Renate Bauer from Brands United tells the M&G Online about the genesis of the Soccer World Cup poster series, launched last week in SA.
Bauer is the founder and managing director of Brands United, an art marketing agency based in Berlin. South African artists include Kay Hassan, Kendell Geers, Marlene Dumas, William Kentridge and Isolde Krams.
Last week saw the arrival in South Africa of her partnership project, the official art edition of the Soccer World Cup.
The project consists of 17 posters by some of the world’s leading visual artists, including seven South Africans — Kay hassan, Kendell Geers, Marlene Dumas, William Kentridge, Peter Eastman and Isolde Krams.
Brands United specialises in art editions for major international sports events and was awarded a global licence by the Fifa for the Official Art Edition of the Fifa World Cup in Germany in 2006 and for the Official Art Edition of the 32nd America’s Cup in Valencia.
Bauer answered questions put to her by M&G Online.
M&G: Tell us in a little more depth about yourself and your company
Renate Bauer: I am originally a philosopher and have studied a lot of art theory. After a doctoral degree in Berlin, I went to Yale for a year to do research. But actually I am not the scholarly, academic kind — so I made up my mind not to take a university career, but rather do my own thing.
So I devised this project, submitted it to Fifa in 2002, and pushed it through all shallows and vagaries. I am a long-distance runner, and to be able to think in a structured way helps a lot in the highly competitive surrounding of a Football World Cup. My team is a small and experienced crowd with a very special know how. I would say we are the only company on the market that can actually carry out such a project. It may seem easy, but it’s certainly not.
M&G: Tell us about the genesis of the collection and the idea behind it.
RB: This edition for the 2010 Fifa World Cup is our second. We have done the project once before in 2006 when Germany was host country. The 2010 project is structurally the same, but of course you can never repeat a project, so this time it is completely different, too. Some structural features are the same. In 2006, Fifa gave us the following preconditions: The edition should be international in the sense that the six football continents should be represented in it by artists coming from the respective regions or living there; the edition should have a focus on artists’ works originating from the host country or continent; it should transfer the cultural background of the host country or continent.
Of course, an edition with works on football somehow needs to be sufficiently figurative — purely abstract works will be difficult to understand in this context and setting of a Fifa World Cup. However, in the 2006 edition we had a work by Sarah Morris who deconstructed and dismantled a football field into geometrical units — a rather abstract work which, however, was received quite favourably. In 2006, Fifa president [Sepp] Blatter himself made the final selection of artworks, and he was the one who picked Sarah’s work — a good decision.
Of course, in an event that has world-class status you want artists that have world-class status too. But you do not just pick names. You take a chance on excellent emerging artists or exciting works on the subject.
In order to end up with an edition of 17 works one has to, in fact, speak to about a hundred artists. That takes a lot of time. We started this 2010 project not long after the end of the 2006 World Cup. So, this is rather an idealistic project in a way.
The resulting “Official Licensed Product” is really not an off-the-shelf “product”. Fifa has come to understand this, and they do give us a lot of support. For example, they presented the edition at the last Fifa Congress in the Bahamas in June 2009 at a huge stage event. One of the participating artists, the Brazilian celebrity Romero Britto, was there on stage.
He donated a work worth $100Â 000 to Football for Hope which is an initiative run by Fifa that builds 20 centres for 2010 in Africa for disadvantaged youths. So, this art edition is really a project that also reaches far beyond a normal “Official Licensed Product” in that it tries to promote other values than just commercial ones. If the artists and us will be able to support and promote social objectives, too, then we will have done a good job.
The idea of such an art edition is to disrupt an endless row of off-the-shelf World Cup products, of course, and offer something that has a lasting value (in several meanings of the word).
M&G: Are the posters intended to be public artworks advertising the event — or is this a series intended exclusively for collectors? Tell us how you see the collection functioning.
RB: It is clearly both — in a mixture that you only find in an art edition for an international mega event such as a Fifa World Cup.
In 2006, when we first did the project, the German organising committee gave us a press conference where the edition was presented to the public. The press conference took place in Munich on June 9 2005 — exactly one year before the start of the World Cup. Fifa president Blatter was on stage, as well as the president of the local organisting committee, Franz Beckenbauer, and the German Minister of the Interior. They had also invited some of the artists from all over the world. On the next day very early in the morning, I sat in a bus taking me from the airport building in Munich to my plane back to Berlin. Opposite me sat a gentleman with a German newspaper in front of his face. On the front page, I saw “my” images!
I certainly hadn’t expected one of the largest newspapers in the country to print these images on their front page. In the days and months afterwards it turned out that the media all over the world were crazy for these images — because they were completely different from what they knew as football images, ie, from press photos. Some of the works consequently developped into iconic images of the 2006 Fifa World Cup. Fifa couldn’t have bought a better image campaign than this one — not even with a lot of money!
On the other hand, the collection itself is clearly something that collectors want to own and preserve.
M&G: What do you think, if at all, the content of the collection is saying about soccer, international sporting events and the global experience?
RB: Art is as much a global phenomenon that speaks a universal language, like football. Both also somehow originate from enthusiasm: both can only be pursued with uncompromising passion, talent and effort. One of the best sources to find an answer to your question is perhaps one of Sepp Blatter’s speeches on the philosophical dimension of this game with a ball … I have had quite a few opportunities to experience how global both, art and football, are. I remember, for example, Franz Beckenbauer taking along our 2006 portfolio on his welcome tour through 31 nations around the world as a present to his hosts. When he was in Japan, there was a Japanese princess in the delegation that welcomed him. So, Beckenbauer gave her the Japanese work which was part of our portfolio — a work by famous Japanese artist Hisashi Tenmyouya that showed two football players in traditional Japanese attire.
The princess was so delighted about this present and she held the print up for a photo. On this photo you can see just how delighted she was and how profoundly she enjoyed this present brought to her by a German football official and made by a Japanese artist in traditional Japanese style. This scene created a tremendous amount of friendship and goodwill between the two nations within this event of the 2006 World Cup — not many words were needed between the princess and Franz Beckenbauer any more.
M&G: Tell us about some of the the artists that form part of this year’s edition.
RB: There is a marvelous work by Hassan Musa in the series that carries the title The Good Game. On the image you see the biblical scene of Jacob battling with the angel translated into football. Jacob battled with the angel all night and would not let him go until the angel absolved him from his sins. Thus, the battle of Jacob with the angel has become the epitome of a purifying experience.
In his work, Hassan Musa translates this into football, and I think he wants to say that this upcoming World Cup is going to be a purifying experience for the African continent, in the sense that it will not be the same afterwards. Musa’s original is a huge flag made in a traditional African style. Some day next year it will be sold, and I will hate to see it go — it now hangs in our office, and it is just beautiful and impressive.
Then we have a beautiful work by Robert Slingsby, a football player turned upside down on a golden background. This work gave me a sleepless night when it came in, because I feared so much that the golden background wouldn’t turn out alright when printed. But it did — it is a most beautiful gold on the prints, the colour and composition of this work creates a beautiful equilibrium.
Marlene Dumas created “a hommage to the emotions of a footballer” through the expression on his face you can see, “the strength, the concentration, the anticipation, the tension, the satisfaction of the player that plays the game well”.
Famous Senegalese artist Soly Cissé depicts the African Continent as the birthplace of mankind, which is therefore the natural destination of a Football World Cup.
Zhong Biao, currently one of China’s foremost artists and a master of his profession, painted a player’s perfect moment bursting into a Football Miracle. The original artwork is on its way to Berlin at the moment. Next week we will be able to set eyes on it …
William Kentridge’s Bicycle Kick is really the work with the most potential of becoming the iconic football image of the series — in my view.
We also have a work by Ethiopian born artist Julie Mehretu in the series. Julie is currently a much hyped artist with a solo show at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin at the moment.
I shouldn’t forget Isolde Krams’ work — the Red Elephant. The original artwork is a wall sculpture made of latex, rubber and mixed media — a sensational piece in an edition of six. In fact, Fifa general secretary Jérome Valcke has already secured one of the six pieces for Fifa.
Isolde is German, but spent most of her life in South Africa. Currently she lives in Berlin. I have always loved her work, and the World Cup in South Africa was a chance to finally work with her.