Corporate Power

"Today the Progressive Art collection contains over 6,000 works, with acquisitions overseen by in-house curator H. Scott Westover, who says, "Our current CEO, Glenn Renwick, offered only one directive: walk the line between provacation and offence."

 An example is Westover's recent acquistion of a work by Brooklyn-based artist T. R. Ericsson, who was originaly from Cleveland. The piece could fit in a private collection, but its aura of violence might turn away corporate buyers, "It's a beautiful object, an ax made from porcelain, decorated in a blue toile pattern, that hangs from a shelf,"the curator says, "This ax is familiar to people out here as a tool passed through generations of families in northeast Ohio. Even the toile pattern was availabe from local Sears stores."