KPN and the Rise of Phototgraphy in Corporate Collections
To the question of why corporations began to collect art systematically, there is no unequivocal answer. According to the current worldview, corporations represent economically directed macro organisms, with differing social characteristics and with regional, national or global importance. Just as the arts have played an important role for company sponsorship, so too, in the course of time, has the corporate collection acquired an importance for the market and for public relations. It can be viewed in two ways: what is demanded by the market is necessary and in turn the arts strengthen the company profile, both internally and externally. A company collection accentuates the self-awareness of the firm for the personnel, the clientele, and for the competition. A collection spreads the message that more exists in the world than production and share values. As an extension thereof, the multi-national has eagerly assumed the role of ‘good corporate citizen’. The present-day company shows itself to be an employer with a sense of responsibility, it positions itself as a player upon the social field, and just like the government, takes a number of social themes upon itself. Engagement has proved to be necessary to secure the continuity of the company. These are roughly the ideas of present-day company collections.
Company collections are substantially different to those of museums. The greatest difference is that company collections come into being in a much less disinterested fashion than those of museums. The latter institutions can devote themselves, with no direct managerial or investment obligations, to the charting of current and historical artistry, and cater to a more or less broad public. Company collections, on the other hand, must serve internal objectives; primarily they are collections with no external audience. Collection is undertaken for the adornment of representative spaces, offices and work places. In terms of daily practice, company collections are exhibited in a dispersed and fragmented fashion. It is then exceptional when it can be demonstrated that amongst these collections internationally, with the KPN Collection in the Netherlands being an important forerunner, a number of collections can be found with a greater degree of intrinsic and artistic cohesion, than would be suspected from what is seen in the eyes of museums as piecemeal practice.
There are different reasons for making space available regularly for the presentation of company collections in Huis Marseille. The first is, because a relatively large amount of contemporary photography is to be found in these collections. Companies simply collect and trade more emphatically in the spirit of their own time than is possible for a museum. If only for the fact that new purchases can hardly be separated from the context of an already existing, older collection. These characteristics ensure that the company collection is essentially different from that of a museum. Furthermore, even though present-day company collections are usually run by art historians, this seems to indicate as yet no change in the direction of the more classical, museum collections. A number of striking characteristics continue to be the emphasis on the present-day, a powerful representation for photography and what seems to be less of a representative, than a wilful mix of artists of different nationalities. The American companies form a great exception to this rule, though it is true that they also lay a powerful emphasis upon photography, they do continue to collect historically. Recently, a number of companies, including Philips and the ING Bank, have expressed a desire to keep watch over culture in Holland. This is a signal, because companies with collections are also negotiating the cultural traffic in a more self-aware manner than they previously did. This ascendance is also shown in the number of corporate collection catalogues that see the light of day currently: American and European. The most recent edition of the photo show Paris Photo, presented the photo collections of the NSM bank, a company daughter of the ABN AMRO bank, Le CCF, La Caisse des dépôts et consignations, Première Heure and the Fondation Cartier. In addition, this last company also administers a museum, on the boulevard Raspail in Paris.
The reasons for this different sort of collection are primarily practical in nature. Their purchasing budgets are usually greater for photography than that of museums. A present-day company is, by definition, rather concentrated upon the future than the past. There are, nevertheless, also dangers. In the case of the older company collections, those whereby the connection with the original initiator has broken down, the higher echelons of the company do not always seem to be convinced of what the financial and intrinsic worth of such a collection has developed into. In practice, it seems difficult to substantially alter the preconception its nothing more than a picture on the wall.
With this exhibition in Huis Marseille a first step has been taken, based on the photo works from the KPN collection, to show that we are here concerned with a high quality and shrewdly purchased topical collection, despite the fact that it has come into being over the last five years in relative silence. Company collections play a role in the understanding of our own time and the photography from the KPN collection signifies, on that specific terrain, a substantial addition to the Dutch Public Collection.
Els Barents