Pillow talk

Although not decimated like their US counterparts, art sponsors will almost certainly be more difficult to attract in New Zealand than they were in the wonder years. Compared to the United States and Europe, New Zealand art sponsorship is comparatively recent. As late as the early 1980s you could still hear a discussion about the evil likely to result from snuggling up to large, or even small, businesses. All that changed in 1984 with Te Maori when Mobil used hungry cultural enzymes to help clean up environmental stains. Mobil called it “affinity-of-purpose-marketing”.

Of course Te Maori was luckier than architect Frank Gehry whose Guggenheim Museum exhibition sponsor wrote the following in its introduction to the catalogue.

“Enron shares Mr Gehry’s ongoing search for the moment of truth, the moment when the functional approach to a problem becomes infused with artistry that provides a truly innovative solution. This is the search that Enron embarks on every day, by questioning the conventional to change business paradigms and create new markets that will shape the new economy.”

And so to bed.

Source: Enron quote from The Edifice Complex by Deyan Sudjic