There is no secret in that art and money have long shared a seductive rapport. Yet supporting the creative industries today – largely left out of government assistant schemes and paralysed by the pandemic – is hugely critical. The Covid crisis, and the global economic downfall which is more than likely to follow, is already having a devastating impact on the arts and we should all do our part to help.

For my very minor part, I’ve kept my membership to galleries and cultural hubs running despite the lack of live art, and support the Art Fund. I also continue to subscribe to certain magazines and journals – as real journalism will not survive unless people are willing to pay for words. My own community of writers and publishers have no future unless the public – which sadly includes many of my own acquaintances – actually pay for what they read. After all, we don’t order a three-course meal at a restaurant but settle the bill for just the starter. That would seem utterly absurd. Yet this is essentially what many do when using the free teaser articles offered by publications online.

Last Sunday I visited Frieze Art London’s sculpture gallery in the open-air setting of Regent’s Park. With pandemic social restrictions firmly in place, it happens to be one of the sole live art events available without pre-booking or a safety mask. Wandering through Gavin Turk’s ‘L’Âge d’Or’ door sculpture and entering a surrealist world not too dissimilar to those painted by René Magritte (and ever so perfectly fitting for our time), then physically experiencing the remaining artwork, I walked away elevated – filled with the wonders of life.

If life’s luxuries involve these precious experiences, these moments and associations, then surely keeping the arts alive should be on top of all businesses’ list – every individual’s list. ‘To commission artists during a pandemic is an act of determination and faith in the power of culture to inform and transform our lives,’ says the Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös.

His company is heavily invested in the arts via the ‘Muse’ project which includes the biannual Dream Commission, aimed at emerging and mid-career artists who demonstrate innovation in the field of moving image art.

As the name suggests, participants are asked to investigate their dreams as a way of finding an alternative sensory universe – perhaps take us on journeys into the world of the subconscious. Their work needs to be impactful, immersive – possibly even participatory.

The shortlist for the inaugural 2021 competition are making hugely relevant artwork that touches on concepts of race and colour and identity, and our relation to technology – brave topics to be taken on by a company like Rolls-Royce.

The artists were independently selected by an international jury to include Hans-Ulrich Obrist, the Serpentine Galleries artistic director, as well as Theodora Vischer senior curator at Fondation Beyeler in Basel and filmmaker Isaac Julien.

Obrist told me: ‘More than ever, we should be listening to artists. It is often they who have the most important and prescient ideas about how one can act in times of crisis.’

He says of the Dream Commission: ‘It acts as a laboratory for artists, and what has become evident is that this next generation is thinking about mixed reality, and quite radically liberating moving image away from defining characteristics such as its loop – so works become instead infinite, sprawling and organic.’

The reality is that many of these works would not see the light of day without the patronage of business. Cultural philanthropy and associating with the arts also does wonders for a brand like Rolls-Royce which resides in the upper ladders of luxury – in a place and space where wealth isn’t so much about accumulating luxury goods but having a passion or at least being surrounded by those who do.

The arts help us make sense of the world. Or to quote the actor and writer Stephen Fry: ‘The secret of life can be found in books and art’.

Take a look at the work of the four shortlisted artists in the Rolls-Royce 2021 Dream Commission here, and see my interview with Hans-Ulrich Obrist here.

nargess@me.com