Art Sponsors Have More to Lose Than Artists From Severing Ties

What is emerging in Australia from the successful Biennale Boycott by a large group of international artists, and what is has revealed is the real power of the artist and the art. The sponsors have nothing to do with this. They want to be associated with art, but their money does not create art. And now it is becoming apparent that they have more to lose than the artists from the severing of their support.

Today a report was published in The Australian that arts minister George Brandis has sent a letter to Rupert Myer chair of the Australia Council to demand a change in policy to discipline any funding recipient who "refuses funding offered by corporate sponsors, or terminates a current funding agreement."(Australian 13.3.2014)

This raises compelling ethical questions. What if the artist does not wish their art to be associated with the sponsor if the sponsor, mid way  through the funding time period, does something the artist considers to be morally reprehensible?

The success of the boycott of the Sydney Biennale by a number of prominent international artists on moral grounds has shown very clearly that artists do not need to accept sponsorship that they consider to be unethical. As artists most are well used to having little money and know how to make art on very little, depending on what the artwork is of course, they do not need to have the money of sponsors they do not support. This is sending a message back to sponsors, who for quite a time, too long some will think, called the shots, or at least they thought they did. As a statement of the Transfield company said on their website: "Art is in the shadow of industry". This is how it may appear, to the sponsors. But for artists it is different, their art is made with integrity and passion, in the private inner world, from which great art comes, and audiences can appreciate this.

Sponsors would not, and do not, support artists whose works have not passed through a filter of approval. It is eminently reasonable that artists should apply the same filters to the sponsors who benefit from having their companies endorsed by the worlds most prominent artists.

If a sponsor, mid way through a funding project, does something like take on a huge contract to run private detention camps which are believed to be in breach of human rights, what are artists who support refugees, and may even have immigration in their family background, to think or do?

These are amongst the pressing ethical questions which are emerging in Australia, as a result of the boycott of the 19th Biennale of Sydney. These questions will not go away. This is only the beginning of the discourse which has already started in other countries.

Ruth Skilbeck  14.3.2014