with an overtly political or sexual content may not be suitable in an environment that people don’t have a choice to leave (without losing their jobs), or where a sexualised dynamic would be inappropriate. Nonetheless, they still constitute a reflection of art practice today, and are therefore, according to Murphy’s brief, important to include.

Portrait of Ronnie Tallon by Denis Mortell, March 2008

5 Ronnie Tallon, interviewed by the author, 18 December 2007. 6 ibid. 7 Derville Murphy, interviewed by the author, 10 January 2008.

That said, Murphy does not shy away from buying and hanging works that people might not initially like, saying that the work often activates the space, engages with people, and that early reactions may change.7 Ronnie Tallon agrees, remembering an instance when he first installed the initial one hundred works he had purchased for Bank of Ireland on their move to Baggot Street. He had put a Patrick Scott painting in one of the directors’ offices, only to be phoned by the director in question and told, ‘I can’t live with that painting.’ Tallon promised to remove it when he rehung the work in a week or two. ‘I didn’t get round to it 25

While banks and other financial institutions may, statistically, collect more work, collecting is obviously not the whole story. By commissioning Sean Keating to record the Shannon Scheme and the hydroelectric power station at Ardnacrusha in the 1920s, the ESB were responsible for the creation of iconic works from that period. The ESB continue to sponsor exhibitions and arts awards. Diageo are another company who are not active collectors, but whose place in Irish art history is assured with the role of the Guinness Hop Store, which, as parent company, they now own. As home to the ROSC exhibition in the 1980s, the Hop Store was once at the cutting edge of art in Ireland. Later, the 5th Gallery presented a contemporary programme at the Guinness Storehouse. The gallery closed, after three years, in 2003. But if Ireland’s ‘other’ art collection is comprised of the works we see on the walls of banks, solicitors’ offices, hotels, government departments, universities, architects’ offices, consultancy firms and (in fact) any place that people go to work, how different is it from the holdings of a museum like IMMA?

for three or four months,’ he recalls, ‘but after I did, I got a phone call saying “you’ve taken my lovely Pat Scott painting, I want it back…” It’s extraordinary,’ Tallon says, ‘how people who haven’t looked at modern works of art seriously, who love traditional art, once they live with it, that changes. That director became one of the greatest supporters of the collection.’8 This raises another role of art in the workplace, noted by Business to Arts Chief Executive Stuart McLaughlin: that art can also serve as a talking point, particularly in a large organisation, where hundreds, if not thousands (in the case of AIB’s newly-enlarged Bankcentre at Ballsbridge) of people come to work every day. This viewpoint is endorsed by Gerry Watson, who curates the collections for companies including A&L Goodbody and McCann FitzGerald, and by Frances Ruane, who is art advisor to AIB. Begun in 1980, AIB’s collection set out to tell the story of Modernism in Irish Art. With this in mind, they purchased works from around the 1880s on, establishing an historical background that includes pieces by Nathaniel Hone, Roderic O’Conor, Mary Swanzy and Walter Osborne. Now the emphasis is both on continuing to acquire works that represent key pieces in the story of contemporary Irish art, as well as finding ways to support emerging artists.9 From an initial impulse to create, as former Chairman Lochlann Quinn puts it, ‘a stimulating environment for staff and visitors to AIB Bankcentre’10, the AIB collection has become a significant historic and cultural resource. Banks and financial institutions are, in fact, the major corporate supporters, sponsors and collectors of contemporary art. According to a survey carried out by Business to Arts in 2005, not only are banks large collectors, they are also the largest source of other kinds of support – in terms of sponsorship and various initiatives.11 Anglo Irish Bank have works by artists including John Behan, Barrie Cooke, Felim Egan, Chung Eun-Mo, Stephen McKenna and Sean Scully; Ulster Bank’s collection includes William Crozier, Cliona Doyle, Cecil King, Louis le Brocquy, Donald Teskey and Sam Walsh; and the collection of Irish Life & Permanent includes Patrick Collins, Elizabeth Cope, Jacob Epstein, Conor Fallon, Mick O’Dea and Patrick Scott. Banks are also adept at using traditional as well as contemporary art in tandem, the Paul Henrys upstairs demonstrating that your money is safe with an institution of longstanding probity, and the Sean Scully in the foyer letting you know that they’re not afraid to innovate.

8 Tallon interview, op. cit. 9 The AIB Prize, for example, supports the creation of an exhibition and the publication of a catalogue, and is awarded each year to an emerging artist. The scope of the prize means that installation, performance, time-based or sound artists may also benefit from the Bank’s financial input. 10 AIB Art, Allied Irish Banks, Dublin, 1995, p.3. 11 Business to Arts National Arts Sponsorship Survey published by Business to Arts in 2006, and available online at www. businesstoarts.ie accessed 20 December 2007.

12 Lochlann Quinn, interviewed by the author, 16 January 2008. 13 Harris and Flowers , op. cit. 14 On Reflection, Gandon, Cork, 2005, p.7.

Looking at art history, the works that have survived are, for the most part, the works that have been held safe in collections. While some are broken up (Lochlann Quinn refers to the ‘three d’s’ as the greatest threat to collections: ‘death, debt and divorce’12), most works are then reabsorbed into fresh contexts in new collections; but whatever the context, its presence in a collection is a work of art’s best chance of ‘surviving’ into history. One key difference between the collection at IMMA and the ‘collection’ of Business to Arts members is that the latter may be far more visible. An Arts and Business report from the UK estimates that, while in museums up to ninety percent of works may be in storage at any time, in business generally ninety percent is on display. Works may also be rotated through branches and offices, and so reach a larger audience.13 The question of audience is interesting; in an introduction to the catalogue of Bank of Ireland’s 2005 On Reflection exhibition at The Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Group Chief Executive Brian Goggin wrote that it was ‘wonderful for us to see these paintings grouped together in a new way, in a new environment, before an entirely new audience’.14 While bank employees may, or may not, comprise typical gallery audiences, and vice versa, the essential difference, perhaps, lies in the ‘new environment’ to which Goggin alludes. The nature of the work environment means that one’s responses to the work may be differently constructed, and the fact that while one chooses to visit a museum, one is constrained to go to work, does mean that the kind of art that may be displayed in an office environment, or in the public areas of a company, is necessarily different.

specifically for the internet, which would seem to be an obvious next step as more and more corporations, and in particular banks, transact business by this medium.

Issues of sexual, political or other potentially divisive content (the staple fodder of a significant amount of contemporary art) apart, there are questions of scale, dimension and fragility, which present considerable challenges in incorporating new media into a corporate collection. In fact, company offices are particularly friendly to sizeable twodimensional works, head offices being (apart from museums) some of the few places that can comfortably display large-scale works by artists including Anne Madden (seen, for example, to great advantage at A&L Goodbody), Robert Ballagh (Bank of Ireland), Eithne Jordan (KPMG), Ciarán Lennon (Beechwood Partners), Cecily Brennan (Murray Ó Laoire Architects), or Louis le Brocquy tapestries (RTÉ, A&L Goodbody). The same is true for large and physically robust sculpture. While it is probably facetious to ask the question ‘which came first, the Calder mobile or the atrium?’, the current architectural vogue for massive winter garden courts, glass atriums and imposing foyers has led to a significant number of commissions in Ireland for sculptural pieces by artists such as Corban Walker (Bank of Scotland Headquarters, Dublin) and Michael Warren (A&L Goodbody, Dublin).

Looking at the list of artists’ names that crop up again and again, however, it seems that large minimalist or geometric abstractions lend themselves particularly well to being shown in offices. One reason for this is that they work well there visually, both from a distance, and close-to, as the dynamics of foyers, atriums, balconies and open-plan offices create their own aesthetic demands. Another reason is that the very exclusion of representational content, which Clement Greenberg15 suggested had elevated Modernist painting from the ‘corruptions’ of society, paradoxically makes such work highly suitable to adorn the walls of the powerhouses of society (corporate headquarters) without unduly disrupting the internal politics of the corporate environment.

A survey of art in the collections of Business to Arts members does suggest some artists whose work has a particular ‘corporate’ appeal; Mary Lohan, Anne Madden, Ciarán Lennon, Felim Egan, Tony O’Malley, Sean Scully, Cecil King, Patrick Scott, and tapestries by Louis le Brocquy all find homes, and hold their own, in the context of contemporary corporate architecture. The majority of Irish companies also tend to support Irish artists, or artists who have a connection to Ireland, although AIB have recently begun collecting the work of Polish artists. This is in response both to the growth in the numbers of Polish people living in Ireland, and the bank’s expansion into that country, and demonstrates AIB’s policy of actively updating their arts strategy to reflect the changing nature of contemporary Ireland. Corporate collections are, for the most part, a result of an interest on behalf of an individual at a high level in a company, and as such they are vulnerable to changes in company organisation. Brian Goggin at Bank of Ireland has facilitated a revival of their collecting tradition, while in the case of CIÉ, a State-supported organisation, the State stepped in to ‘save’ their collection, which is now in the care of the Crawford Gallery, Cork. But just as personal interest can create and shape a collection, practicalities also play their part. Some forms of media such as installations present difficulties for corporate collectors, as do sound works, video and more delicate pieces. Bank of Ireland have purchased installations, although they currently have no plans to show them, while AIB recently bought John Gerrard’s Smoke Tree V, a new media work displayed on a specially made computer screen. There have not, as yet, been any moves to commission works 28

15 See, for example, Greenberg’s ‘Modernist Painting’, originally delivered as a lecture in 1961, and subsequently published in Arts Yearbook 4, 1961, pp.101-8. 16 Frederic Jameson, ‘Postmodernism and consumer society’ in Hal Foster (ed.), The Anti-Aesthetic, The New Press, New York, 1998, p.142. 17 ibid, p.143.

This is not to say that ‘corporate’ art equates to ‘safe’ or ‘dull’ art, although the term has been used pejoratively in the past. It is clear that if businesses display art to demonstrate an element of their corporate identity, ‘safe’ and ‘dull’ would not be words they would choose to describe themselves. Instead, sited between the necessities of corporate definition, the fostering of an engaging workplace culture, and interior design, minimalism and geometric abstraction (with a little landscape and abstract expressionism thrown in) does seem a particularly good fit. Marxist theorist Frederic Jameson suggests a further way of looking at things. He describes Modernism’s revolution: ‘Modernism in general did not go well with over-stuffed Victorian furniture, with Victorian moral taboos, or with the conventions of polite society. That is to say that, whatever the political content of the great high modernisms, the latter were always in some mostly implicit ways dangerous and explosive, subversive within the established order.’16 Postmodernism, he continues, saw the absorption of these artists and their works into the academies, and into contemporary consumer society. ‘Not only are Joyce and Picasso no longer weird and repulsive, they have become classics and now look rather realistic to us.’ He makes the point that the position of art has shifted fundamentally within society: ‘commodity production and in particular our clothing, furniture, buildings and other artefacts are now intimately tied in with styling changes which derive from artistic experimentation; our advertising, for example, is fed by postmodernism in all the arts and inconceivable without it.’17

Art which was formerly revolutionary now finds a role by which its energies are accessible to commerce and ‘mainstream’ society. The disruptive nature of Modernism has been reabsorbed and, with Postmodernism, we have seen a return to art’s pre-avant-garde role.

The title of the work itself comes from the panel that quotes oil company Exxon’s Robert Kingsley: ‘Exxon’s support of the arts serves the arts as a social lubricant. And if business is to continue in big cities, it needs a more lubricated environment.’19

Artists have, of course, taken on the contradictions of contemporary corporate support of the arts, from memberships of boards of directors, to the sources of patrons’ wealth. German conceptual artist Hans Haacke has made these questions a key part of his practice, and has created a not-always-comfortable set of relationships with the institutions (and their patrons) that he interrogates. An exhibition which was to be held in 1971 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York was cancelled, just six weeks before the exhibition was due to open. One of the works that was to be included, Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, A Real Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971 (1971), looked at the financial, business and social connections of one of New York’s worst slum landlords. The museum’s management deemed the work inappropriate, Guggenheim Director Thomas Messer saying that Haacke’s ‘concentration upon interior aims stands in conflict with the intrinsic nature of art as an end in itself.’18 Others speculated that the cancellation was due to Shapolsky’s close friends on the Board of Trustees, although this was never proved. Another work, Haacke’s Seurat’s ‘Les Poseuses’ (Small Version), 1888-1975 (1975), traces the owners of a Georges Seurat pointillist painting, demonstrating the shifts in power, from old-fashioned family patronage and aristocratic privilege, to corporate bodies, and the imperatives of investment interests.

On Social Grease was sold to the Gilman Paper Company in the USA and for many years formed a key part of their corporate collection; but did this dilute or in some way neutralise the social critique Haacke was seeking to make? Had it, as Chin-tao Wu suggests, ‘radically redefined the very meaning of the piece?’20 Or did it instead mark a new stage in the conversation around the work and its meanings, a conversation that, as Haacke’s Seurat work shows, will continue long into the future?

Pragmatics, Philanthropy, and Passion: Why Buy? If On Social Grease exhibited some of the reasons corporate America supported contemporary art in the 1970s, what other motivations might there be? And, in addition to corporate support for the arts, there is also that intriguing question of why we, whether as individuals or as part of an organisation, collect at all. At a discussion about the psychology of collecting, held at the Frieze Art Fair in London a couple of years ago, New York-based psychologist Hilary Rubenstein told a story to illustrate the, as she saw them, primary motivations that drive some of the world’s biggest art collectors.21 The event she describes took place at the time of the Basel Art Fair (arguably the most significant art fair in the contemporary art calendar), when Greek collector Dakis Joannou flew a select group of his fellow collectors from Switzerland to Greece to have dinner with him, and to admire his art. The collection, which includes works by Jeff Koons, Maurizio Cattelan, Takashi Murakami, Chris Ofili and Shirin Neshat, is definitely worth admiring.

Initially exhibited at the same time as the Seurat work, Haacke’s On Social Grease (1975) consists of six aluminium panels. Each panel is etched with a statement made by an important business leader, describing the benefits of supporting art. Frank Stanton’s (an executive at CBS) panel reads: ‘But the significant thing is the increasing recognition in the business world that the arts are not a thing apart, that they have to do with all aspects of life, including business – that they are, in fact, essential to business’. While that of David Rockefeller (at the time Vice-President of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank) says: ‘From an economic standpoint, such involvement in the arts can mean direct and tangible benefits. It can provide a company with extensive publicity and advertising, a brighter public reputation, and an improved corporate image. It can build better customer relations, a readier acceptance of company products, and a superior appraisal of their quality. Promotion of the arts can improve the morale of employees and help attract qualified personnel’. 30

18 Quoted by Gregory Sholette, ‘News from nowhere: activist art and after’, Third Text, issue 45, 1998, p.50.

19 All quotations taken from Hans Haacke, On Social Grease (1975), 6 plaques, 76.2 x 76.2cm, photo-engraved magnesium plates mounted on aluminium with dull finish. 20 Chin-tao Wu, Privatising Culture, Verso, London, 2002, p.267. 21 ‘The Psychology of Collecting’, discussion held at the Frieze Art Fair, 17 October 2004. Panellists: Hilary Rubenstein, Eric Troncy, Haim Steinbach, Alice Rawsthorn (Chair). http://www.friezefoundation.org/ mp3/2004/The Psychology of Collecting.mp3, accessed 21 February 2008.

On the bus that had been organised to take them from the art to the restaurant, recounts Rubenstein (pointing out that the assembled group of ‘big-shot’ collectors were not the type who would normally ever take a bus), one of them turned to the curator and barked: ‘So what does it all mean?’ He, an older man, wealthy, successful, had turned on the younger female curator, aggressively demanding that she defend Joannou’s choices. ‘I’ll tell you what it means,’ shouted an equally aggressive voice from the back of the bus, ‘it means he got it, and you didn’t.’ And that, to Rubenstein, is a major factor in why some people collect art. In that anecdote, she says, psychoanalysis sees respect, admiration, envy, generosity, hostility and competitiveness. Collectors buy for the thrill of ownership, and for the chance to demonstrate to the competition what they have, and what, therefore, their colleagues can, consequently, not possess.

with capitalism and commerce, but it is clearly a factor in explaining the passion and commitment some individuals bring to their relationship with the visual arts, and also elucidates the motivation to share that passion with colleagues and clients.

There may well be a point to this, but it’s only part of the point. In Boyle, County Roscommon, Ahern & Co., Chartered Accountants, may be responsible for supporting and often purchasing art, but they don’t actually own any of it. In direct opposition to the theory of the loud man at the back of Dakis Joannou’s bus, Ahern & Co. helped to set up the Boyle Arts Festival and the Boyle Civic Collection in 1990. The proceeds of the sale of artworks in the annual festival go towards purchasing art for the Civic Collection. The Boyle Civic Collection is now a significant collection and has also attracted support from the Contemporary Irish Art Society, the Haverty Trust and the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland, as well as donations from artists and collectors. The ‘home’ of the collection is the seventeenth-century King House in Boyle, but works are also hung in venues around the town, including the secondary school, newspaper offices, railway station, homes for disabled children, and the home for the elderly. An education pack has been produced to link works in the collection to the Leaving Certificate Curriculum.

The different organisational structure of a company can actually give it an ‘edge’ over a museum when it comes to amassing a collection. Even though, at the very top end of the market, dealers and agents will prioritise institutions when it comes to allocating works by an artist in high demand, when it comes to making decisions on acquisitions, companies, whether they buy through an advisor, a designated member of staff, or on the votes of a committee, can generally move faster. ‘Museums are highly structured organisations with specific funding schedules and protocols, which often slow down the acquisition process, whereas corporate entities are likely to act faster and more decisively – if a company really wants to build an enviable, museum-quality collection they have this as an advantage,’ says Rubicon Gallery Director Josephine Kelliher, before noting that this is an advantage upon which they should capitalise. ‘Young, dynamic, ambitious, groundbreaking companies should choose art that reflects this ethos – it is dispiriting to see such companies “play it safe” with traditional imagery and auction-led decisions.’24

‘What we’re trying to build here,’ says Fergus Ahern, ‘is a collection that is accessible to the public.’ The collection is important, he believes, because ‘the works are a reflection of where society is at this time, a mirror of what is happening in Ireland in the latter part of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first.’ The next step is to try to get a permanent, purpose-built home for the collection, but for that, Ahern wryly notes, you need a serious private benefactor (like, perhaps, the Glucksmans in Cork) in the absence of County Council or Government support. Ahern’s own interest in art came as a student at UCD in Dublin. ‘It was raining, and I ducked into the Hendricks Gallery to shelter. Before I knew it I had a glass of wine and a canapé in my hand. I hadn’t a penny to spend on art, but I became a regular visitor to the gallery and David Hendriks was very encouraging and helpful. He was cutting edge at the time and very influential. I also got onto a few other mailing lists and it was a great way to get to spend an evening with free wine and food, but it was also a wonderful enriching experience, which I suppose has in some way shaped my life.’22 Ronnie Tallon tells a similar story: ‘The first work I bought was for my own home. I went into the Dawson Gallery, and admired a Pat Scott. I couldn’t afford it at the time, but Leo Smith said, “Take it and pay me whenever you can, I don’t care if it’s five years or ten…”. So I went back a year later to pay for it, and Leo looked up what I owed him in a big ledger, showed me some other paintings, and I came home with two more.’23 Ahern and Tallon’s anecdotes reveal another reason why individuals as well as organisations collect, and support art, a reason not addressed by Rubenstein’s psychoanalytic account, and that is – love. The word ‘love’ is not an obvious one to use in connection 32

Another motivation is the extra dimension an engagement with the world of art brings. At the law firm Mason Hayes + Curran, Colman Curran and Declan Moylan bring an infectious enthusiasm to their collecting. They host arts evenings for their employees, as well as outings to galleries, and recently held an in-house auction to streamline the collection following their move to new headquarters. ‘Initially,’ they say, ‘you’d like to give the building some atmosphere and create a nice working environment for staff, secondly you want to project to clients your place in the wider artistic landscape, but the main thing is that it’s a really fulfilling and enjoyable aspect of our work and our business. It’s a great thing, at the end of a long working day, to go to a gallery opening, with the thought that maybe you’ll buy something.’25 Mason Hayes + Curran have also developed their support for the visual arts through sponsorship, for example, of a catalogue for Amelia Stein’s exhibition Memory and Loss, which included an essay by Colm Toibin.26

22 Fergus Ahern, interviewed by the author, 8 January 2008. 23 Tallon interview, op. cit.

24 Josephine Kelliher, interviewed by the author, 4 January 2008. 25 Colman Curran, Declan Moylan, interviewed by the author, 19 December 2007. 26 Memory and Loss, Amelia Stein, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin, June 2002. 27 Gemma Tipton with Patricia Tsouros, ‘Travels with Art’, The Gloss, March 2008, p.33.

A similar sense of passion and love is evident from a conversation with Lochlann Quinn, who is in the enviable position of being able to display his own personal collection in the Merrion Hotel, Dublin. I have written, elsewhere,27 that being in the lounge in the Merrion is like being able to order cocktails at the National Gallery, such is the quality of the art on display. ‘I have always thought,’ Quinn says, ‘that most sponsorship is a hobby of the

chief executive. At the end of the day you’ll only get an enthusiastic push for something like this [art] if the chief executive is behind it.’ This approach also describes a different reason for sponsorship, and here Quinn cites Glen Dimplex, who previously sponsored the Glen Dimplex Artists’ Award at IMMA, and currently the Glen Dimplex New Writers’ Awards; ‘Sometimes sponsorship is done because someone has a passion and they’re not looking for any return on it. Glen Dimplex doesn’t sell a single product with the name “Glen Dimplex” on it, it’s just the name of the top company. You get a lot of sponsorship like that where someone says, “Look, this is good for the country, we should give something back, and this is something I’m interested in”. There are places where sponsorship has a commercial angle, but also places where people just think it’s a good thing to do.’28

Chapel, Bon Secours Private Hospital, Galway Murray Ó’Laoire Architects and artist Hughie O’Donaghue, 2007

28 Lochlann Quinn, interviewed by the author, 16 January 2008. 29 Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of Theory and Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1977, p.122. 30 See Pierre Bourdieu, ‘The Forms of Capital’, in J. Richardson (ed.), Handbook of Theory of Research for the Sociology of Education, Greenwood Press, New York, 1986, pp.241-58. For a further discussion see Brian Hand’s essay ‘Public Misrecognition’, CIRCA Art Magazine, issue 91, 2000, pp.25-30. 31 Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Darbel, ‘The Love of Art’, in F. Frascina and J. Harris (eds.), Art in Modern Culture, The Open University Press, London, 1992, p.176.

There are, however, other theories about why supporting the arts might be ‘a good thing to do.’ ‘The denial of economic interest,’ writes sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, ‘finds its favourite refuge in the domain of arts and culture.’29 In his writings, Bourdieu coins, and then further discusses, the notion of ‘cultural capital’, pointing out that while the arts might wish to set themselves apart from the systems and standards of capitalist exchange, there is nonetheless a cultural economy, where the ‘wealth’ is symbolic of one’s status in society. In Bourdieu’s analysis, there are three states in which cultural capital exists. Firstly, it is embodied, in that it is ‘part’ of a person, acquired over time usually by means of birth and education. Secondly, it may be objectified, as with a work of art, and here he notes that one may buy artworks with objectified capital, but not necessarily acquire embodied capital in the process – in other words, you might own the work, but it doesn’t necessarily entitle you to recognition by members of the ‘club’. Finally, institutionalised cultural capital is what we understand by the value conferred by academic qualifications or, for an artist, collection by an organisation like IMMA.30 From this perspective, organisations may support work in the hopes of acquiring embodied cultural capital, which they can then demonstrate to their target markets, colleagues and competitors. And just in case anyone should refute his theory by asking what on earth sociology might understand about art, Bourdieu has an answer for this too. ‘The sociologist,’ he writes, with Alain Darbel, ‘is always suspected (according to a logic which is not his or her own, but that of the art lover) of disputing the authenticity and sincerity of aesthetic pleasure by simply describing its conditions of existence. This is because, like any kind of love, the love of art is loath to acknowledge its origins and on the whole it prefers strange coincidences, which can be interpreted as predestined, to collective conditions and conditionings.’31 Nonetheless, whether for reasons of pragmatics, philanthropy, or passion, the ways in which Business to Arts members, as 35

diverse as IONA Technologies, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Smurfit Kappa Group, Bruce Shaw Partnership, Image Now, Experian, O’Donnell Sweeney Eversheds and Vhi Healthcare support the arts have contributed to the development of art at every level, and art in Ireland would not be the same without them.

for two reasons. One is commercial, the enhancement is a huge attraction when selling. The second is the people living or working there, they are going to be stimulated by the art. Sometimes they don’t initially like it, but over time it becomes part of their living and working lives,’ says Murphy.33

More than a Meal Ticket

Business to Arts also incorporates organisations such as the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, the Office of Public Works, and the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, where, as Docklands’ Arts Manager Mary McCarthy puts it, an aim is to be part of the conversations being developed around the arts.34 Docklands run a significant commissioning programme; of ‘signature’ pieces, such as that by Antony Gormley,35 and also of more discursive and process-based projects, like Bodycity, a series of discussions, research projects and commissions, curated by Nigel Rolfe, Cliodhna Shaffrey and Shelagh Morris.36 Other members, not strictly ‘businesses’, are third level institutions, such as University College Cork and NUI Galway. Here, the idea of ‘discussion’ becomes even more germane: ‘It’s about introducing people to visual culture,’ says Fiona Kearney, director of UCC’s Lewis Glucksman Gallery. ‘It’s the idea that a university, as well as having a set of buildings, would also introduce visual art. The model of the Glucksman is one of conversation. We site works with texts about them around the campus, and have academics write the texts.’37

While this exhibition focuses on the evidence of business support for the arts, as seen through their collections, that is only part of the story. Just as contemporary art is not solely made up of painting and sculpture, neither is patronage simply a matter of collecting. Companies support through awards, Allianz sponsor the Business to Arts Awards themselves, and TileStyle provide a bursary for a commissioned artist, while AIB and Bank of Ireland both make awards that directly help visual artists in their careers. On the other hand, market research company Behaviour and Attitudes’ practice of commissioning contemporary prints as corporate gifts has been ongoing for nearly twenty years, to the extent that they now have a portfolio including John Kindness, William Crozier, Richard Gorman, Felim Egan and Maria Simonds-Gooding. Then there is Texaco’s Children’s Art Competition, which is now in its fifty-fourth year. Previous winners of the Texaco competition include former Labour Party leader Ruairi Quinn, PR executive and broadcaster Terry Prone, as well as artists Dorothy Cross, Graham Knuttel and Robert Ballagh.

The Glucksman Gallery, as its name suggests, was built through the direct philanthropy of Loretta and the late Lewis Glucksman. So why did the Glucksmans choose to sponsor an art gallery? ‘The short answer,’ according to Loretta Glucksman, ‘is that Lew had already done a library. But seriously, in the past number of years, Lew had become increasingly interested in contemporary Irish artists, and visual art is a beautiful way to learn about the country and its culture.’38 That level of philanthropy is still more ‘American’ than it is ‘Irish’, perhaps due in part to the different social scale of Ireland. In the USA, and to a lesser degree the UK, the social aspect of the cultural scene is less open to newcomers, unless chequebooks are vigorously brandished.

The nature of the organisation often dictates the opportunities it may develop to work with the visual arts. RTÉ not only support by offering advertising, but also through their commissioning strand Arts Lives, and arts discussion programme The View, although, in terms of the visual arts one wishes they might do more. Mike Murphy, a former radio and TV presenter at RTÉ, describes how his own interest in the arts developed: ‘Many years ago, when I was on early morning radio, Gene Martin was my producer, and he was very interested in painting, so we would go around the galleries together. Then, when I wanted to go in a different direction, I started the Arts Show, because of my interest in art, and that ran for twelve years.’32 Murphy is now a director at Harcourt Developments, where, in addition to having a significant collection of art, art is also commissioned as part of the development process. ‘Part of our philosophy in developing, whether it’s Park West or the Titanic Quarter in Belfast, is to include art works. We’re very cognisant of the fact that art is a primary factor in enhancing the environment for the people who are going to live or work in a place. So whether it’s Las Vegas, the Bahamas, Ireland or the UK, it’s very important 36

32 Mike Murphy, interviewed by the author, 22 January 2008.

33 ibid. 34 Mary McCarthy, interviewed by the author, 9 January 2008. 35 This commission is, at time of writing, at planning stage, awaiting approval. 36 http://www.bodycity.org/ accessed 21 February 2008. 37 Fiona Kearney, interviewed by the author, 14 December 2007. 38 Loretta Glucksman, interviewed by the author for an article in The Irish Times, published 9 October 2004.

In Owning Art (the publication of which was supported by the Arts Council of England), authors Louisa Buck and Judith Greer describe how one can become involved in the arts: ‘Most non-profit organisations will look to find funding for specific events: opening receptions, post-reception dinners or fundraising parties. Individuals can often become involved by sponsoring all or part of events, holding dinners in their homes or through buying expensive gala dinner tickets – or, even better, entire tables. Charity auctions are often part of such events and generous bidding on donated art or other 37

items can be useful for attracting attention, as well as acquiring some choice artworks as part of the bargain.’39

we have seen, attempting to assess the value of arts against a business model (profit, loss, price, value) fails, because it ignores the less tangible, less quantifiable value of art, and also of what is seen as cultural capital. So, too, do practical and evidential claims for, and against, the ‘good of the arts’. Going back to where we began, with the Medici and their relationship to the artists they patronised, Sean Ó Laoire shows that maybe things aren’t so different now after all. ‘In a crude way it’s a service profession, just as with Michelangelo and the Medici, you need a patron, just as I need a client for a building, and a lawyer needs a client, so at a very basic level it’s a service profession. But society has correctly allowed a space for art to be more than that, and so it should be’.42 The businesses involved with collecting and supporting art, and with this exhibition, have given art that space, and the relationships they have developed show just how creative and rewarding opening up that space can be.

Some may take this advice and support the arts in order to get invited to dinner at MoMA (and the like), but others do it because of a particular set of circumstances. At architecture practice Murray Ó Laoire, Sean Ó Laoire describes the firm’s involvement with Limerick’s EV+A from its earliest days: ‘There were a lot of very active people, and people who had the foresight to conceive of an exhibition for Limerick. You have the serendipity of people coming into a small place, like Paul O’Reilly, Hugh [Murray], Sam Walsh, people like that, and they eventually became a catalyst for EV+A. EV+A started to introduce a kind of kinetic performance element to architecture, by using the whole city as a gallery.’40 Murray Ó Laoire’s support for EV+A in its early days was practical, organisational, as much as anything, which demonstrates another level of what business and arts can offer each other. ‘It’s the capacity to follow through on a good idea, as much as resources,’ notes Ó Laoire . The synergies Ó Laoire describes also demonstrate that while Business to Arts implies a one-way relationship, with everything flowing in the direction of the artist, artists should not be deceived into undervaluing their own contributions. The languages may be different, and, too often, the remuneration, but the benefits are mutual, and artists and their representatives (including the institutions) should be aware of what they bring to the table – whether it is at a gala dinner, boardroom or simply at the level of discussions.

Gemma Tipton Gemma Tipton is a writer and critic of contemporary art and architecture, based in Dublin. She is currently a research scholar with GRADCAM.

In Conclusion Investigating the relationship of business and the arts reveals a whole parallel history of the arts in Ireland. It discovers a mix of motivations, innovations, belief and, often, leaps of faith. It finds individuals whose choices have helped shape the spaces of the city, the walls on which art is displayed, and even the art that ends up there. It also finds individuals whose passion makes things happen. And in the midst of all that minimalism and geometric abstraction it throws up some real gems. Who knew that, before he went on to become the darling of restaurant owners and collectors such as Sylvester Stallone, Graham Knuttel made the most beautifully sensitive sculptures and wall-pieces (as a trip to the upper floors of Bank of Ireland on Mespil Road revealed)? In his book What Good are the Arts?, John Carey, Professor of Literature at Oxford, tries in vain to find a theoretical or intellectual argument for the genuine ‘good’ of the arts. Using statistics, sociology, history and rhetoric, he dismisses claims for the superiority of ‘high’ art, and disputes any evidence that the visual arts can make us ‘better’.41 But, as 38

39 Louisa Buck and Judith Greer, Owning Art, Cultureshock, London, 2006, p.267. 40 Sean Ó’Laoire, interviewed by the author, 9 January 2008. 41 John Carey, What Good are the Arts? Faber and Faber, London, 2005.

42 Ó’Laoire interview, op.cit.

10,000 to 50

Contemporary Art from the Members of Business to Arts

Irish Museum of Modern Art

The Works

Gerard Byrne

Points of view in Waiting for Godot; the Gate Theatre production, with sets by Louis le Brocquy, Dublin 2003 Fuji crystal archive print, ed. 1/4 45 x 55 cm AIB Art Collection

Markan Christensen

Soft Fragment I c.1991

Pinewood 114 x 90 x 23 cm Collection Irish Life & Permanent

Eun-Mo Chung

Appearance 2003

Oil on canvas 95 x 95 cm Anglo Irish Bank

Declan Clarke

The Garden Tiger and The Common Blue 1997 Emulsion and acrylic on canvas 157 x 112 cm (each) KPMG Collection

Felicity Clear

A Certain Detachment I, II, III 1997

Mixed media on canvas 3 parts, 30.5 x 38 cm (each) Mason Hayes+Curran

Oliver Comerford

Line In 1998

Oil on board 61 x 92 cm KPMG Collection

Amanda Coogan

Reading Beethoven 2004

Colour photograph; Lambda print on diabond behind acrylic, ed. 1/3 100 x 75 cm AIB Art Collection

Maud Cotter

I Like Being Alone 2001

Card, plaster and wire 33 x 36 x 12.5 cm OPW Art Collection

Gary Coyle

The Baths 2005

C-print on diabond, ed. 5/5 91.5 x 122 cm Collection McCann FitzGerald

Dorothy Cross

Goggles 1995

Workmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s goggles, transparencies and bulbs 6.5 x 9 x 6 cm AIB Art Collection

Willie Doherty

Grey Day 4 2007

Silver gelatin print mounted on aluminium, ed. 1/3 70 x 55 cm On loan from the Bank of America Collection

Paul Doran

Magic Moment 2002

Oil on canvas over board 23 x 23 cm Commissioned by the OPW for the Department of Social & Family Affairs

Blaise Drummond

Island Painting No. 11 2005

Oil and gloss on canvas over board 91.5 x 91.5 cm Four Seasons Hotel

Kim En Joong

Untitled 2000

Oil on canvas 110 x 137 cm Anglo Irish Bank

Mary Farl Powers

In Search of Order 1991

Woodblock print with cast paper, ed. of 4 102 x 199 cm KPMG Collection

Mary FitzGerald

Image Afterimage 26 1988

Oil on paper on board, diptych 76 x 113 cm Collection A&L Goodbody

Andrew Folan

Cassiopea 2001

Needle burns on layered Japanese tissue 12 x 18 cm Boyle Civic Collection

Mark Francis

Caledonia 2004

Oil on canvas on board 91 x 102 cm Collection Bruce Shaw Partnership

Aoife Geary

Ualach Dosheachanta (Imminence) 2006 Digital print on board 65.5 x 53 cm NUI Galway Collection

John Gerrard

Smoke Tree V 2006

Realtime 3D, ed. 1/6 100 x 68 x 53 cm AIB Art Collection

David Godbold

A Strategy for Survival 1992

Acrylic and tinted gesso on canvas framed triptych 129 x 349 cm IONA Technologies Collection

Patrick Graham

Collateral Series 2005

Mixed media on board 94 x 125 cm OPW Art Collection

Patrick Hall

End of the Inferno (for W.M.) 2003

Oil on canvas 183 x 198.75 cm Collection McCann FitzGerald

John Halpin

After Patinir 1998

Computer-generated Lambda photoprint 91 x 99 cm UCC Art Collection

Tjibbe Hooghiemstra

Bridge 2004

Egg tempera and chalk on paper 30 x 18.5 cm Collection McCann FitzGerald

Ronnie Hughes

Assorted New England Drawings 2006 Coloured pencil and gouache on paper, 16 drawings 29 x 24 cm (each) Bank of Ireland Art Collection

John Kingerlee

A Walk to the Station 1994

Watercolour and ink on paper 32 x 37 cm Boyle Civic Collection

Ciarรกn Lennon

Arbitrary Colour Collection 2006

Acrylic paint on copper 30 x 239 x 4 cm (approx) Beechwood Partners

Mary Lohan

Misty Morning Glen Columcille 2000

Oil on canvas 76.2 x 152.4 cm IONA Technologies Collection

100

101

Stephen Loughman

Exterior No. I (Day for Night) 2006

Oil on canvas 35 x 45 cm Boyle Civic Collection

102

103

Sean Lynch

Dear J.J. I read with interestâ&#x20AC;Ś 1986 - 2006

Framed reproduction from The Irish Times, 26th April 1986, 3 Lambda photographic prints, framed letter. Various dimensions. Bank of Ireland Art Collection

104

105

Elizabeth Magill

Forest Edge 2 2000

Mixed media on canvas 122 x 153 cm Anglo Irish Bank

106

107

Alice Maher

Lectores Mirabelis 2004

Charcoal on paper 6 drawings 69 x 57 cm (each) Commissioned by the OPW for the National Library of Ireland

108

109

Peter Maybury and Mark McLoughlin

Untitled 2003

Mixed media installation Commissioned by the OPW for the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland

110

111

Stephen McKenna

Small Gate at Terni 1998

Oil on canvas 40 x 50 cm Anglo Irish Bank

112

113

William McKeown

Hope Painting â&#x20AC;&#x201C; A Journey without Moving 2005 Oil on canvas 186 x 168 cm Bank of Ireland Art Collection

114

115

Nick Miller

Highwood to Sligo 2001

Oil on canvas 40.5 x 51.5 cm NUI Galway Collection

116

117

Janet Mullarney

Untitled 1988

Polychromed cirmolo pinewood and dyed jute 155 x 119 x 107 cm UCC Art Collection

118

119

Mariele Neudecker

Another Million Days and Nights Go By 2002

Glass, water, acrylic solution, salt, fibreglass and plastic 30 x 30 x 30 cm Bank of Ireland Art Collection

120

121

Isabel Nolan

Crushing Spring 2007

Cotton, linen, embroidery silk and thread 250 x 200 cm AIB Art Collection

122

123

Gavin O’Curry

The Future’s Here to Stay 2005

Oil on canvas 40 x 30 cm OPW Art Collection

124

125

Deirdre Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Mahony

The Cross Land 2007

Inkjet print on diabond with split baton support, ed. 2/6 50 x 67 cm GMIT

126

127

Katherine Penney

Movement 2007

Photographic lightjet print mounted on aluminium composite 85 x 125 cm Experian

128

129

Sioban Piercy

The Body So Regarded (I) 1999

Screenprint on Somerset paper ed. 3/12 75 x 75 cm GMIT

130

131

Kathy Prendergast

A Dream of Discipline 1989 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 2006

Mattress and chalk 225 x 135 x 120 cm AIB Art Collection

132

133

Vivienne Roche

Drawing for ‘Light (Pianissimo)’ 2006

Oil stick on paper 49.5 x 81.5cm Murray Ó Laoire Architects

134

135

Nigel Rolfe

Silver Things 11 2005

GiclĂŠe print, A/P 117 x 88 cm OPW Art Collection

136

137

Patrick Scott

Gold Painting 2005

Gold leaf and acrylic on linen 61 x 61 cm Collection Bruce Shaw Partnership

138

139

Paul Seawright

Untitled (Woman and Child) 2005

Framed lightjet print on Fuji crystal paper, mounted on aluminium, ed.of 6 127 x 152 cm UCC Art Collection

140

141

Corban Walker

Grid Stack 1/6 2007

Clear float glass and Diamante glass 95.6 x 60 x 60 cm, unique Bank of Ireland Art Collection

142

143

Ronan McCrea

Medium (Corporate Entities) 2008

Version I (book) 64 photographs Version II (installation) 81 photographs: projected 35mm slides

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261

262

263

264

265

266

267

268

269

270

271

272

273

A&L Goodbody IFSC, North Wall Quay, Dublin 1 (Solicitors) 24 January 2008 Pages 144-159

Irish Life & Permanent Lower Abbey Street, Dublin 1

Harcourt Developments Park West Business & Retail Park, Nangor Road, Dublin 12

(Insurance, Pensions, Financial Services) 14 January, 4 February 2008 Pages 160-175

(Property Developers) 21 January 2008 Pages 176-191

144-145 Staff Restaurant with view of Atrium

160-161 Reception area

176-177 The Plaza, Park West

146-147 View of Atrium from Reception area

162-163 Staff Restaurant

148-149 Ground floor Atrium, Michael Warren, Pasqua II, 1999, bronze, Louis le Brocquy, Uccello, 1999, Aubusson tapestry.

164-165 Staff Restaurant, Desmond Kinney, The Bird of the Golden Land, 1977, (detail), glass mosaic mural

178-179 Park West, Angela Conner, Irish Wave, 2001, wind mobile, carbon fibre, stainless steel, granite, water

150-151 Atrium

167

153

168-169 Lift area, sixth floor

Staff Restaurant

180-181 Stone, bin, bench, Park West 183

RTÉ Montrose, Donnybrook, Dublin 4

193

Finbar Jackson, security staff member, cap with pin of St. Brigid’s Cross RTÉ logo, 1961- 1995

(Broadcasting) 6 February 2008 Pages 193-207

194-195 Television Studios Building 196-197 Linda Brunker, Source, 1996, Bronze, Radio Centre

Park West, Office block 198-199 Fair City set

Knowledge Centre, Richard Gorman, Untitled, 1998, oil tempera on linen

154-155 Meeting Room with view of Atrium, Michael Warren, Pasqua II, 1999, bronze 157

Helena Roddy, Meeting Room, Mary Lohan, Untitled, c. 1994, Oil on board, triptych

171

Courtyard, Desmond Kinney, Sweeney Astray, 1986, (detail), glass mosaic mural

172-173 Courtyard, Desmond Kinney, Sweeney Astray, 1986, (detail), glass mosaic mural 174-175 Front entrance, Lower Abbey Street

184-185 Beckett Way, Park West 187

A sign, Park West

201

Tree, rear of Television Programmes Building

188-189 Curtain Wall, Park West

202-203 Objects

191

204-205 Reception area, Television Programmes Building, Louis le Brocquy, The Táin, Army Massing, 2000 (detail), Aubusson tapestry

View of M50

158-159 Open plan office areas 206-207 Video tapes, Sports Department, second floor, Television Programmes Building

274

275

Dublin Airport Authority Cloghran House, Dublin Airport

Dublin Docklands Development Authority 52 – 55 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Docklands, Dublin 2

Allianz Burlington House, Burlington Road, Dublin 4

McCann FitzGerald Riverside One, Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2

(Airport Management) 7 February 2008 Pages 209-223

(urban regeneration) 28 January 2008 Pages 224-239

(Insurance) 8 January 2008 Pages 240-255

(Solicitors) 17 January 2008 Pages 256-271

209

Car-park ramp

224-225 Reception, Docklands Authority Offices 226-227 View of Liffey, North Wall Quay, Custom House Quay 228-229 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, posters for Bodytalkcity, a season of talks, performance and panel discussion on the topic of ‘the city’ 17 November 2007, and Video Apartment, an exhibition of video from 30 artists, 1–30 November 2007 230-231 City Quay, ‘notice of intention’, applying for planning permission for siting of sculpture by Antony Gormley 232-233 City Quay, view from east

256-257

Library

258-259

Sixth floor Atrium, Ulrika Holmquist, Urban Growth 3, 2007, slipcast and glazed earthenware ceramic

261

Meeting Room, Bernadette Kiely, 6 separate works entitled Carrickfin 5am I-VI, 2004/5, (detail), oil on canvas

262-263

View down the Atrium, Mary Rose Binchy, Beyond the Veil, 1998, oil on canvas, Anita Groener, Excavation VII, 2005, oil on canvas, polyptych of 4 panels, Patrick Hall, End of the Inferno (for W.M.), 2003, oil on canvas, Philip Flanagan, Concrete Form with Purple over Green, 2006, acrylic on canvas, Mary FitzGerald, Counter/act I, 1991, plastic, wire, string, charcoal and acrylic on canvas, polyptych of 12 panels

264-265

Ground floor Atrium, Ciarán Lennon, Camac XXII, 2002, (detail), acrylic on calcium plumbate on copper on gesso on wood, polyptych of 27 parts

267

Ciarán Lennon, Camac XXII, 2002, (detail), acrylic on calcium plumbate on copper on gesso on wood, polyptych of 27 parts

268

An open plan area, first floor, unoccupied

271

A sign

210-211 Top of Terminal, Remco de Fouw, Quest, 1988, stone, steel, bicycle parts 213

Pier A link building, Leanne Mullen, Protection, 1997, clay

214-215 View of Old Central Terminal Building (OCTB) from Pier D 216-217 Pier D 218-219 Pier D, Oscar Wilde 220-221

Corridor to Corporate Lounges, Mary FitzGerald, Out of the Blue, 1991, (detail), acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 5 canvases, 195 x 600 cm

223

Head Office block, Colm Brennan Garboard Strake, 1986, steel, 70 x 250 x 32 cm

234-235 Poster for development of Grand Canal Square 236-237 Grand Canal Square, designed by Martha Schwartz Partners 239

276

Building materials, Grand Canal Square

240-241 Revolving Doors, John Behan, Megalithic Memories, c. 1975-78, aluminium 242-243 Plant, fourth floor offices 244-245 Plant, Reception area 246-247 Files, fourth floor office 249

Table and chairs

250-251 Files, fourth floor office 252-253 Lisa Marie McAdam, Reception area 254-255 Reception area, John Behan, Megalithic Memories, c. 1975-78, aluminium

277

Colophon

278

279

List of Works Gerard Byrne Points of view in Waiting for Godot; the Gate Theatre production, with sets by Louis le Brocquy, Dublin, 2003 Fuji crystal archive print, ed. 1/4 45 x 55 cm AIB Art Collection Markan Christensen Soft Fragment I, c.1991 Pinewood 114 x 90 x 23 cm Collection Irish Life & Permanent Eun-Mo Chung Appearance, 2003 Oil on canvas 95 x 95 cm Anglo Irish Bank Declan Clarke The Garden Tiger and The Common Blue, 1997 Emulsion and acrylic on canvas 157 x 112 cm (each) KPMG Collection Felicity Clear A Certain Detachment I, II, III, 1997 Mixed media on canvas, 3 parts, 30.5 x 38 cm (each) Mason Hayes+Curran Oliver Comerford Line In, 1998 Oil on board 61 x 92 cm KPMG Collection Amanda Coogan Reading Beethoven, 2004 Colour photograph; Lambda print on diabond behind acrylic, ed. 1/3 100 x 75 cm AIB Art Collection

280

Maud Cotter I Like Being Alone, 2001 Card, plaster and wire 33 x 36 x 12.5 cm OPW Art Collection Gary Coyle The Baths, 2005 C-print on diabond, ed. 5/5 91.5 x 122 cm Collection McCann FitzGerald Dorothy Cross Goggles, 1995 Workman’s goggles, transparencies and bulbs 6.5 x 9 x 6 cm AIB Art Collection Willie Doherty Grey Day 4, 2007 Silver gelatin print mounted on aluminium, ed. 1/3 70 x 55 cm On loan from the Bank of America Collection Paul Doran Magic Moment, 2002 Oil on canvas over board 23 x 23 cm Commissioned by the OPW for the Department of Social & Family affairs Blaise Drummond Island Painting No. 11, 2005 Oil and gloss on canvas over board 91.5 x 91.5 cm Four Seasons Hotel Kim En Joong Untitled, 2000 Oil on canvas 110 x 137 cm Anglo Irish Bank

Mary Farl Powers In Search of Order, 1991 Woodblock print with cast paper, ed. of 4 102 x 199 cm KPMG Collection

Patrick Graham Collateral Series, 2005 Mixed media on board 94 x 125 cm OPW Art Collection

Mary FitzGerald Image Afterimage 26, 1988 Oil on paper on board, diptych 76 x 113 cm Collection A&L Goodbody

Patrick Hall End of the Inferno (for W.M.), 2003 Oil on canvas 183 x 198.75 cm Collection McCann FitzGerald

Andrew Folan Cassiopea, 2001 Needle burns on layered Japanese tissue 12 x 18 cm Boyle Civic Collection

John Halpin After Patinir, 1998 Computer-generated Lambda photoprint 91 x 99 cm UCC Art Collection

Mark Francis Caledonia, 2004 Oil on canvas on board 91 x 102 cm Collection Bruce Shaw Partnership

Tjibbe Hooghiemstra Bridge, 2004 Egg tempera and chalk on paper 30 x 18.5 cm Collection McCann FitzGerald

Aoife Geary Ualach Dosheachanta (Imminence), 2006 Digital print on board 65.5 x 53 cm NUI Galway Collection

Ronnie Hughes Assorted New England Drawings, 2006 Coloured pencil and gouache on paper, 16 drawings, 29 x 24 cm (each) Bank of Ireland Art Collection

John Gerrard Smoke Tree V, 2006 Realtime 3D, ed. 1/6 100 x 68 x 53 cm AIB Art Collection

John Kingerlee A Walk to the Station, 1994 Watercolour and ink on paper 32 x 37 cm Boyle Civic Collection

David Godbold A Strategy for Survival, 1992 Acrylic and tinted gesso on canvas, framed triptych 129 x 349 cm IONA Technologies Collection

Ciarán Lennon Arbitrary Colour Collection, 2006 Acrylic paint on copper 30 x 239 x 4 cm (approx.) Beechwood Partners

Mary Lohan Misty Morning Glen Columcille, 2000 Oil on canvas 76.2 x 152.4 cm IONA Technologies Collection Stephen Loughman Exterior No. I (Day for Night), 2006 Oil on canvas 35 x 45 cm Boyle Civic Collection Sean Lynch Dear J.J. I read with interest…, 1986 - 2006 Framed reproduction from The Irish Times, 26th April 1986, 3 Lambda photographic prints, framed letter, various dimensions Bank of Ireland Art Collection Elizabeth Magill Forest Edge 2, 2000 Mixed media on canvas 122 x 153 cm Anglo Irish Bank Alice Maher Lectores Mirabelis, 2004 Charcoal on paper 6 drawings, 69 x 57 cm (each) Commissioned by the OPW for the National Library of Ireland Peter Maybury and Mark McLoughlin Untitled, 2003 Mixed media installation Commissioned by the OPW for the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland

Stephen McKenna Small Gate at Terni, 1998 Oil on canvas 40 x 50 cm Anglo Irish Bank William McKeown Hope Painting – A Journey without Moving, 2005 Oil on canvas 186 x 168 cm Bank of Ireland Art Collection Nick Miller Highwood to Sligo, 2001 Oil on canvas 40.5 x 51.5 cm NUI Galway Collection Janet Mullarney Untitled, 1988 Polychromed cirmolo pinewood and dyed jute 155 x 119 x 107 cm UCC Art Collection Mariele Neudecker Another Million Days and Nights Go By, 2002 Glass, water, acrylic solution, salt, fibreglass and plastic 30 x 30 x 30 cm Bank of Ireland Art Collection Isabel Nolan Crushing Spring, 2007 Cotton, linen, embroidery silk and thread 250 x 200 cm AIB Art Collection

Deirdre O’Mahony The Cross Land, 2007 Inkjet print on diabond with split baton support, ed. 2/6 50 x 67 cm GMIT

Patrick Scott Gold Painting, 2005 Gold leaf and acrylic on linen 61 x 61 cm Collection Bruce Shaw Partnership

Katherine Penney Movement, 2007 Photographic lightjet print mounted on aluminium composite 85 x 125 cm Experian

Paul Seawright Untitled (Woman and Child), 2005 Framed lightjet print on Fuji crystal paper, mounted on aluminium, ed.of 6 127 x 152 cm UCC Art Collection

Sioban Piercy The Body So Regarded (I), 1999 Screenprint on Somerset paper ed. 3/12 75 x 75 cm GMIT

Corban Walker Grid Stack 1/6, 2007 Clear float glass and Diamante glass 95.6 x 60 x 60 cm, unique Bank of Ireland Art Collection

Kathy Prendergast A Dream of Discipline, 1989 – 2006 Mattress and chalk 225 x 135 x 120 cm AIB Art Collection Vivienne Roche Drawing for Light ‘(Pianissimo)’, 2006 Oil stick on paper 49.5 x 81.5cm Murray Ó Laoire Architects Nigel Rolfe Silver Things 11, 2005 Giclée print, A/P 117 x 88 cm OPW Art Collection

Gavin O’Curry The Future’s Here to Stay, 2005 Oil on canvas 40 x 30 cm OPW Art Collection

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Business to Arts Membership

Patrons

Members

Accenture AIB Group Allianz Ireland Bank of America Bank of Ireland Group Bruce Shaw Partnership Crossridge Investments Deloitte Dublin Airport Authority Dublin Docklands Development Authority Earlsfort Centre (Developments) ESB Experian Gallagher Ireland Glen Dimplex G&T Crampton Hardwicke Corporate Services Irish Life & Permanent The Irish Times John Sisk & Son Jones Engineering KPMG McNamara & Company O’Reilly Associates PricewaterhouseCoopers Quinlan Private R&A Bailey & Co TileStyle Treasury Holdings Ulster Bank Group

A&L Goodbody Alfrank Designs Mr. Colm Allen Amárach Consulting Amorys Solicitors Anglo Irish Bank ARUP Consulting Engineers Atlantic Industries (Coca-Cola) BCM Hanby Wallace Beechwood Partners Behaviour & Attitudes Boyne Valley Honey Co Brendan Bracken PR Carr Communications CB Richard Ellis Century Management Chevron (Ireland) Ltd CityJet Communiqué International Culture Ireland Diageo Ireland DMOD Dublin Bus Dublin City Council Dublin Port Eagle Star Life Assurance Enterprise Ireland Everyman Training FÁS FBD Holdings FEXCO Group Fitzwilliam Hotel Four Seasons Hotel Goodbody Stockbrokers Harcourt Developments Hay Group Ireland Heneghan PR High Performance Training Hooke & MacDonald HWBC Chartered Surveyors IACT Iarnród Éireann IBEC Image Now

IONA Technologies Irish Times Training Jefferson Training John Jefferson Smurfit Monegasque Foundation John Paul Construction Jurys Doyle Hotel Group Kompass Layden Group Mahon O’Neill The Marketing Institute Mr David Martin Mason Hayes + Curran Matheson Ormsby Prentice McCann FitzGerald Mercer MERC Partners Mercury Engineering Merrion Hotel Dublin Merrion Property Group Murray O’Laoire Architects National University of Ireland, Galway Nissan Ireland O’Donnell Sweeney Eversheds Onside Sponsorship Optimum Training OPW Oracle Orbis Ovation RTÉ RTÉ lyric fm Scott Tallon Walker Sherry Fitzgerald Group Society of Chartered Surveyors SureSkills Terroirs University College Cork University of Dublin Vhi Healthcare Waterford Wedgwood Watson Wyatt Whitney Moore

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IMMA supporters

Honorary Patrons

Patrons

Benefactors

George McClelland Gerard O’Toole Maurice and Maire Foley Lochlann and Brenda Quinn

Abhann Productions Bank of Ireland Horwath Bastow Charleton Mairead and Finbarr Cahill Joe Christle Diageo Ivor Fitzpatrick Jefferson Smurfit Foundation Eoin and Patricia McGonigal Dr Maureen O’Driscoll-Levy Colm O’Riagain Brian and Elsa Ranalow Noel Smyth

HE Stelio Marcos Amarante Eileen and Paul Bowman Brennan Insurances Campbell Bruce and Jackie Stanley Frank X Buckley Abdul Bulbulia Maeve Callanan Philip Carton Michael Corrigan and Mary Kilcullen Brian Coyle John Daly Alex Donald Grainne Dooley Bernard Dunleavy Siobhan Fahy Lorna Fitzsimons Barry Edward Flanagan Margaret Glynn Tom E Honan Gerry McDonagh Loretto Meagher Belinda Moller Carmel Naughton Gearóid Ó Súilleabháin

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Irish Museum of Modern Art

Exhibition Team

The Business to Arts Team

Catalogue

Designed and Produced by

Photographic credits

Thanks

Published on the occasion of

Curated by Christina Kennedy Senior Curator Head of Collections

Stuart McLaughlin Chief Executive

Editor Marguerite O’Molloy Assistant Curator Collections

Image Now www.imagenow.ie

Ronan McCrea wishes to thank Christina Kennedy, Jenny Haughton, the staff at the locations, in particular Gerry Watson. www.ronanmccrea.com

10,000 to 50 Contemporary Art from the Members of Business to Arts Irish Museum of Modern Art 30.04.08 - 03.08.08 First Floor, West Wing

Jenny Haughton Independant Curator Karen Sweeney Assistant Curator Exhibitions Organised by Christina Kennedy Senior Curator Head of Collections Georgie Thompson Assistant Curator Collections Marguerite O’Molloy Assistant Curator Collections Eimear Martin Former Assistant Curator Collections Susan Connolly Former Assistant Curator Collections Gillian Fitzpatrick Technician (Floor supervisor)

Rowena Neville Director of Marketing & PR Karen Brett Director of Programmes Andrew Hetherington Project Director Aisling Bracken Administrator Elisabeth Mettler Marketing Executive Ciara Lockhart Projects Executive

Copy Editor Elizabeth Mayes Lise Connelan Proofreader Elizabeth Mayes Raymond Bell Texts by Enrique Juncosa Director Irish Museum of Modern Art Christina Kennedy Senior Curator: Head of Collections Gemma Tipton Stuart McLaughlin Chief Executive Business to Arts Terence O’Rourke Managing Partner KPMG David Drumm Group Chief Executive Anglo Irish Bank

Printed Printed in Dublin by Impress Printing works Paper stock Inner pages: HannoArt Matt & HannoArt Gloss, 135gsm. Case-bound cover: GFSmith Colorplan pristine white 100gsm Text set in Foundry Gridnik

Covers: from Ronan McCrea Medium (Corporate Entities), 2008, © the artist. p.14, Ronan McCrea p. 22; 45; 47; 49; 50-51; 53; 57; 67; 69; 71; 73; 75; 77; 85; 93; 95; 97-97; 101; 105; 106-107; 109; 111; 113; 119; 121; 123; 133; 137, Denis Mortell, Dublin p. 32, Ross Kavanagh Photography p. 43; 63; 79; 89; 102-103; 125; 127; 135; 139, photograph from the artist p. 55, Michelle Coogan p. 59; 91, Tim Kovar p. 61; 131, John Kellett p. 65, courtesy the artist and Green on Red gallery p. 81, John Gerard, courtesy Hilger Contemporary, Vienna p. 83, David Godbold, courtesy Kerlin Gallery, Dublin p. 87, Hugh McElveen p. 99, Hugh Glynn p. 115; 129, Jim Vaughan p. 117, Cristina Marra p. 141, John Searle

Gemma Tipton extends her thanks to all those who helped with research for this essay, and for their generous time with meetings and interviews, and through many fascinating tours of their collections. Business to Arts would like to thank all its Patrons and Members who submitted information on their collections for consideration by the Curators, and who facilitated the sometimes numerous site visits to view and photograph works. Business to Arts would also like to thank Frances Ruane and Siobhan Broughan for the work they put into the early planning stages for the exhibition, and would like to thank the Marketing, Design and Promotions teams in Anglo Irish Bank, KPMG, Image Now and The Irish Times, for their enthusiasm and support.

The Irish Museum of Modern Art thanks all the artists and the staff of all the companies involved. We are grateful to Denis Mortell for photography, Tony Magennis Fine Art Transport for packing and transport, and the OPW; Gus Hearne Decorators Ltd.; National Emergency Lighting Ltd., and E.V. Kidd Ltd. for work on the installation. In addition we are grateful to Paul Carter for the installation of Marielle Neudecker’s piece and Ed Cuniffe and George Geraghty for installing Corban Walker’s work, Mark McLoughlin and Ronan McCrea both gave generously of their time in realizing their own installations with IMMA’s technical crew supervised by Gillian Fitzpatrick. Preparation of material for this catalogue and the organization of the exhibition was greatly assisted by Mary Conlon and Jerome O Drisceoil at Green on Red Gallery; Kevin Kavanagh at Kevin Kavanagh Gallery; Eimear O’Raw at Kerlin Gallery; Josephine Kelliher & Iseult Dunne at Rubicon Gallery; Tara Murphy at Solomon Gallery; Pat Taylor from Taylor Gallery, and Gerry Watson.

Cillian Hayes Technical Supervisor Edmond Kiely Technical Supervisor (Acting)

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