Why Standard Chartered thinks art is worth investing in

Standard Chartered is expanding its sponsorship strategy beyond sport and into arts and culture, beginning in Singapore with one of contemporary art’s biggest names.

The bank has become Principal Supporter of Hiroshi Sugimoto: Form Is Emptiness at Singapore Art Museum (SAM), marking a new direction for a sponsorship portfolio better known for Liverpool Football Club, Formula 1, and marathon events. 

Rather than treating its entry into the arts simply as another branding exercise, however, Standard Chartered used the partnership to create an experience around Sugimoto’s work for its clients, extending the exhibition into food and conversation.

At a private event at SAM, guests attended a fireside chat with SAM CEO Dr Eugene Tan and Gregg Stanger, studio manager from Sugimoto Studio, offering further insight into the artist and his practice.

Chef Ivan Brehm of Michelin-starred Nouri then translated Sugimoto’s ideas into a menu inspired by individual bodies of work. “Emptiness is Form”, for instance, paired Japanese scallops with a savoury consommé that dissolved to reveal what lay within, while “Fossils” juxtaposed precise geometry and skeletal forms through fried shirasu, edible imago bones, peanuts, and a Toyoken-style curry.

It made the sponsorship tangible: instead of simply encountering Sugimoto’s work on the walls, guests experienced interpretations of its ideas across different forms.

Beyond the stadium

The event may have lasted an evening, but Standard Chartered’s broader move into culture carries greater significance.

Sport has given the bank access to enormous audiences organised around competition, performance, and fandom. Arts and culture offer another proposition: audiences gathered around ideas, interpretation, and experience.

“Our partnership with SAM reflects our commitment to creating distinctive experiences while helping to strengthen Singapore’s cultural ecosystem,” says Patrick Lee, CEO, Singapore and CEO, ASEAN and South Asia at Standard Chartered. 

There is a practical consequence, too. Corporate support allows cultural institutions to mount ambitious exhibitions and widen access to significant international practices.

A different currency

Form Is Emptiness, Sugimoto’s first major survey exhibition in Southeast Asia, brings together 63 works from 11 series alongside 14 fossils from his personal collection, tracing five decades of his practice. 

For Standard Chartered, its significance may extend beyond this particular exhibition. The move adds another currency to a sponsorship portfolio historically associated with sport: cultural association, contemplation, and experiences designed for smaller audiences rather than stadium-sized ones.

For a bank whose best-known sponsorships revolve around football, Formula 1, and marathons, backing an artist concerned with contemplation makes for quite a change of pace.