Avant-garde Marketing: ‘When Attitudes Become Form’ and Philip Morris’s Sponsorship

Held at the Kunsthalle Bern in spring 1969, the exhibition ‘When Attitudes Become Form’ has often been presented as a turning point for the development of artistic and curatorial practices in the second half of the twentieth century. But this exhibition was also key in another respect: as the occasion for an early corporate venture into support for experimental contemporary art, which would initiate a trend that continues to have an important role in the field today. Sponsorship of ‘When Attitudes Become Form’ by US tobacco corporation Philip Morris is a landmark in the history of what is today known as ‘art-based marketing’. ⁰¹

The growing interest in art amongst members of the corporate managerial class in the US after the end of World War II led to a progressive turn to arts patronage. ⁰² The initial inclination in business was towards association with classical performing arts, such as ballet, opera and orchestral music, but there were also instances in which visual art was used in corporate advertising, ⁰³ and by the 1960s a number of companies had started corporate collections of visual art. ⁰⁴ At the same time, the rapid geographical expansion in markets that took place during those years prompted a major rethinking

of corporate sales strategies, with marketing and public relations needing to operate on an international scale. It was in this context, and soon after medical research had begun to identify the health risks of smoking tobacco, that Philip Morris emerged as a sponsor of touring exhibitions of contemporary art. ⁰⁵

One of those steering Philip Morris through this complex environment was George Weissman, who was hired in 1952 as assistant to the president and as the director of public relations and marketing, in 1960 becoming chief executive of the international business and in 1967 overall president. ⁰⁶ Interviewed in 1979 about his company’s early involvement with art, Weissman stated that their interest ‘was not the development of art but developing a unique creative personality within the industry, and art looked like the right medium’. ⁰⁷ The choice of this medium was suggested in 1964 by Ruder & Finn, the public relations agency engaged by Philip Morris.

Ruder & Finn’s engagement with the visual arts was not new. In 1947, after returning from World War II, Bill Ruder and David Finn resolved to start a company that they planned to call Arts in Industry, and through which they would create working relationships between businesses and the arts. ⁰⁸ According to Ruder, the main motivating factor was Finn’s own passion: he was a painter, wrote about art and was able to inspire a strong interest in the arts in his business partner.⁰⁹ Their initial plan for the company was to contact New York galleries and negotiate with them the possibility of applying to everyday objects the ‘design’ of the artworks they were selling, in what would have been a precursor to museum-style merchandising. But this merchandising enterprise did not succeed, and the two-man company came to a standstill; according to Finn, ‘businessmen weren’t that interested in art, and the artists weren’t interested in business’. ¹⁰

Instead, the partners founded their public relations company, Ruder & Finn. ¹¹ Their first client was Italian American singer Perry Como, who turned to them in order to boost his career. As Finn recalls, their collaboration was successful: ‘in the first year he rose from the bottom of Billboard’s annual poll of favourite artists to the top slot’. ¹² These were blossoming years for the public relations industry, and in a decade the company grew considerably: by 1959 it was cited as ‘the third largest public relations firm in the country [US], with affiliates in more than forty countries, including Russia’. ¹³

The two men had not abandoned their interest in the visual arts, and in 1958 their company was amongst only a few in the sector to have a Fine Arts department. From that year, Ruder & Finn’s Director of Fine Arts was Nina Kaiden. Her previous job had been at the American Federation of the Arts (AFA), an agency founded in 1909 with a remit to develop touring exhibitions in collaboration with museums in the US. Whilst working for AFA between 1951 and 1958, Kaiden became aware that museums were suffering from a lack of funding, and she began to think about ways to address the financial shortfalls. As she has recalled, ‘I realised that corporations could provide the kind of money that was needed in the United States to do visual arts – and also [that they might] discover that these donations could be beneficial to their business.’ ¹⁴

The first visual arts initiative organised for Philip Morris by Kaiden involved commissioning prints from eleven North American and British Pop artists, including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Allen Jones. The contributions by Jim Dine (Awl, 1965) and Mel Ramos (Tobacco Rose, 1965) included images of cigarette packets. Two separate exhibition campaigns were undertaken with all the works produced, one domestic and one abroad, sponsored by Philip Morris and Philip Morris International respectively. For the US tour, Philip Morris purchased additional Op art prints, and the resulting ‘Pop & Op’ exhibition was shown at sixteen museums in collaboration with AFA. As a result, George Weissman and Ruder & Finn were presented with one of the first Business in the Arts awards, an annual initiative established by Esquire magazine in 1966. Meanwhile, another edition of the Pop art print portfolio toured European and Latin-American cities as an exhibition titled ‘11 Pop Artists: The New Image’. For this, Ruder & Finn worked in collaboration with another organisation, the United States Information Agency (USIA), ¹⁵ and their combined effort on this project has been considered as part of the joint campaign carried out by government and businesses to promote US culture in the context of the Cold War. ¹⁶

Pop art was well established by the mid-1960s and the positive benefits of associating with the movement were relatively clear-cut. The next sponsorship deal organised for Philip Morris by Kaiden – which was dedicated to ‘When Attitudes Become Form’ – was less obvious and more adventurous, since by supporting this exhibition the tobacco company became associated with the work of artists who were young, relatively unknown and using unconventional media. ¹⁷ Kaiden has recalled that she responded to Harald Szeemann’s exhibition proposal because it was ‘very different […] more avant-garde’. ¹⁸ Speaking of Philip Morris in an interview in 1990, Weissman likewise reflected that ‘we were an open-minded company seeking creativity in all aspects of our business. And we were determined to do this by sponsoring things that made a difference, that were really dangerous.’ ¹⁹

In the journal in which Szeemann recollects the genesis of ‘When Attitudes Become Form’, he writes that Jean-Marie Theubet, Philip Morris’s representative in Lausanne, ²⁰ and Nina Kaiden met up with him in Bern on 13 July 1968. ²¹ Szeemann recounts that in this meeting Kaiden and Theubet encouraged him to start working on the proposal for an international art exhibition to be sponsored by the tobacco company. Whether the meeting happened at the instigation of Szeemann or Ruder & Finn is uncertain. Szeemann’s diary entry suggests they approached him, and he reiterated this in an interview from 1996, when he recounted:

… the people from Philip Morris and the PR firm Ruder & Finn came to Bern and asked me if I would like to do a show of my own. They offered me money and total freedom. I said, yes, of course. Until then I had never had an opportunity like that. Usually I wasn’t able to pay shipping costs from the States to Bern […] So getting this funding for ‘Attitudes’ was very liberating for me.²²

But Kaiden has recalled that he had ‘come to [her] with an idea’ and in search of financial support.²³ Szeemann was clearly aware of Philip Morris and Ruder & Finn’s sponsorship activities, since the Pop art portfolio sponsored by the former as arranged by Kaiden on behalf of the latter had been shown at the Kunsthalle Bern in 1966, then already directed by Szeemann. ‘11 Pop Artists: The New Image’ was on view in the galleries alongside two other exhibitions: ‘Weiss auf Weiss’ (‘White on White’), which was curated by Szeemann and focused on the absence of colour in works by almost a hundred artists; and a presentation of the painting F-111 (1964–65) by James Rosenquist, who was one of the ‘11 Pop Artists’. ²⁴

The arrangement that emerged from the July meeting in Bern was that Philip Morris would provide ‘$15,000 for the preparation [of the exhibition] and $10,000 for the catalogue’. ²⁵ Szeemann was given full freedom ‘in terms of compilation, i.e. selection of artists and works, but the exhibition [had to] travel’.²⁶ In conversation with Kaiden and Theubet, Szeemann discussed the possibility of focusing his exhibition on ‘“New Experiments with Light”; that is, especially, the anonymous light shows and the artists from Los Angeles’. ²⁷ Later that month, when in Amsterdam, he mentioned the project to Edy de Wilde, Director of the Stedelijk Museum, referring to ‘the “Light artists” ([James] Turrell, [Robert] Irwin, [Douglas] Wheeler) from California’. ²⁸ However, he revised this idea, partly because the kunsthalle had ‘already presented a number of light experiments’, ²⁹ partly because he learnt that de Wilde had the same project in his own programme, ³⁰ and partly in response to the ‘new art’ he had discovered in Amsterdam. ³¹

In August, Szeemann wrote to Kaiden presenting a proposal to the corporation: he would bring together Marcel Duchamp (‘as father’), Öyvind Fahlström, Carl Andre, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Dan Flavin, alongside ‘the “new” artists’, such as Marinus Boezem, Jan Dibbets, Ger van Elk, Piero Gilardi and Richard Long.³² Kaiden has recalled that Philip Morris’s first reaction was extremely sceptical, as the company representatives thought the show would be too ‘avant-garde’ for the public they meant to address.³³ She, however, really liked the idea, being convinced that, since ‘everything else was expected of us […] we needed to do something that would have been unexpected’. ³⁴ Kaiden succeeded in convincing her clients and on 5 November 1969 Szeemann received a telegram communicating Philip Morris’s agreement to support the project.

Precisely a month later, and shortly before his departure for the US, Szeemann presented ‘the Philip Morris exhibition’ to the kunsthalle committee. ³⁵ His proposal was received with ‘Reservations, especially on the part of the artist members, on the grounds that the kunsthalle was selling itself out to an American corporation’, but after explaining that he would have complete independence when it came to the selection of the artists and the works he was given the go ahead. ³⁶Four days later he was in Kaiden’s office in New York, at the beginning of three weeks of research in the US. Whilst there, Szeemann not only met numerous artists whose work he would eventually include in the exhibition, but, in a meeting with Kaiden on 18 December, he chose the title ‘When Attitudes Become Form’. ³⁷

At the end of his research trip to the US (or perhaps soon after he returned), Szeemann addressed a note to the sponsors, in which he described the exhibition as an ‘attempt to show and classify the most recent tendencies in contemporary art’, assembling works for the first time ‘to give a survey of what Artforum called Anti-Form’. ³⁸ The note further outlined the costs of the exhibition, making explicit that the agreed funding would cover the curator’s research trips ($3,500), travel expenses for five North American artists invited to participate and the production of a catalogue in three languages with a hundred pages and fifty reproductions ($10,000). ³⁹  It also named potential beneficiaries of the travel money: artists Richard Artschwager, Michael Heizer, Walter De Maria (‘if in New York’), Richard Serra and Keith Sonnier, plus dealer Dick Bellamy (‘if possible’). Szeemann concluded: ‘the choice of American artists is done. I will visit the European artists in the next three weeks.’ ⁴⁰

The installation of ‘When Attitudes Become Form’ began in the middle of March. At least some of the artists participating in the exhibition seemed to be aware of the sponsorship deal, but their views on the matter were not recorded at the time. Artist Lawrence Wiener, who borrowed money from Raymond Dirks to travel to Europe, has recalled the presence of Philip Morris at the opening in the form of free cigarettes. ⁴¹ Hans Haacke, who is represented in the catalogue for the exhibition but whose proposal for an outdoor installation was not realised, has subsequently reflected:

In 1969 neither I nor, I believe, any of the other artists had qualms about exhibiting under the auspices of a corporate sponsor. And since most of us smoked and smoking was not yet generally recognized as potentially lethal, we were not concerned about lending our work and name to the promotion of a peddler of unhealthy products. The implication of corporate sponsorship on culture was not yet recognised as an issue. The issues that riled us were the Vietnam War, race relations, the ‘establishment’ a.k.a ‘le pouvoir’ in France. ⁴²

The opening of the show was preceded by a press campaign coordinated by Ruder & Finn. In a document sent by the French office of the PR company days before the opening, Szeemann was informed of progress: press releases had been sent and specific publications, including Art & Artists, Artforum, L’Oeil, Le figaro, Le Monde, Paris Presse, International Herald Tribune, Newsweek, Time Magazine, Der Spiegel, Business Week and The New York Times, were being targeted for attendance at the opening and to cover the exhibition. ⁴³ At least two articles prompted by ‘When Attitudes Become Form’ made a feature of its sponsorship. ⁴⁴

Ruder & Finn also helped with the organisation of the international tour of the exhibition. Exposure in more than one country was important to Philip Morris and, as already mentioned, the company’s sponsorship was conditional upon the exhibition travelling. Work on this front was not always straightforward. Szeemann made contact with the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome, unaware that Italian law prohibited all advertising of tobacco products. ⁴⁵ Nonetheless, the exhibition did tour, first to the Museum Haus Lange in Krefeld and then to the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. ⁴⁶Moreover, word of the sponsorship was spread through the exhibition catalogue. Here, on the first page, John Murphy, the President of Philip Morris Europe, wrote:

We at Philip Morris feel it is appropriate that we participate in bringing these works to the attention of the public, for there is a key element in this ‘new art’ which has its counterpart in the business world. That element is innovation […] Our constant search for a new and better way in which to perform and produce is akin to the questionings of the artists whose works are represented here. ⁴⁷

This statement makes explicit the corporate desire to be associated not just with art but with the latest developments in art. According to Kaiden, the sponsorship of ‘When Attitudes Become Form’ was considered a success by both the corporation and its PR consultants, as the event attracted a lot of attention to Philip Morris, and ‘not just as a sponsor of the arts but as a sponsor of avant-garde art’. ⁴⁸

The corporation’s commitment to this idea was borne out by ensuing projects: from September 1969 to August 1970, Ruder & Finn organised sponsorship of another four ‘avant-garde’ events by Philip Morris and some of its affiliates: a conference and three exhibitions. The conference, organised by Lawrence Weiner and Seth Siegelaub at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Canada, was a two-day symposium (on 5 and 6 October 1970) with contributions from, amongst others, Carl Andre, Joseph Beuys, Daniel Buren, Jan Dibbets and Mario Merz. ⁴⁹ The exhibitions – ‘New Alchemy: Elements, Systems, Forces’ at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto; ‘A Plastic Presence’ at the Jewish Museum in New York; and ‘Air’, at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne – also featured some of the artists that had participated in the Bern show, including Hans Haacke (in ‘New Alchemy’ and ‘Air’), Eva Hesse (in ‘A Plastic Presence’) and Bruce Nauman (in ‘Air’). ⁵⁰ All three exhibitions travelled, and only one took place in the US, reflecting the international focus of Philip Morris’s promotional strategy.

In the following decades, Philip Morris sustained a reputation as an important corporate sponsor of the arts, leading a trend that saw businesses becoming increasingly active players in the cultural sphere. The company expanded its remit to include the performing arts, establishing itself as a vital supporter of many dance and theatre groups based in New York. In 1983 it starred once again in a high-profile episode of sponsorship for the visual arts, when it opened in its New York headquarters a corporate branch of the Whitney Museum of American Art. The collaboration with Ruder & Finn ended in the 1990s, and in the same period Philip Morris increased its commitment to art sponsorship outside of the US, with a series of controversial projects developed in Asia. ⁵¹ Then, in 2007, there was another dramatic shift in the corporation’s art funding strategy when Altria, as the parent company was by then known, announced it would largely discontinue funding organisations in New York, on the basis that its headquarters were moving to Virginia. ⁵²

Philip Morris’s sponsorship of contemporary art projects in the second half of the 1960s was pioneering. The marketing intuition of Kaiden and Ruder & Finn pushed the tobacco company towards a groundbreaking association with art that was as controversial as it was innovative, the strategy being to confer upon Philip Morris and its products the new art’s aura of freedom and daring. The company’s support of ‘When Attitudes Become Form’ can be seen as an early and emblematic example of the new relationship developing between corporate marketing strategies, on the one hand, and support for contemporary art practices and exhibitions, on the other. In the following years this connection would be taken up by others and developed in multiple and complex ways, and it continues to act as a contentious binder within the art system and society more broadly today.