Eli Broad, was listed as the 6th most powerful man on the 2005 ArtReview Power 100 and is one the wealthiest men in the U.S.A.
Eli Broad's art patronage is effected through the work of the Eli Broad Foundation www.broadartfoundation.org. Its intended altruism is already evident in the domain terminology – ‘.org’ announcing that it is not a commercial or a corporate organization. The look and feel of the website, which is dark blue and more in line with being an educational institution rather than a corporate or commercial gallery site.
Despite the altruistic objectives set out in the ‘Purpose’ page on the website, an entire page is devoted to ‘The Broads’, describing Eli Broad’s wealth and business accomplishments. His success is something that the website profile publicises as the underpinning of the capital behind the largesse. The aim of ‘The Broads’ and of the Foundation is to alter the cultural landscape of Los Angeles and have an impact on global art education by a broad lending programme and using the website to extend “the Foundation's mandate to foster public appreciation of contemporary art to a worldwide audience of Internet users, making available information and selected images from its collection of over 700 works by provocative and important artists working today.”
Without stipulating this directly, the Foundation, is setting itself up as an authority figure and taste, value and price maker for the works of artists it deems meritorious and the types of art it determines as being important. When I contacted Michelle Goncalves, the Curatorial Assistant to the Director of the Foundation asking if she believed, whether the Foundation’s/The Broads championship and support of particular artists or artistic styles have helped to promote their importance in the institutional and support and enhance the value of their work in the art market, her response was “As for acquisitions made by the Broad Art Foundation, because we tend to collect quite in-depth, any commitment we make to an artist's work is a serious one. We own over 100 works by Cindy Sherman, and are among the world's foremost collectors of work by Jeff Koons, Robert Therrien, and Damien Hirst (among others). While these are all well-established artists whose markets are not drastically affected by a single collector's purchasing decisions, I think our long-term support of their careers has certainly been beneficial to the artists, and has signalled to the market that we feel this is extremely worthwhile, significant art.”
It is hard to imagine how the recent massive acquisition of 570 Joseph Beuys works, highlighted on the ‘Recent Acquisitions’ page, could fail not to have an impact on the market, the price of Beuys’ work and his standing as an artist of global significance.
Analysis of the site showcases an interesting phenomenon: while the stated agenda of the patron is clearly altruistic and socially conscious, it is not one of humble charity. The ultimate objective appears to be the idea of exercising money/power to create the world in their image or change the world and the world of art in particular in line with their criteria and being known as the author of that change. The website of the Broad Foundation is certainly a clear advertisement for the power and the impact that an individual collector can have on the landscape of the art world.