Tough times put corporate art under the hammer - Gabriella Coslovich

THE financial crisis has claimed its first Australian corporate art collection. Cash-strapped property developer Austcorp is being forced to sell its prized and vigorously contemporary collection, which features the work of some of Australia and New Zealand's finest living artists. Next week, 99 works from the Austcorp collection will be auctioned by Sotheby's in Melbourne. So venturesome was the taste of Auscorp chief executive Trevor Chappell that his collection includes a wry drawing with the words ''smash capitalism'', by James Lynch. Perhaps Mr Chappell wasn't expecting it to be so prophetic. Three months ago, Austcorp, a victim of the financial crisis, called in the administrators to manage debts of $550 million. Although the Austcorp art sale is estimated to raise just $807,500 to $1.1 million for the beleaguered company (whose developments include 370 Docklands and The Village in Clayton South), insolvency firm BRI Ferrier's Paul Burges said every bit helped. ''Yes, it will be helpful, absolutely. What else would you do with an asset like that? We are looking at a company that needs cash,'' Mr Burges said. It would not be the last collection sold because of the financial crisis, he said. Accountants may well describe the collection as a ''non-productive asset'', but it was curated with passion. When New York-born art consultant Barbara Flynn began assembling the collection for Austcorp in 2003, she was buying for keeps. ''I try to choose works so that people will never want to let them go. This was never the intention,'' said Ms Flynn, who ran galleries in New York in the 1980s and '90s, and worked for the high-profile Gagosian Gallery before moving to Australia in 1998. Mr Chappell, she said, was an ''optimal client''. ''He has a great eye and knows quality, but he also has a great spirit in the sense of being adventurous and also generous. The collection made a point of helping young artists and giving them confidence and money to make new works.'' Austcorp's downfall is, in a sense, Sotheby's windfall. The art market has also been suffering in these difficult economic times and auction houses have been furiously competing for quality art works to sell. The Austcorp collection - which features such names as Patricia Piccinini, Tracey Moffatt, Lisa Roet, Ah Xian, Destiny Deacon, Adam Cullen, Callum Morton and Michael Parekowhai - is a rare boon. Many of the artists have never been auctioned before by Sotheby's, if at all. Overall, the two-night Sotheby's sale, on Monday and Tuesday, is expected to turn over between $7 million and $9.41 million. http://www.theage.com.au/national/tough-times-put-corporate-art-under-the-hammer-20090820-es2x.html