The New Golden Age

“It is time to consider arts and culture as something that can enrich and optimize society, the public sector, the business world as well as the general welfare of citizens. That is, if we exploit its potential. This can happen if we create new forms of partnerships between arts and culture on one side and the business world and the public sector on the other.”
This is an excerpt from Christian Have’s book, “The New Golden Age: Arts and Culture as a Growth Engine”.
The book is a brand new and internationalized version of his original Danish book from 2015, which has generated nationwide debate about the concept of Corporate Cultural Responsibility – and ensured support for the concept of CCR from two different Ministers of Culture, Marianne Jelved and Bertel Haarder, as well as a wide array of prominent representatives from the business world and the field of arts and culture.
“The New Golden Age” challenges the increasing tendency to only view the cultural world through the eyes of lawyers and economists. As such, it contains many potentially controversial statements:
• Commercializing art can be a good thing
• The artists of the future do not see a conflict between that which is commercial and that which is artistic – the most important aspect is to get their product out, and this means that we will see completely different kinds of artists than the ones we see today
• Artists have to claim responsibility for establishing new partnerships and options for financing
• “Art for art’s sake” no longer makes sense
• Due to the digital development, culture consumers of the future will change their behavior completely, and this means that cultural operators are forced to focus on meeting the changed needs of their audiences – for instance through CCR partnerships
• Corporations and organizations should exercise CCR without an obvious focus on return-of-investment
The book takes the reader through numerous inspiring examples of existing partnerships between cultural operators and the business world.
This includes the mobile service provider Call me, their campaign to promote a civil tone, and their partnership with the music group Lighthouse X; variety chain store Flying Tiger and their partnership with Yoko Ono; Sennheiser partnering up with David Bowie; and Heineken ensuring massive exposure of street artists.
Furthermore, the book contains a specific partnership model with eight elements that present how the ideas behind CCR can be transformed into action – into well-functioning and enriching CCR partnerships.
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Praise for the original book:
”It is a wonderful book, because it supports the claim that, in a new golden age, people and our society cannot be without neither the rationality of the business world nor the sensuous or aesthetic expression of the arts.”
– Marianne Jelved, former Minister of Culture (2012-2015), current member of the Danish Parliament for the Social Liberal Party
“Christian Have convincingly writes about why Denmark should focus more on the interaction between art, business and production in order to become one of the world’s most creative and innovative nations.”
– Mogens Jensen, former Minister for Trade and Development Cooperation (2014-2015), current member of the Danish Parliament for the Social Democrats
”In the middle of (another) period of whining in the world of arts and culture, Christian Have provides an enormous injection of vitamins. We should not try to whine ourselves out of our problems – we should collaborate, he says. Identify new partnerships within the world of business that can enrich both parties. And he does not simply suggest it – in his great and easily read book, he provides an intelligent recipe on how to do so.”
– Henrik Lyding, theater critic, Jyllands-Posten