‘This Exhibition Is Made Possible in Part by . . . ‘ : . . . But Museum Officials Generally Say That Corporate Sponsorship Is Not Growing Appreciably

Anselm Kiefer’s retrospective is at the Museum of Contemporary Art, thanks in large part to Ford Motor Co. And “Supreme Instants: The Photography of Edward Weston,” at the County Museum of Art, is sponsored by Bank America Foundation.

Coors has brought “Expresiones Hispanas 88/89,” a show of contemporary Latino art, to the Southwest Museum. The Irvine Co. has provided crucial funding for “The Figurative Fifties: New York Figurative Expressionism” at the Newport Harbor Art Museum.

Similar marriages of business and art abound across the country. Virtually every major traveling exhibition appears to have a corporate sponsor.

One of the most eagerly awaited items on this fall’s agenda, for example, is a retrospective of French Impressionist Edgar Degas’ work. The landmark event, opening Oct. 11 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, has received a $1.5-million grant from United Technologies Corp.

With ads for such exhibitions popping up more and more frequently in magazines and newspapers, it’s easy to get the impression that every art show of note bears a corporate logo and--as some critics charge--that art has sold out to business.

An ad for a David Hockney retrospective organized by the County Museum of Art and financed by a $850,000 gift from AT&T; proclaims, “We at AT&T; share David Hockney’s point of view: that standing still is not an option. When a unique vision expands our horizons--whether the medium is science and technology or oil and canvas--AT&T; is there to make the connection.”

A newspaper ad for the Kiefer exhibition is only a little less bold in its eagerness to equate artistic success with business acumen: “His work demonstrates that boundaries of time and place need not be barriers to creativity. That is why Ford Motor Company is proud to sponsor this exhibition.”

But appearances aside, museum officials generally say that a 15-year trend toward corporate sponsorship is not growing appreciably. With a few spectacular exceptions, such as the National Gallery--where corporate support for exhibitions has shot up from $2.7 million in 1985 to $8.1 million in 1988--experts say that corporate mergers and other economic factors have slowed the pace of philanthropy. Most art institutions report a fairly static situation following a period of growth in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Budgetary increases tend to reflect inflated costs rather than a higher proportion of corporate support at many major museums.

But if museums are treading water, their development directors are getting more sophisticated in efforts to find sponsors for exhibitions. Guess who’s behind a show called “Making Their Mark: Women Artists Move Into the Mainstream 1970-85”? Maidenform. The marriage might not have worked amid the feminist protests of the ‘60s, but in 1988 it’s a near-perfect union. The exhibition (opening Feb. 22 at Cincinnati Art Museum) would have been tough to sell to a bank or a telecommunications corporation; instead, it is underwritten by a company that wants to do something noticeably nice for its customers--and possibly boost sales in the process.

In their search for corporate funding, museum development officers still peddle the tantalizing aura of “quality” that promises to rub off on sponsors whose business is unrelated to art; however, the fund-raisers say they have become more savvy about their matchmaking.

Janet Spitz, assistant director of development at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, cites General Cinema Corp.’s sponsorship of “Hollywood in History” as an obvious example of the new trend in business-art relationships. A colleague jokingly suggested that she find an insurance company to underwrite a proposed exhibition of mummies. She didn’t pursue that, but museum officials did persuade an Italian paper company to pick up the tab for an upcoming show of Italian etchings.

“It’s a marketing game,” said Earl A. Powell, director of the County Museum of Art, where about a third of the exhibitions have significant backing from corporations.

Elizabeth Weil, corporate relations officer at the National Gallery, concurred. “And there’s more than one way to skin a cat,” she added. “There is no one exhibition that is not appealing. The challenge is making the right match.”

She doesn’t always succeed. “I thought that BMW might be interested in our exhibition of ‘Masterworks From Munich,’ but that was a mistake on my part. They regretted, saying they were more interested in contemporary art because that is the image their car projects.” At least the lost sale produced some useful information.

Creative marketing may eventually stem the tide of accusations that corporate sponsorship fosters the “Masterpiece Theatre” approach to art and fails to support projects deemed too risky, adventurous, scholarly, depressing or offensive to be popular. But development directors have their work cut out for them if they are to find sponsors for a full range of exhibitions.

Contemporary art is still difficult to sell, unless it is the work of celebrated or popular artists. Phillip Morris, one of the few companies to affiliate itself with contemporary art, has backed shows of such well-known figures as Frank Stella. AT&T;, a recently arrived giant in the field of art exhibition funding, put up $850,000 for the David Hockney retrospective, organized by the County Museum of Art. But corporate funding of exhibitions featuring less established artists is almost unheard of. Major surveys of Jonathan Borofsky and Elizabeth Murray, for example, got support from government and private sources but not from big business.

The major exceptions tend to be ethnic shows, such as Coors’ backing of the current Latino show at the Southwest Museum and AT&T;’s funding of a larger exhibition, “Hispanic Art in the United States,” to open Feb. 5 at the County Museum of Art.

Critics such as artist Hans Haacke for years have charged that corporations are only in the art game for public relations. Purists accentuate the guilt factor, noting that the big oil companies became major arts patrons when they fell from public favor and that the cigarette companies stepped in when smoking got bad press as a detrimental and socially unacceptable addiction.

In a field dominated by a few big spenders, the participation of major players also fluctuates according to their fortunes. As Arco drastically cut its operations and arts budget, AT&T; stepped in and funded such major events as the current Gauguin retrospective and the Museum of Modern Art’s “International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture,” which inaugurated new galleries in 1985. Smaller firms join the scene by paying for special openings for their employees and stockholders.

Museums typically enlist corporate backing for major traveling exhibitions while funding smaller, in-house shows with their own resources or through local patrons. But there are still exhibitions of considerable art-world significance that fail to attract a rich uncle in the business world. A ground-breaking show of paintings by 17th-Century Italian classicist Guido Reni, opening Dec. 11 at County Museum of Art, is one example. The Art Institute of Chicago’s critically acclaimed “Chicago Architecture: 1872-1922” is another. They didn’t attract sponsors because they weren’t expected to be popular attractions.

The National Gallery was unable to find a patron for an exhibition of drawings from Windsor Castle, including some Leonardos. “At $350,000, it just seemed too expensive for a drawings show,” Weil said. The price tag, plus drawings’ reputation for having a sophisticated, scholarly audience, deterred potential sponsors, she said.

All three museums went ahead with their exhibitions. Indeed, though critics charge that corporations have undue influence on exhibition schedules, museum officials insist they never cancel a show for lack of a sponsor. “There’s a point of no return,” said Weil, citing the years of organizational work that go into an exhibition before development officers approach a potential sponsor with a proposal.

“We hope to have a sponsor a year before the show opens, but if we don’t, it’s too late to cancel contracts with the other museums involved in the project,’ Spitz said at Boston.

As time runs out, the shopping gets tougher because some corporations want to be involved in the development of exhibitions. “Not with the content of the show or curatorial matters,” Zack Manna of AT&T; said, “but we like to work out ideas with museums to be sure we have a win-win situation.”

AT&T; is unusual--and perhaps more straightforward than most about its patronage--in that monies for most exhibitions come from the corporation’s advertising budget. “We want to be seen as corporate good citizens, but we owe it to our stockholders to be sure we support exhibitions that work for us,” Manna said.

What “works” for corporations? “Nothing controversial. Nothing pornographic. Pretty much middle-of-the-road exhibitions that would appeal to most people,” said Carol Palm, manager of cultural programs for United Technologies.

After ruling out the negatives, quality is the watchword in discussions of arts funding, but corporate spokesmen aren’t talking about the most rarefied human achievements or those that might require a degree of expertise to appreciate.

“When I say quality, I mean what the ordinary citizen recognizes as quality,” said Michael G. Shore, IBM’s program administrator in corporate communications.

Corporate support for the arts is “about looking good,” said Weil of the National Gallery. “Our sponsors wrap themselves in the quality of the art as well as in the aura of the nation’s capital, and they hope it will pay off in good will.”

Second only to quality is venue. Company spokesmen say they want to spend their money where their clients are most likely to notice. “We do business in all 50 states, so we are interested in all cities” and in variation of both art and itineraries, Shore said.

Most firms are more specific about their geographical targets, however. Two Boston banks recently celebrated their respective 100th birthdays by sponsoring exhibitions at Boston’s Fine Arts Museum. United Technologies is based in Hartford, Conn., but likes to reach across the nation to its customers in Seattle and Nashville, as well as the more prominent exhibition centers of New York and Los Angeles.

The third major factor is price. IBM, a granddaddy in the field of corporate arts support, balances about 2,500 projects annually. In 1987, IBM gave more than $14.1 million to the arts around the world. Since 1974, when it presented an exhibition of Chinese treasures at the National Gallery, IBM has sponsored 33 major art exhibitions, including the inaugural show at Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art.

“Unfortunately, there are very few IBMs,” Spitz noted at the Boston museum. While skeptics worry about the influence of corporate money on art museums, fund-raisers stew about stiff competition. “Most companies cannot give a big gift very often, if at all,” Spitz said. “Corporate support isn’t falling in our laps.”