Research & Projects
Dr. Christoph Behnke
Corporate Collecting - art collecting in companies
The author discusses a survey of companies with art collections in German-speaking countries—Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Drawing on the data collected in the survey, he highlights the differences between two groups of curators currently responsible for corporate art collections, the “new professionals” and the “management administrators.” First, organizational changes in corporations that occurred during the “founding boom” of the 1990s had a significant effect on the roles of corporate art managers, introducing the art-educated “new professional” into the process, which before then had been controlled by the corporate-trained “management administrators.” Second, the nature, content and styles of current corporate art collections reflect specific “corporate cultures.” Third, the “new professional” corporate art curators purchase contemporary art for their collections at art fairs, a reality that has significant impact on the art market. The author concludes with an analysis of the relationship between these new professional corporate collectors and the contemporary art market by highlighting significant changes in pre- and post-1990 corporate art collections.
Part of the results of this empirical study has gone into the following publication:
Behnke, Christoph: Corporate Art Collecting: A Survey of German-Speaking Companies. In: Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society Volume 37, Number 3, Fall 2007. pp. 225-244. 2007.
Artist in Residence - Towards a sociology of artist support systems
The starting point of this research on the sociology of support systems for artists was an interest of the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture, with its five residencies (Schreyahn, Worpswede, Bleckede, Stuhr-Heiligenrode, Lüneburg), in rethinking its artist-in-residence programs in the light of international developments. The following research phases were carried out: Research based on existing documentary sources, secondary data research (including Res Artis/NL, Transartists/NL, Alliance of Artists Communities/USA, pépinières européennes pour jeunes artistes/F).
Use of the research network ESA Research Network Sociology for the Arts in order to contact the experts interested in artist support.
Interviews with selected experts in a national framework (alongside the artist residencies in Lower Saxony, DAAD Office Berlin, Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin, Kunst-Werke Berlin, Edith-Ruß-Haus for media art in Oldenburg, the Canadian Embassy in Berlin, an artist interview, an interview with a representative of the Ministry for Science and Culture in Lower Saxony as well as interviews with selected international experts on location (Outset Contemporary Art Fund, London; HIAP – Helsinki International Artist-in-residence Programme; KIASMA, Helsinki), invitation of experts to Lüneburg and group discussions (as workshop in Worpswede).
There were a total of 29 interview passages in transcription. The assessment was done with ATLAS.ti .
An initial hypothesis was formulated. The 19th century romantic-patronage construction of the artist-in-residence, according to which the artist must be exposed to a social isolation in order to make use of his “inspired genius”, is no longer compatible with a globalized art system, in which artistic production is integrated in processes involving division of labor and an isolated activity by artists is extremely unlikely.
The research project was embedded in a project seminar held in 2006-7 at Leuphana University. The empirical research was conducted by the students of this seminar. The research findings are published in: Behnke, Christoph; Christa Dziallas; Marina Gerber; Stephanie Seidel (Eds.): Artist-in-Residence. Neue Modelle der Künstlerförderung. Lüneburg: Verlag für Wissenschaft und zeitgenössische Kunst an der Leuphana University Lüneburg, 2008.