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from The Tastemakers - U.K. Art Now by Rosie Millard Let’s return to Lex Fenwick, last seen at Bloomberg’s vast party in Tate Modern. This time he is in his open-plan glass office. The place is strewn with tiger orchids in bark-filled vases, mini televisions sculpted into granite table tops and floors, floating strands of red and blue Perspex, lava lamps, Bruce Nauman--type neon installations and huge aquaria in which swim hundreds of perfectly groomed fish. Whose average length is 2.7 inches. Meanwhile in the fish tank-style office swim hundreds of perfectly groomed staff. Whose average age is 27 years. It’s that kind of place. It’s Day One of the American election debacle, but Lex doesn’t care about down the phone. And then slams it down. ‘Fuck. Hello. Lex Fenwick,’ he says, proffering a perfectly reasonable hand. ‘Are you worried about the American election?’ I quaver. ‘Fuck, no,’ he barks. ‘No time for that sort of thing.’ Meeting Lex Fenwick is akin to entering a play by David Mamet, whose literary style was once memorably described as ‘a rainbow of fucks’. We sit down and Lex explains why he does it. Supports the arts, that is. ‘Firstly, we as a company want to be good citizens and support things that clearly need money, and that we think might help better the world.’ That’s the moral thing. ‘Secondly, the arts have become fashionable. By associating yourself with fashion, some of that rubs off. The more that fashionable people talk about you, the more fashionable you become.’ That’s the style thing. ‘Then there is a payoff’ That’s the staff thing. ‘Artists offer a different take on life. If we have David Shrigley designing our plates, people having lunch might think, "Wow! These are the strangest plates on earth." And the great hope, of course, is that one of those people will think, "God! That is strange! Maybe I could do my phone calls this afternoon to my clients differently." It sounds silly, but that is what you are trying to encourage. I go and find one of the companies who are bringing Art to Lex Fenwick. Claire Catterall and Sarah Gaventa run Scarlet Projects. They are intelligent, perceptive, breathtakingly stylish women with major track records in the design world, acutely honed taste and fantastic contacts. In the olden days they were employed as curators in the public sector. In the olden days they still would be. But private money has come to call. It’s more of a challenge doing something for a company than an exhibi-tion,’ says Catterall. ‘It’s the real world. We are curators, but also design agents. Our job is to identify things within Bloomberg’s offices that we can commission people to work on.’ One can just hear Lex. ‘Do what you want, but make it arty.’ The budgets are unlimited, as is the scope. Remember when corporate clients were cautious, traditional beasts? It’s all changed. Through Scarlet, the Bloomberg meeting rooms are being redesigned by separate squads of design funksters such as el ultimo grito, FAT and Precious McBane. The official Bloomberg cars have been overhauled by design team Bump, with hilarious windscreen stickers updating the KEVIN 4 TRACEY cliché to MARK 4 PENNY. This company deals with money. Of that particular gag, Catterall says, ‘We showed it to the American MD. And he kind of went, "Hmm." But Lex said it was absolutely British popular culture; people will love it.’ Gaventa adds, ‘Bloomberg benefits from the best of British design. They get seen as young and thrusting and risk-taking, which suits their role of providing financial information. It makes their workers work better. They all go out to trendy City bars after work. Why not be surrounded by the stuff at work? At the same time, it gives a platform for young designers. This isn’t just silly young ad agencies, or exhibitions. This is the grown-up corporate world.’ Scarlet has traditional clients who are meant to push British design, like the V&A and the British Council. But it’s the private sector which really rings their bell. ‘We prefer working with unexpected clients like Bloomberg. They are more open,’ says Catterall. ‘A lot of arts organizations don’t have the money. They’re also very slow. They want to plan four years ahead. But we are about what is happening now, rather than proposing an exhibition in 2006. It’s fantastic to show Lex something. And he says, "Do it."’
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