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Panelists:
Soichiro Fukutake (Representative Director, Chairman & CEO, Benesse Corporation), Jean-Christophe Ammann (The UBS Art Collection Advisory Board), Petra Arends (Collection Executive, The UBS Art Collection), Fumio Nanjo (Director, Mori Art Museum)
Time Table:
19:05 Keynote speech 1 : Petra Arends
19:25 Keynote speech 2 : Jean-Christophe Ammann
19:45 Keynote speech 3 : Soichiro Fukutake
20:05 Discussion : Petra Arends, Jean-Christophe Ammann, Soichiro Fukutake
Moderator: Fumio Nanjo
20:45 Q&A session
The Symposium was a valuable opportunity to hear about corporate branding strategies involving a strong commitment to contemporary art.
The UBS Art Collection executive Petra Arends started her talk by saying that a brand is a reputation. UBS has many art collectors among its clients, and believes that being passionate about art is one way of being true to its clients. Next, Jean-Christophe Ammann, one of the members of the UBS Advisory Board, explained that having works from the collection in offices produces pride in the workplace and helps motivate workers. That helps us to attract and keep good people, he said, noting also that the desks and computers in "Art Is for the Spirit" helped convey that context. Amman's comments that left a particularly deep impression included his insistence that art is not there as a decoration, but rather to help viewers gain an understanding of the world, and that art has the ability to communicate ideas that cannot be conveyed by other means.
Soichiro Fukutake of Benesse Corporation looked back at over the 20 years of his company's Naoshima project, declaring that the project is reliably producing results in line with its original goal of using contemporary art to energize and vitalize seniors in the area | because, as he said, we are the seniors of tomorrow. Picking up on Arends' comment that for UBS the motivation for collecting contemporary art is that the future\the next generation\is important, Fukutake pointed out that this eye to the future is one of the things that distinguish the corporate collection from an art museum's collection. His conviction that economic activity should be the servant of culture is a potent criticism of Japanese society precisely because he is showing through his own activities that such a conviction can be put into practice.
For the panel discussion in the second half of the symposium, the speakers were joined by Mori Art Museum director Nanjo Fumio, who pointed out that there were clear differences between the two corporate collections. For instance, decisions at the UBS Collection are made by its Advisory Board, whereas at Benesse Corporation, it is the CEO, Soichiro Fukutake himself, who makes the decisions. Since the primary objective at Naoshima is to revitalize the community (and not just to present art) the works are site specific, which rules out the sort of exhibitions put on by UBS and prevents the art from being loaned. Despite the seriousness of the topic, the discussion became quite animated, especially when Jean-Christophe Ammann made everyone laugh by pretending to die after announcing that art is food for the spirit, and without it, we would die.
Finally, building on Fukutake's opinion that you need to be very patient if you want to use a collection to enhance your brand, Nanjo brought the symposium to an end, summing up its findings by saying that a corporate collection needs to have both benefits for the company and merits for the art world. That combination can make it a real jewel for the corporate brand.
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Ms. Petra Arends speaks to the audience
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Fully packed audience
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Discussion session with the speakers
Photo: Sakurai Tadahisa
Date: 10 March, 19:00-21:00
Lecturer: Okada Satoshi (psychiatrist, collector), Takahashi Ryutaro (psychiatrist, collector)
Date: 16 March, 14:00-16:00
Lecturer: Nishitakatsuji Nobuhiro (deputy chief priest, Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine), Miyatsu Daisuke (collector)
Public program events associated with "Art Is for the Spirit: Works from the UBS Art Collection" included two lectures. In keeping with the theme of the exhibition, the two guest lecturers at each of the lectures were individuals well as collectors of contemporary art. Both lectures produced fascinating insights into the collectors' personal approaches, and clearly demonstrated their keen enthusiasm for collecting.
For the first lecture, both of the collectors are psychiatrists, but they had different motives for starting their collections. Okada Satoshi had originally wanted to be an artist himself, and said that one of his motivations for buying art was that he was keen to support people who were making their way in the art world that he had once wanted to join. In contrast, Takahashi Ryutaro caught the collecting bug at a young age, and his childhood collections of stamps, fossils, and the like have now given way to collecting art. His art collection started in earnest when he first bought a Kusama Yayoi work.
One point that both these individual collectors have in common is the effort they make to enable the general public to see their collections. Okada has produced his own individualistic exhibitions at venues such as Tokyo Wonder Site, and Takahashi is setting up dedicated exhibition spaces at two places in Tokyo. Takahashi is even planning an exhibition tour that will take his collection to art museums at three locations around Japan this summer. The two collectors each showed photos and videos taken at exhibitions of their collections as they described their approaches.
Okada started off by saying, "After 9/11, I became convinced that we need to rethink how art is involved with the world. That was when I started to think about showing works in my collection to the public." He claims that his exhibitions are "noise for the art scene," noting that "it's because I'm not an expert that I can do things from that standpoint." He pointed out several times that he had a particular interest in the sort of 'magical' art that that is gradually being eliminated as modernization progresses. His examples of works by Kato Izumi and Koide Naoki provided a further demonstration of that point.
Takahashi says he "does not want to get to know the artists at a personal level, because I want to avoid interpersonal relationships that would influence my selection." Even so, the works he introduced from his collection included many top names, from Kusama Yayoi and Murakami Takashi to young artists generally regarded as having with strong potential. Moreover, the works were in many cases representative works by the artist. "I don't have lofty ambitions," he said, making the convincing argument that "by assembling a collection that follows my emotional instincts, the accumulation will eventually produce a transformation from quantity to quality."
The second lecture brought together Miyatsu Daisuke, who calls himself a 'salary-man collector,' and Nishitakatsuji Nobuhiro, who is deputy chief priest at the Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine. The lecture followed the same format as the previous one, with a simple question and answer session with the moderator before the two collectors gave their presentations.
Miyatsu gave a very accomplished presentation that was much enjoyed by the audience. He started by telling the story of his involvement with art. Beginning with elementary school dreams of becoming a painter good enough to be awarded an Order of Cultural Merit or of becoming an art dealer, he was a fan of Rosanjin when in junior high, then was awakened to contemporary art by Warhol during his high school days. When he started working, he also started collecting, selecting works that met his budget. Miyatsu also introduced his Dream House Project, which had started from the idea of wanting to make his home into art, and led to the construction of a house with the involvement of many different artists. Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster designed the house itself, and other artists have contributed ideas or works that can be seen in the garden, in the wallpaper, and at various points throughout the house. "As a collector, I enjoy doing something together with artists," says Miyatsu, and this house is an example of how that can be achieved..
Nishitakatsuji, who describes himself as 'Dazaifu's publicity officer," gave a brief explanation of Dazaifu before talking about his personal involvement with art. That involvement has two main aspects: collecting works that he personally likes, and his relationship with art due to his position at the shrine. His collection enables him experiment, such as by hanging the very latest in contemporary art alongside traditional art with a long and distinguished history in the same room. After all, "contemporary art may well become the classical art of the future." At the shrine, his role includes planning exhibitions of contemporary artists such as Hibino Katsuhiko, who he invited to a residence at the Shrine. That project paid off through greater interaction with the local community, bringing a greater level of support from the community and several other benefits.
From the presentations, it became clear that both of these collectors had their own very individual approach to making use of contemporary art.
Both lectures made it very clear that there is great variety between collectors of contemporary art. Despite that, it was probably what the collectors had in common that left the greatest impression. For instance, each of their collections was predominantly based on works by young Japanese artists. There is of course the economic justification of buying before prices rise, but the collectors all seemed to have a respect for art that was current at the time they made the acquisitions. That ties in with an interest in enhancing the situation of contemporary art in Japan.
Although each gave different reasons—"because it's a metaphor for humanity" (Okada), "because it elevates your spiritual capabilities" (Takahashi), "because it provides the opportunity to take a look at yourself and judge yourself" (Miyatsu), and "because it makes you aware that there are different ways of looking at things" (Nishitakatsuki)—each of the collectors answered with a resounding YES when asked "Is Art for the Spirit?"
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Okada Satoshi & Takahashi Ryutaro
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Nishitakatsuji Nobuhiro & Miyatsu Daisuke
