Opening on March 13th at Baskerville House in Birmingham’s Centenary Square, is a major exhibition of contemporary art by artists based in the West Midlands, celebrating the launch of Visual and its online gallery. As well as for enjoyment, all of the works are on sale to members of the public, businesses and their employees as part of a scheme designed to help get the region’s art markets and corporate collections moving. Matt Price investigates.
This is an exciting time for the visual arts in the West Midlands – the arts community has been growing considerably since the turn of the Millennium and the number of arts venues, exhibitions, festivals and fairs in which artists can exhibit their work has grown to match this expansion. As well as quantity, there has also been a marked increase in quality, with many artists in the region producing national and international quality work, but rather than moving to the capital where the art markets are strong, many have been choosing to stay in the West Midlands. This is good news for the region’s arts economy as well as for the viewing public, though it poses a significant problem – how can artists make a living from their work when the region does not have a strong commercial market – i.e. very few galleries selling work, virtually no galleries attending international art fairs, little arts journalism, very few collectors visiting the Midlands, and only a modest number of people and businesses within the region who regularly buy art?
Visual is a West Midlands-based initiative run by Arts & Business that is attempting to help solve this problem by offering a professional acquisitions service to businesses keen to start or develop a collection. Originally begun in 2004 under the name Virtual, the pilot scheme proved so successful that funders and financial backers including ACE, EDS and Business Link have invested in the new initiative, which takes the form of temporary exhibitions and an online gallery featuring over 600 works of art by more than 60 artists from the West Midlands in mediums ranging from painting and drawing to photography, craft and new media.
What’s vital in a scheme such as this is the quality of work selected – if it were weak, it would do more harm than good to the region’s markets and reputation. Fortunately, this is not the case, having been selected by a panel of professionals including Jonathan Watkins, Director of Ikon Gallery and David Drake, Head of Visual Arts at Arts Council England West Midlands. It’s an impressive line up of many of the region’s most talented and promising artists, including a number that have already been establishing themselves on the national and international art circuits, such as photographer and filmmaker , photographer Stuart Whipps, textiles and media artist Kate Pemberton and painter Stephen Earl Rogers (all of whom have previously graced the pages of Fused magazine).
It also features some excellent artists and designer-makers who have been proving themselves in exhibitions, festivals, fairs and public and private commissions around the West Midlands in recent years, such as Eryka Isaak, Pamina Stewart, Chris Keenan, Ruth Spencer, Vanley Burke, Jane Anderson and Luke Unsworth. Photography is particularly well represented through figures such as Stuart Mills, David Rowan and Daniel Bosworth, a medium that is enjoying success in the region thanks to organisations such as Rhubarb Rhubarb, VIVID, Hereford Photography Festival and New Art Birmingham. Craft and designer-making is equally strong, with excellent works by Ruth Spaak, Jennifer Collier, Kirsty Smith, Betty Pepper and Isabelle Reaves reflecting the good work of organisations such as Brilliantly Birmingham, New Generation Arts, the Midlands Arts Centre, Creative Alliance and the Crafts Council. From the list of participating artists, this promises to be both an engaging exhibition and a worthwhile scheme for those in the region that are interested in collecting contemporary art.
The main focus of Visual is corporate collections and businesses in the West Midlands and beyond, for whom commissioning and development services are provided along with loans of works, workshops, projects, training and events. Corporate art collections are vital for the international art markets, ranging from small family businesses to multinationals. Deutsche Bank has over 50,000 works of art in its collection, with around 2000 pieces in its Frankfurt headquarters alone. Samsung have over 25,000 works in their collection, and in 2004 opened a museum in Seoul to house many of them. Paris jewellers Cartier also have their own venue, as do the Swiss Migros group, Spanish bankers La Caixa, and Norwegian shipping giant Hans Rasmus Astrup. In addition to major banking, accountancy and insurance companies including Ernst & Young, Simmons and Simmons, AXA, Dresdner Bank, UBS, Swiss Re and JP Morgan Chase, the range of corporate collections today is broad to say the least. The fashion houses Monsoon and agnès b, car manufacturers Daimler Chrysler and BMW, and even curiously strong peppermint producers Altoids have strong and internationally recognised collections. Anything and everything from graphics, photographic, new media, IT and electronics companies to chemicals, pharmaceuticals, the construction industry and consumer products sectors collect contemporary art. Many of them also sponsor exhibitions and prizes, with Beck’s beer, Unilever, Hugo Boss and Deutsche Borse among the most well known. The owners, directors and staff of such companies also often have their own private collections. Here in the West Midlands, internationally respected collector Frank Cohen puts on temporary exhibitions of works from his extensive collection at Initial Access in Wolverhampton – a man who made his fortune in DIY retail.
Encouraging businesses and companies, and the people behind them, to acquire works by artists in the West Midlands is essential for the growth of our arts sector and economy, and brings with it many benefits for the businesses bold enough to engage with contemporary art. Compared to the international markets, the prices of works by artists based in the region are modest, meaning purchasing works through Visual is an incredibly cost-effective way to acquire quality works and build a strong collection whilst supporting the local economy and the careers of its artists. And as many of these artists are young and emerging, as well as the many ‘non-financial’ benefits of having an art collection, there is a strong chance that the value of the works purchased will increase in time, especially if the artists go on to be represented by respected commercial galleries.
Works are on sale for anything from a couple of hundred to a few thousand pounds, meaning these are not only affordable for successful and dynamic businesses but also for their most successful and dynamic employees. With companies such as the BBC, City Inn, Anglo Irish Investment bank, Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and Ernst & Young already among Visual’s clients, the future of the initiative is bright, and if the number of participating businesses grows in the coming months and years, there is even more cause for optimism for the future of the creative industries and the art markets in the West Midlands.