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The art of diplomacy: Canada's Art Bank, already a model for art-minded nations worldwide, has now sold its message of collecting to South Africa, writes Paul Gessell.
Reprinted with the permission of The Ottawa Citizen, Tuesday, January 7, 2003, Page: D7, Section: Arts, Byline: Paul Gessell, Source: The Ottawa Citizen, Photo: Simon Hayter, The Ottawa Citizen / Victoria Henry stands amid the thousands of works that make up the collection of the Canadian Art Bank in Ottawa. The Art Bank has sold the South African government on setting up its own collection.
What on earth was Victoria Henry, director of the federal Art Bank, doing on a recent trade mission to Africa, along with executives from such blue-chip companies as SNC Lavalin and Bombardier?
Was she trolling for African customers? Was she hoping they would rent Canadian paintings stored in the Art Bank vaults on St. Laurent Boulevard in east end Ottawa?
Not exactly, although Henry undoubtedly would have been quite happy to sign such deals. Henry has, after all, taken the Art Bank in just a few years from drowning, almost fatally, in red ink to a state of self-sufficiency and even profitability by applying some common sense business principles to a perpetually money-losing federal cultural agency.
Actually, Henry was in South Africa, Nigeria and Senegal last Nov. 15-26, as a representative of the Art Bank's owner, the Canada Council for the Arts, scouting out possibilities for Canadian artists to serve residencies abroad or to become involved in exchanges with African countries.
Henry did meet with some success in that area, notably in Senegal, but it was in South Africa that she had the biggest impact and scored a few victories that could have a lasting impact on that country's culture and, quite possibly, on Canadian business.
While in South Africa, Henry talked up the Art Bank so much that Ben Ngubame, the South African minister of arts and culture, science and technology, decided to set up a similar institution in his country.
At the invitation of Henry, Ngubame had attended a Canadian government reception during the trade mission to meet both corporate and diplomatic representatives of Canada. Ngubame was, in fact, the only South African minister to show.
During the reception, Henry, Ngubame and Doreen Nteta, director of the South African Arts Council, began chatting. Henry was doing one of her selling jobs. She had actually begun singing the praises of the Art Bank to Ngubame three years earlier when the two had met at a reception in Ottawa. This time, Ngubame was completely sold on the idea.
"He said, 'OK, Doreen, I'll give you a million rand (about $184,000 Cdn). Let's start an art bank.' "
Now, back in Ottawa, Henry is drafting up a memorandum of understanding in which the Canadian Art Bank will lend its expertise -- everything from computer programs to pricing regimes -- to South Africa so it can set up its own art bank this year.
During the apartheid days of South Africa, bureaucrats responsible for purchasing art for the state tended to give short shrift to the works of many black artists. The output of some cultural groups was ignored. Ngubame wants to change that situation by establishing a Canadian-like structure that would ensure art is purchased from all cultural groups and displayed in government buildings.
It's not the first time Canada's Art Bank has served as a role model. Only a few years after the Art Bank was founded 30 years ago, Australia set up a similar institution patterned after Canada's. Other countries, from Singapore to Norway, periodically get in touch with the Art Bank to discover how it works and what aspects can be borrowed for use back home.
Canada's Art Bank is not making any money out of the arrangement with South Africa. But the deal may offer long-term financial benefits for Canada. Ngubame, Henry points out, wears two hats, one for arts and culture, the other for science and technology. The goodwill from the Art Bank arrangement could possibly benefit a Canadian high-tech company bidding on a contract in South Africa, Henry speculated.
"Perhaps Ngubame's going to look at the Canadian choice," she said. "He knows he can work with Canada."
Henry's participation in the Africa trade mission, and an earlier one to India also led by International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew, are part of a movement by the federal government to increasingly link diplomacy, trade and culture. Prime Minister Jean Chretien's high-profile Team Canada trade missions abroad usually have a cultural component, with film-makers, museum directors and others brought along to secure cultural deals and generally to raise awareness about Canada. The governor general, with her impeccable cultural credentials, led her own trade-cultural mission to Germany in 2001, with such celebrities as film-maker Atom Egoyan and artist Janet Cardiff in her retinue.
Some countries, notably Mexico, have long linked business and culture, with corporations using art shows and other cultural events as a backdrop to network with clients. Canada has started to pick up pointers, an example being a Group of Seven art exhibition a few years ago in Mexico City that was as much an opportunity to showcase Canadian companies as it was to exhibit great art.
Canada is also raising the flag in Mexico these days, hoping to grease the wheels of diplomacy and business, with visits by high-profile writers like Margaret Atwood and Alistair MacLeod and a forthcoming tour of the National Arts Centre Orchestra. The more Mexicans know and think about Canada, the more they will be inclined to sign deals with Canadian companies. Or so the theory goes.
Henry certainly subscribes to that theory. "I fully believe you do one thing and it has ramifications on everything."
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