CultureLabel

Front page Cambridge Evening News: the Fitzwilliam Museum preferred to turn down a total £120,000 in grants rather than display The Art Fund’s pink heart logo next to a loaned 17th century Bassetti painting. Its director, Dr Timothy Potts, explained to the June edition of the Art Newspaper, “Logos are the currency of marketing and commerce, and this introduces a promotional element into the galleries which we regard as an unnecessary and unacceptable distraction.”

An unnecessary and unacceptable distraction, indeed, these users. These users who are indisputably fluent in today’s language of brands. These users who understand what the Art Fund logo represents; the democratic ‘people power’ of 80,000 supporters saying that this painting is a national treasure worth saving, and have gone to the effort of putting their money where their mouth is.

We may or may not disagree with the particular design or colour of logos, but without thinking or blinking, as modern cultural consumers, we understand the messages - the values, the heritage, the story - to which they provide a visual short-cut.

Both the 1903-founded Art Fund and the 1848-opened Fitzwilliam are institutions with great histories. The Art Fund, however, understands today’s power of the logo, and the power of commerce more generally.

‘Commerce’ is not a dirty word:

1. Commercial organisations understand their users. By definition, they thrive on understanding, pre-empting and responding to their users’ wants, needs and desires. They know how to respect their users, challenge them when necessary, and always understand how to connect with them. To equate commercial with ‘dumbed down’ is to do a real misjustice to the complexity of today’s public.

2. Commerce is unsurpassed in its potential to improve both the quality and the mass-availability of culture. It is the great catalyst for fostering interest in the arts, by way of seamlessly introducing extraordinary cultural content into our ordinary, everyday lifestyles.

3. Culture commerce, through steady introduction of quality art into the mainstream, permeates further into more of the unlikeliest, usually resistant areas of the public consciousness. This is often far more impactful than even the most evangelical arts education programmes. Individuals excel at receiving and then processing commercial messages - overtly ‘cultural’ messages don’t often even get as far as being received.

Commerce is a key tool to increase knowledge and appreciation of the arts - not to mention its growing importance as a direct funder of pioneering new art. It is feared, resisted or ignored by those who misunderstand its essential role as a tool for culture institutions in today’s post-consumer world.