feature real true serious
‘Prada death CamP’, 1998, Cardboard, part of a promotional campaign for the brand’s Love line of jewellery.
ink and adhesive Introduced more than 30 years ago, the iconic Love bracelet, with its
immediately recognisable screw motif, has become one of the most
Very often I feel very culpable for being a brand… [Tom Sachs] coveted designs in the world, and the ultimate symbol of love.
talked about how at some point something that was against a brand OK, not fair. Press release piffle aside, the Cartier brand is
became a brand – for himself. So everybody wanted this kind of art undeniably a true, genuine and serious artworld player. The Fondation
because it was a brand. And so he decided to not do it anymore. And Cartier, a must-have of the Paris artscape, opened its doors in 1984,
then he confessed that ‘sometimes I prostituted myself and did some’. long before Prada’s Fondazione, François Pinault’s Palazzo Grassi in
I am aware of all these people who don’t like brands. Venice or Bernard Arnault’s Espace Louis Vuitton on the Champs-
Miuccia Prada, New York Magazine, 1 April 2006
Elysées, and long before the first Hugo Boss Prize, Mandarina Duck’s
Search for Art and Bulgari’s Art Basel Conversations. Back when art
patronage was the exclusive territory of banks, biscuit-makers and the
Mobile Art’s curator, Fabrice Bousteau, adamantly assures me that the National Endowment for the Arts.
project is not la pub. “It is utopic, a contemporary art exhibit free to “The role of the patron is to disseminate art,” says Cartier’s
everybody, nourished by Chanel but profoundly artistic. There is no director of exterior relations. Why? Because art is a “communication tool
commercial value. It is a generous gift.” that supports an image of creativity”. That I’ll buy. Cartier art branding
Karl Lagerfeld: “Fashion and luxury are the taxes of vanity. We is traditional. It does not ‘intervene’ or ‘penetrate’ the way Chanel does
are now returning these taxes to the artists and architects… For what when it commissions Hadid, Araki, Sophie Calle (actually Soju Tao,
this costs, we could have inundated the world with posters and ads, if it who responded to the ‘Urgent! Artist Required’ ad Calle placed in a
was a commercial operation. But it is a nobler project.” Japanese art magazine to find an artist to do her piece in her place),
Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Serpentine Gallery codirector who has Wim Delvoye, Fabrice Hyber, Stephen Shore, Subodh Gupta, Pierre
held exhibitions in hotel rooms, kitchens, on board aeroplanes, in the & Gilles, Yoko Ono and 12 others to ‘interpret’ a handbag, or the way
Battersea Power Station and yes, in a shop, is generally positive about Louis Vuitton does when it pays Eliasson in order to place one of his
the phenomenon. “It allows artists to spread beyond the limits of the ‘irises’ in each of its 364 shops.
artworld.” But: “I think of that great slogan of [the Vietnamese military True, Cartier’s Love campaign has an online art exhibition – to
strategist] General Giap that the artist Mario Merz used: ‘When we ‘illustrate that our notions of love are all poignant vignettes and works
win territory, we lose concentration’. Through these other endeavours of art’, with commissioned works by eight young artists. But these are
art gains territory, and is able to gain ‘ubiquity’, but only so long as there virtual realities. Cartier’s keen interest in the arts is especially visible
remains a concentration of exhibitions in galleries and museums.” in its commissions policy: a key feature of patronage, commissions
Here, as elsewhere (Eliasson gave his Vuitton money to reflect a total commitment to artistic production, from the moment of
charity), is Prada’s and Sach’s sense of culpability, though only just. The conception to the finished work.
Murakamian interpenetrations of art and commerce, much more than No quotation marks, but you get the picture.
Duchamp’s or Warhol’s or Koons’s or Kostabi’s or Hirst’s, have redefined Cartier does not put art in its windows.
integrity. His is an honest buck. Contemporary art, commercial art, high,
low and ‘fine art’ – the taxonomical distinctions have been superflattened
into lucrative dust. Art is design, architecture is fashion, a museum is urgent! artist required (work in Progress)
a store and a store is a museum. The stigma of commodification has
been recommodified, repackaged and resold. I think commissions are great. But it’s the same for Chanel as it
Art and commerce have eaten off the same plates since the was for the Church. If the Pope is paying, you have to put Christ
Greeks, who flogged Hellenic paintings and sculptures up and down in the painting. It’s propaganda.
the Mediterranean. The Church invented the site-specific commission
Peter Marino, Spago’s, 18 September 2007
and, along with princes, bankers and merchants, cobranded the
Renaissance. Michelangelo was as ‘compromised’ as Murakami. ‘Selling
out’ is a bill of goods, ‘keeping it real’ a fraud. If people want to keep it Inside the Chanel shop are other works, including an elegant multi-
real, says U2’s Larry Mullen, whose band took flack for selling their song stranded bead piece by Paolo Pivi, again ‘inspired by Chanel signature
Vertigo (2004) to Apple, “they should work in a fucking coal mine”. pearls’. Dozens of Coco’s favourite flower – the camellia – encrust a
Sèvres porcelain torso by Johan Creten and a digitised découpage
by Peter Dayton (the latter lines the inside walls of the elevator; on
how far would you go for love? the day I visited, the architect was working with engineers to make
sure it remained parked on the ground floor with the doors open
It’s the duty of a brand like Cartier to spread different messages. when not in use, “otherwise it’s just a fucking black box”). The French
Frédéric de Narp, president and CEO of Cartier North artist François-Xavier Lalanne is represented by a stylised stag cast in
America, 1 June 2007 bronze, modelled on a deer statue in Coco’s collection.
In all, there are five finely crafted works produced by
internationally renowned artists through the largesse of a creative
The Cartier boutique across the street from Chanel on Rodeo Drive brand whose connection to the arts goes back to Coco’s prewar
has an eye-catching window – a giant Pop-arty, Robert Indiana-looking collaborations with Cocteau, Picasso, Stravinsky and Diaghilev. Some
LOVE sculpture. The piece decorates Cartier windows in New York, – the gold-laden Othoniel, for example, which took eight months to
Waikiki, Boston, San Francisco, Tokyo, Paris, Shanghai and London. It is build, or the Creten, a single piece of bisque-fired ceramic so big it
artreview 60
selling out.indd 60 4/12/07 16:53:57
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