Andrea Fraser. Report: EA-Generali Foundation

In April 1994, Andrea Fraser was engaged to undertake a project with the EA-Generali Foundation* in Vienna, an art association established by companies belonging to the EA-Generali insurance group. In accordance with Fraser’s “Preliminary Prospectus for Corporations,” the project was conceived as a service to be provided in two phases, the first defined as “interpretive” and the second as “interventionary.”

The first, interpretive phase of Andrea Fraser’s project consisted primarily of research on the Foundation and the EA-Generali Group Austria. Between May 1994 and January 1995, the artist conducted fourteen interviews with different members of the Foundation’s executive and artistic advisory boards and administrative staff as well as members of Generali’s Staff Council. Additional material was collected from the Market Communication and Research, Personnel and Education, Accounting, and General Internal Administration departments of the Generali Group Austria and from the archives of the Foundation itself. In late April 1995, the first phase was concluded with the artist’s submission of a report on her research consisting of texts by Fraser accompanied by charts, reproductions of documents, and interview material.

After an introduction by Andrea Fraser, the report is divided into two parts. Part One, “Public Image Transfer / Symbolic Profit,” considers the conditions and contradictions of artistic autonomy in relationship to corporate collecting and sponsorship. It examines EA-Generali’s motives for concerning itself with contemporary art, particularly as they relate to developing of a new public image for the corporate group. It also deals with the way in which the organizational structure of EA-Generali Foundation, with decision-making delegated to professional art advisors, was designed to achieve these goals. Part Two, “Art and Corporate Culture / Symbolic Power,” deals with the employee response to the Group’s presentation of the collection developed up by the Foundation inside its headquarters, where artistic autonomy and the public image of disinterested patronage clashed with economic rationality of corporate management. Four text columns run through the two chapters, graphically interacting and forming polylogue with the different contents. The first and third columns contain excerpts from the interviews conducted, the second is a presentation of the EA-Generali Foundation and the fourth column is an analytical-theoretical text by Fraser.

The second phase of the project, beginning immediately after the first, was conceived as an intervention with respect to the conditions described in the artist’s report. In the headquarters of the EA-Generali, the artist produced a “negative” installation by removing all the objects from the collection that were installed in the corporate building. These works were then installed in the new exhibition building of the Foundation in Wiedner Hauptstrasse and hung according to their original placement in the headquarters. After the exhibition, they had been returned to the company’s building.

*Later named Generali Foundation