To the Royal Festival Hall, where art and finance came together in a shower of green and gold. Less cryptically, the Southbank Centre were announcing this summer’s Festival Brazil, sponsored by HSBC.
To the Royal Festival Hall, where art and finance came together in a shower of green and gold. Less cryptically, the Southbank Centre were announcing this summer’s Festival Brazil, sponsored by HSBC.
Artistic director Jude Kelly (or Judy to someone in the Q&A section) spoke about the ‘ardent escapism’ Brazilian culture has manifested in its vibrant and future-embracing disciplines, and how they will touch down in London this summer. These range from the elegant organically-shaped art of Ernesto Neto (at the Hayward Gallery, 19 June-5 September) and world music pioneer Gilberto Gil (Queen Elizabeth Hall, 21 July) to doctor/author/footballer Sócrates (QEH, 18 July) and the Campana Brothers’ pop-up venue (Festival Terrace).
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Stephen Green, group chairman of HSBC Holdings and practically the only senior banker to acknowledge the moral dimensions of the credit crisis, was there to talk on behalf of HSBC, stressing that his company did not just provide money but helped with ‘a real collaboration’. He said HSBC had to understand the ‘heritage and culture of the countries we work in’ for an ‘exchange not just of commerce but of ideas’.
He did also touch on the BRICs angle, saying that these four countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) were the powers of the future, which was partly why HSBC was supporting Festival Brazil. Coincidentally, in 2008 HSBC sponsored a summer festival of Chinese culture and in 2009 of Indian. Hedgehog naturally asked him whether Russia was pencilled in for 2011.
‘We’re not very large in Russia but we are in 85 countries. We will, though, continue the [sponsorship] programme next year.’ In the light of the six per cent fall in business sponsorship of the arts in 2009, this continued support is to be warmly welcomed.
HSBC Private Bank’s cultural sponsorship should be well-known to Spear’s readers by now: we have covered their backing of Design Miami (William Cash’s report) and Design Miami/Basel (Josh Spero’s journal and a subsequent Hedgehog).
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Pictures (from top): Performers in Brazil! Brazil!, a show of capoeira on at the Southbank Centre this summer; the view over Rio de Janeiro.
