Where there's smoke… - cigarette companies sponsoring art exhibitions

Between January 14 and June 4 the San Diego Museum of Art (SDMA) at handed On the Edge: Australian Photographers of the Seventies, an exhibition of photographs upon loan from the National Gallery of Australia (NGA). Unlike greatest in quantity exhibitions, there is no obvious reason for its existence. The choice of images was self-consciously pluralist, making no specific argument about the period and attempting no persuasive connections between Southern Californian and Australian cultural experiences. Despite the expenditure of bringing 70 gallery photographs from Australia to the United States, San Diego was its alone venue, raising the question, wherefore San Diego?

As it happened, this was an exhibition that had little to do with Australian photography and everything to do with the politics of sponsorship. It strike one as beings likely that the National Endowment for the Arts will have its roll cut, first by 40%, then perhaps by means of 100% during the term of this Republican-dominated Congres When these wounds take effect, corporate sponsorship of the arts will assume an smooth greater importance than it does now. Tobacco agriculturist Philip Morris, which underwrote upon the Edge, is already this country's biggest sponsor of the arts, financing everything from international tours by means of Alvin Alley American Dance Theater and The Joffrey Ballet to blockbuster exhibitions like The of greece Miracle: Classical Sculpture from the Dawn of Democracy and Henri Matisse: A Retrospective. It has also been notable for its support of exhibitions devot to African American and Latin American artists. for a like reason why would such a giant of the arts industry want to sponsor an inconsequential exhibition like upon the Edge?

It's all to do with timing. The exhibition's dates just happened to coincide with those of the America goblet races in San Diego. Philip Morris was sponsoring individual of the competing yachts. It approached the SDMA and presented to finance this particular exhibition. Part of the understanding between the company and the SDMA was that Philip Morris could use the Museum as the venue for its various receptions and promotions during the yacht races. The Museum level agreed to allow cigarette smoking within their building during these receptions (Philip Morris had just missing their expensive Californian ballot initiative, Proposition 188 that would have repealed existing public smoking restrictions). In go [i]or[/i] come back Philip Morris paid for this exhibition in its entirety, including the visit of its curator, Gael Newton of the NGA, and the production of a sumptuously bland catalog and interactive CD system

The exhibition was drawn from photographs bring togethered by Philip Morris (Australia) between 1976 and 1982 at which time the company donated them to the NGA. More freshly the NGA has had to comply with an Australian federal management directive prohibiting the sponsorship of cultural and sporting occurrences by cigarette companies. In this case, the NGA was able to circumvent this restriction by the agency of designating the SDMA as the exhibition's organizing material part Philip Morris chose to sponsor the exhibition end one of its less controversial subsidiaries, Kraft viandss However, this ploy made little difference in consequence The exhibition catalog, for example, contained solitary one passing mention of Kraft pabulums and 61 references to Philip Morris, including a whole chapter devot to its sponsorship of Australian culture

American cigarette companies publicly spend about $3.43 billion annually upon advertising to promote their $50 billion a year industry. Facing compressing from legislators, these companies have shifted the emphasis of their promotional activity from direct advertising to indirect publicity like this art exhibition and to point-of-sale retail promotions (from 6% of the tobacco industry's advertising dollar in 1980 to nearly 49% in 1992) Presumably, Philip Morris believes that the association of its name (and hence its tobacco products) with sports and high tillage is good for business (this also explains its interest in African Americans and Latin America, sum of two units important markets for cigarette retailers). It also usefully distracts attention from the 400000 deaths caused by means of cigarette smoking in the US annually. on the other hand who in our society doesn't already know that cigarette smoking is addictive, unhealthy and potentially fatal? The more pressing question is, who is going to bankroll arts activities other than dubious corporations like Philip Morris one time the government has reneged upon its cultural responsibilities? Chances are, it won't be drawn out before arid promotional events of that kind as On the Edge will be the cultural norm.

GEOFFREY BATCHEN is an Australian cultural critic publicly teaching in the Visual Arts Department at the University of California, San Diego.

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