Artists, advertising & the borders of art (1995)
Not wishing to repeat the familiar critique of consumer and corporate culture, Michele Bogart ignores the writings on the mass media by such figures as Adorno, Baudrillard, Benjamin, Debord, McLuhan, MacDonald, and Marcuse. What she offers instead is a close reading of selected images, documentation of the flux of history via a series of case studies, plus a useful clarification of the terminology and concepts found in the discourse of artists, critics and patrons. Her account exposes the tensions that existed between the different professional groups—illustrators, photographers, painters, art directors, businessmen and their cultured wives, etc.—seeking "to claim jurisdiction over ’art’ as a means of acquiring authority and influence in their fields and in the broader culture".
Michele Bogart also explores the contradictions and compromises necessitated by the contrasting value systems of commerce and fine art (crudely, material versus spiritual values). There are many telling anecdotes concerning the problems that arose in relations between fine artists and advertisers when the artist’s images contained any critical or contentious content. One of the few American black artists employed to produce posters that showed poor blacks labouring was Jacob Lawrence. Such workers also appeared in Thomas Hart Benton’s regional realist paintings. However, it transpired that tobacco advertisers did not like such scenes because black consumers demanded more positive images; but these could not be shown because they would have offended white viewers in the Southern states! The result was that advertising executives recommended: "avoid the representation of Negroes entirely in tobacco advertising".
She also reviews the variety of ways in which visual imagery served the ends of business: illustrations by commercial artists used to advertise products; images by fine artists designed to serve the same purpose; pictures by famous fine artists reproduced in adverts; pictures designed for mass reproduction to be sold as calendars and art prints; images by fine artists that indirectly support a corporate identity; corporate art collections established as a form of public relations. In regard to the final point, Michele Bogart cites Russell Lynes and David Ogilvy as advocating that businessmen, rather than supporting artists by means of advertising commissions, should buy the artist’s work. Here, surely, is the origin of the Saatchi collection.
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