You’re in Trouble Now: Ad Agency Opens Gallery

The advertising agency Mother has opened a gallery space called Downstairs at Mother with the first exhibition being a selection of Peter Blake prints. Alongside the opening is the CCA Art Bus, a London double-decker with art displays up top ad educational facilities on the bottom deck.

There are two quotes I want to pull from the Creative Review article.

“Mother as an agency has always sought to immerse itself in the creative environment that inspires it – not to interrupt but rather contribute to art and popular culture”

What an amazing mission statement. I suppose only an ad agency could have come up with it. These are people whose job is to sell creativity. Think about that when you next see an empty museum.

The second quote:

Because we’re not representing artists and not selling work we can do whatever we fancy

Let’s unpick that a little. They have a space that is not in the professional gallery market so don’t have to work on commissions or agents fees. This exhibition is there for the sole purpose of being inspirational. Doesn’t that sound like it is more like a museum to you? But it isn’t because they can do whatever they want. This is an example of what can happen with a true level of autonomy and independence. Downstairs at Mothers doesn’t have to answer to anyone in the realm of museum ethics. This is a corporate venture subsidised by its own business.

Granted, it doesn’t look like it plans to build a collection and viewings are by appointment only. I’m going to overlook these possibly-financial decisions to make a bigger point. A psuedo-museum (minus having to hustle for funds) can focus entirely on innovation, something the bunch of people Upstairs at Mothers have in spades. They’ve got a fancy bus to drive around London! How many people are going to look at that and say, “Damn, that’s cool”? This model has the Be Awesome factor not through being short term, but by being free to do whatever they please. What will they do next? Who knows?

The reason I’m so interested in this because I try to imagine if this can be/needs to be explanded upon. A corporate autonymous cultural institution without needing to join membership organisations. This is the speculative part of me that has read too many books like Snowcrash or Jennifer Government where big business has taken over. But then I wonder about what would happen if most museums had to close because the government or philanthropists couldn’t fund them, or there was a massive exodus from organisations like the Museum Association or the AAM.

Would the sudden popularity of  institutions like Downstairs at Mothers seem so far-fetched?