Max Donner

Notes from the Creative Economy

Posted by Max Donner, Dec 02, 2011 1 comment


Max Donner

Max Donner

Art is more than beautiful. It is profitable.

Challenging economic times have sent financial experts back to the drawing boards. Impressive results from centers of excellence in the creative economy offer a vision for sustainable economic growth.

Arts administrators who need to convince their supporters and their communities to advance the programs that make creative economies work also need to understand what works best and why. These success stories can invigorate this dialogue.

While much daily businesses news is bad news, firms that have chosen art as a core competence and engaged many artists and designers continue achieve impressive profits and growth:

1. Swiss timepiece and design firm Swatch Group reported this summer that annual sales increased 11% and profits grew by 22% over the same period in 2010. Swatch introduced its first “Art Special” at the Pompidou Centre in 1985. Since then, it has continued to commission innovative art by leading contemporary artists such as French painter Grems and sculptor Ted Scapa. The Swatch corporate strategy of building a company on a foundation of artistic talent has also built expertise in art business, for example, using sophisticated models to calculate limited edition amounts.

2. BMW employs more artists than all other auto manufacturers combined. The results speak for themselves. While General Motors and Chrysler have experienced chaotic bankruptcies and Toyota reported its first losses in decades, BMW sales and profits have continued double digit growth. This summer the company launched the BMW Guggenheim Lab together with curators from the Guggenheim Museum in New York to learn more about the foundations of the creative economy. BMW also reported record financial results: annual sales increased 17% while net profits nearly doubled to $2.5 billion for the spring quarter, the equivalent of $10 billion a year.

3. IKEA of Sweden values the contribution of its artists so highly that they are featured prominently in the company’s catalogs and in-store displays. The private company has begun publishing its financial results and they are excellent. Year to year sales have increased by 7.7% while annual profits have grown by 6.1%. IKEA’s total annual revenues have surpassed the $30 billion mark and give the company a strong financial base to continue investing in innovative art projects.

Achieving this level of success requires both talent and determination. These firms have benefited from leaders who championed long term strategies of incorporating art and design into production and presentation. The success of companies that invest in art and projects with leading museums is encouraging talented individuals to make similar investments that bode well for the creative economy.

Enrollment and new degree programs at America’s largest art schools have grown impressively. Enrollment at the School of Visual Arts in New York has passed the 4,000 mark. Enrollment at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago is now 3,200, up 50% from the 1990s.

In the last five decades, enrollment at the Maryland Institute College of Art has grown from 300 in 1961 to 3,165 in 2011. Now the Maryland Institute is launching one of the most important innovations needed for creative economy success. On November 11, the campus announced the creation of the world’s first Master of Arts Business Administration Program in co-operation with Johns Hopkins University.

There is no magic formula for creative economy success, but a recent exhibition at the Huntington Library in Pasadena, CA, showed the kinds of expertise that can make success easier. “Focus on Flowers” displayed floral photography by Mark Hanauer next to an orchid show and classroom. It invited botanical art viewers to appreciate the beauty of nature with intense magnification.

The portraits of garden flowers used high degree magnification to show them from the perspective of a hummingbird or research scientist. Microscopes were placed nearby to literally focus on flowers, allowing viewers to see the composition of flowers with intense magnification. Many experimented with their own creativity by taking their own photographs.

“Focus on Flowers” also displayed all the key elements for building a creative economy: art, science, environment, education, commerce, and community.

The program started with art -- a compact exhibition on a focused topic surrounded by the extensive Huntington Library collections of fine art and ceramics. The Huntington Botanical Gardens also has an extensive collection of botanical prints to complement the contemporary floral photography on display.

The Huntington campus illuminates important connections between art and science. Microscopic studies of flowers are a building block of research there. And that research supports educational programs which range from materials used to educate elementary school students about plants and microscopes to post-doctoral research by art historians on arts innovation.  Collecting these resources together on one campus stimulates cross-fertilization of ideas.

The role that commerce plays in making art, science, environment, and education build creative economies is much more than providing enough funds. The genesis of Hanauer’s botanical expertise was a commercial project that was as commercial as any art project could be. He was commissioned to create unique  packaging for a perfume company.

When all the right elements of the creative economy come together in the right place and right time, they build a community that sustains them. This takes a long-term vision and years of effort, but the results are rewarding.

1 responses for Notes from the Creative Economy

Comments

June 07, 2012 at 1:39 pm

The Huntington Library exhibit was a great illustration of your point. My experience is that artists and designers have to be willing to work with the manufacturers and willing to have your art critiqued and reviewed in a climate that isn't only about aesthetics but also about profitability.

It takes a special kind of artist to submit to that.

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