Engagements between art and commerce

The separation of the worlds of art and commerce is historically quite recent. Only from the nineteenth century were the arts and the economic spheres understood as separate and incommensurate 'worlds' with singular forms of subjectivity and distinct institutions. However, strategic engagements between arts and commerce are now becoming more commonplace. C3West's most distinctive feature is its attempt to fully develop contemporary art works through a collaborative engagement between businesses, arts institutions and selected artists. In the Australian context this kind of 'deep' collaboration is unusual: with some exceptions, business involvement with contemporary arts has remained largely on the level of sponsorship or philanthropy. In this chapter, we examine international examples that similarly forge deeper collaborative networks with commercial partners to actively generate art projects. While we cannot survey the entire range of arts-business collaboration, the description of two important programs will help to understand later tendencies in the field.