Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-04-20
Source: The Conversation – France (in French)– By Thomas Blonski, Assistant Professor in Strategy and Entrepreneurship, ICN Business School
Long considered an investment or a branding tool, art now occupies a more strategic place within companies. From collecting to residency, the artist is gradually becoming a full organizational partner. This is how a new collaborative economy is taking shape.
At the turn of the 2000s, many Western companies began buying works of art. Tax incentives, image improvement, asset diversification: “art as an investment” seemed natural. Twenty years later, a more discreet evolution is underway. Companies no longer invest only in works, but also in artists.
From aSurvey based on 23 interviewsconducted with leaders, artists, and intermediaries (galleries, specialized organizations), we sought to understand this gradual shift: how does one move from purchasing a work to organizing an artist residency, and then to creativity training programs?
From the work to the partnership
The sponsorship laws adopted at the beginning of the 21st centuryeThe century played a triggering role. In France, it is theAillagon law of 2003, with equivalents atUnited Kingdom(2000), inGermany(2000), but also inItaly(2000) and other European countries. The tax benefits encouraged companies that had no direct connection with the art world to build collections, support exhibitions, or finance institutions.
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In this context, artistic investment is conceived according to a dual logic. On one hand, it is an asset: some studies show that art can serve as a tool for asset diversification for a company, even if some researchers, such asMandelas well asLindenberg and Oosterlinck, show that returns are uncertain and difficult to anticipate. On the other hand, the work produces a symbolic effect, as it strengthens the brand image, signals a cultural commitment, and positions the company in a universe of prestige.
But very quickly, a realization becomes clear to the leaders interviewed: buying a work and hanging it in an entrance hall is not enough. “Level zero is putting a work on the wall,” sums up an intermediary. “If we do that, we might as well go further.”
A logic of “while we’re at it”
This “might as well go further” is at the heart of the observed dynamic. We have called it the logic of “while we’re at it” (might as well). Since the company invests in art, it might as well exploit all its potential opportunistically.
After its initial investment in sponsorship, the company indeed discovers that it now has access to a network: artists, gallery owners, exhibition curators, collectors. The relationships formed around the purchase of an artwork open up other possibilities. Why not create a contemporary art prize? Why not organize an artist residency within the headquarters?
Beyond heritage
This is how they multiply, including in sectors far removed from the cultural world, such as, for example,the automobile,real estate,or even wines and spirits), business awards, partnerships with museum institutions, or residency programs.
The objective is no longer solely patrimonial. It becomes relational and symbolic: gaining legitimacy in the “art worlds,” according to the sociologist’s expressionHoward Becker, and strengthen the brand’s cultural credibility.
Art as an organizational experience
A second shift then takes place. In contact with the artists, companies discover something other than artworks: ways of working. Residencies, initially designed as image or sponsorship operations, become spaces of interaction between artists and employees. Workshops are organized, collaborative projects are born. Teams are confronted with uncertainty, experimentation, with forms of creation that escape managerial routines.
Some leaders explicitly describe this shift. The artist is no longer just the one who produces a work, but the one who can convey an approach to work, creativity, or problem-solving.
At this stage, new forms of intermediation are emerging. To the traditional galleries are added hybrid structures, for exampleMona Lisa FactorywhereViarte, capable of translating artistic language into organizational objectives, such as creativity, team cohesion, or innovation. The initial investment in art then transforms into an organizational investment in the artist.
From buyer to actor
What this trajectory reveals is a sequence of rationalities. Initially, the logic is primarily financial: benefiting from a favorable tax framework and, possibly, from an asset appreciation. Very quickly, a symbolic rationality is added, since art confers prestige, distinction, a form of symbolic capital. Finally, an organizational rationality emerges: the aesthetic experience is converted into collective learning, managerial resource, and an internal transformation tool.
This process is neither linear nor planned from the outset. It is progressive and cumulative. Each step paves the way for the next. Because the company bought a work, it met an artist; because it met an artist, it imagined a residency; because it organized a residency, it considered a training program.
Build reputation
This evolution is not neutral for artists. Receiving a corporate award, undertaking a residency, or participating in a training program adds an additional line to a résumé. Companies thus become full-fledged actors in artistic trajectories, alongside galleries, museums, and public institutions.
They contribute to the construction of reputation and the circulation of artists. In some cases, contractual collaborations with companies are even perceived as more transparent and more financially secure than certain relationships within the art world.
Less an achievement, the “art as investment” appears as an entry point into this universe. What begins as an asset purchase is transformed, through successive adjustments, into an organizational partnership.
A new collaborative economy
This dynamic contributes to the emergence of a specific collaborative economy, linking artists, companies, and specialized intermediaries. It blurs the traditional boundaries between patronage, the art market, and management.
One question remains open: how far can this logic go? By constantly integrating the artist into the organization, does the risk of reducing art to a mere managerial tool really exist? Or, conversely, do these collaborations genuinely help to redefine the relationships between creation and business?
Far from the image of simple instrumentalization, this research shows that the relationship between companies and artists has become denser, more reflective, and more structuring than it was at the beginning of the 2000s. The artwork is no longer just hung on the wall. It opens the door to another way of thinking about the organization.
The authors do not work for, do not advise, do not hold shares, do not receive funds from any organization that could benefit from this article, and have declared no other affiliation than their research institution.
–ref. Investing in art… then in artists: the new collaborations of companies –https://theconversation.com/investing-in-art-then-in-artists-the-new-collaborations-of-companies-277303