If I hadn't been paying attention in Bengaluru’s Museum of Art and Photography (MAP), I might have thought I was trying to get a mortgage, not see contemporary Indian art. On the third floor, an exhibit examining botanical art was housed in the adjoining Citibanka and Axis Bank Galleries. On the fourth floor, a show focused on fate and the universe was prominently sponsored by the Bank of America, a red and white flag at odds with detailed, textured art. HSBC India is also a major donor.
MAP is a glossy institution in the centre of one of Asia’s fastest growing cities, beginning with online exhibits in 2020 and opening a stunning five-storey museum in 2023. Just before the physical opening, then-museum director Kamini Sawhney said “MAP’s mission is to take art into the heart of the community... We’re looking at democratising art”. Compared to many of India's state-run museums, it has extensive interpretation, frequently rotating exhibits and an overwhelming sense of being resourced. While most exhibits are focused on Indian art there was also a show from Dutch artist afra eisma when I visited in May.
Much of MAP’s appeal is thanks to its founder Abhishek Poddar and the team that puts together engaging exhibitions. But the support of major financial institutions, to the extent of entire galleries named for banks, clearly helps too. It's a physical, permanent place for banks to show they prioritise culture, and for the public to participate in that culture.
A few weeks earlier, I was in Türkiye and observed how many local banks are funding art and museums. Türkiye is a much wealthier country than India, but like India the Ministry for Culture and Tourism has a steady income stream from dozens of ancient, stunning historical monuments, with tickets costing over $80 NZD for sights like the ancient city of Ephesus or Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. Seemingly, most government money goes into maintaining and promoting these – much less government focus seems to go to permanent institutions promoting contemporary art.
The excellent Istanbul Museum of Modern Art raises funds by charging international visitors around $40 NZD and finding a bevy of private sponsors, including big bank HSBC. Given that I was keen to maximise seeing art and learning history for free, I also found myself in two bank museums.
The YapiKredi bank has built an eponymous cultural centre with a gleaming glass edifice in the Galatasaray area of Istanbul. When I visited, two floors were dedicated to a timeline of the Koç family, a major owner in the bank and some of Turkey’s richest people, and their contribution to art and culture. On the floor below, there was a healthy collection of coins, with better interpretation than I had seen anywhere else during two months in Türkiye. It was interspersed with a collection of lit shadow puppets, a modern interpretation of a traditional Turkish art form and a collage-based artwork about a loss of history in Iran. The building also houses a bookshop with art publications (almost all in Turkish) and, of course, some YapiKredi ATMs. The museum is dedicated to cultural heritage – it has also funded archeological expeditions – but clearly also dedicated to what a great bank YapiKredi and its owners is. I also appreciated a walk through the Işbank museum, dedicated to modern financial history after the end of the Ottoman Empire and the founding of Turkey.
In some ways, the transparent promotion in these bank-funded museums felt vulgar, especially compared to New Zealand, where you can enter most museums with nary a bank logo to remind you of pressing bills. The only public bank museum or gallery in New Zealand is the Reserve Bank Museum in Wellington, funded by the central government. On the other hand, these institutions provide space for artists and curators that might very well not exist otherwise, employ people to learn skills applicable in other museums and across the arts sectors and provide public space. Stumbling across these privately-funded, publicly-focused museums certainly made Bengaluru and Istanbul feel more lively.
While HSBC is a sponsor of Auckland Art Gallery, and ASB has this year cemented an agreement with the Arts Foundation, New Zealand banks tend to focus sponsorship on big cultural events, like BNZ’s Auckland Diwali Festival, ASB Polyfest or Kiwibank supporting Armageddon and the opening concert in the new Christchurch Stadium. Banks are seemingly less interested in supporting or creating permanent physical institutions like galleries or museums. Events have myriad social and artistic value, but visiting Bengaluru and Istanbul, I saw how corporately sponsored spaces can be part of the picture too. Even a somewhat self-aggrandising museum, or an exhibit with prominent bank logos, is better than cities with few options of places to see art or history at all.
The recent budget added a new levy for banks to pay the cost of the Reserve Bank’s regulatory function. The levy was a compromise on finance minister Nicola Willis’s desire to tax bank profits (about 7.2 billion last financial year) and coalition partner David Seymour's desire not to introduce new taxes. The Budget also cut $27m from the arts sector as a whole, and local government – key funders of museums and galleries around the country – is striving for cost cuts too. With an upcoming election inevitably focused on the cost of living, perhaps banks might want to consider more ways to prove their commitment to the New Zealand public – including the GDP-contributing, job-making arts sector.
Sponsorship from local businesses, like real estate or breweries, is great, as are gifts from private individuals, but physical cultural institutions are as important as they are expensive. Museum boards and directors have to look widely to keep their doors open, especially outside of major cities. If those boards are making difficult decisions about independence from corporations or enduring into the future, here's a note: I'd rather go to the Invercargill Westpac Art Gallery than Invercargill have no art gallery at all.
