Kunstvermittlung

Andrea Fraser

Kunstvermittlung, 1995

Artwork text

Installation consisting of 13 quotations from interviews conducted by the artist in 1994, with members of the Generali Foundation staff, Advisory Board, Board of Directors and Board of Governors, and with members of the staff council of the Generali Group. In April 1994, I was engaged to undertake a project with the EA-Generali Foundation ... an art association established by companies belonging to the EA-Generali insurance group. In accordance with my Prospectus for Corporations, the project was conceived as a service to be provided in two phases, the first defined as “interpretive” and the second as “interventionary.” This report represents the conclusion of the interpretive phase of my project. ... The Artistic Director of the EA-Generali Foundation seemed to feel that my services might be useful in dealing with tensions that had emerged in connection with the Foundation’s activities. ... Founded in 1988 ..., the Foundation was established to achieve two interrelated aims: to affect a transfer of attributes in the Group’s public image ... and to “confront the employees with contemporary art.” However, when art works purchased by the Foundation were installed in the EA-Generali headquarters, they were greeted with open hostility by many employees as well as some members of management. The aim of the first ... phase of the project was to gain an understanding, through research, of the circumstances and goals motivating the establishment of the Foundation, of relations within the organizational hierarchy as they are manifest in connection with the collection, and of the collection’s impact on public perceptions of the corporation. To this end, I conducted ... interviews with members of the Foundation’s Board of Governors, Board of Directors, Advisory Board, and staff—as well as with members of the Staff Council of the EA-Generali Group. Additional material was collected from the ... departments of the EA-Generali Group and from the archives of the Foundation itself. This report reflects the interpretation I developed as a consequence of my research. It is divided into two parts. Part One deals with EA-Generali’s motives for concerning itself with contemporary art ... and the way in which the organizational structure and programs of the EA-Generali Foundation were designed to achieve these goals. Part Two deals with the Group’s interest in presenting the collection developed by the Foundation inside its headquarters, and the extent to which contemporary art has—and is intended to—become a component of its corporate culture. ... (Andrea Fraser)