In the future, the role of foundations should include not only custodians of collections, but also platforms for interdisciplinary research, intertwining art, science, ecology, and technology, and above all, creative incubators where artists, scientists, and technologists work together. They will increasingly need to become global networks in a necessarily more ethical space, rather than entities tied to a single territory. The new present and future require greater reflection on digital rights, intellectual property, inclusivity, and diversity.
A possible new scenario
A new artistic landscape where foundations should not simply safeguard heritage or promote exhibitions linked to a specific area, but will have to play a crucial role in the new society. The global dimension, amplified by digital, requires that they transform into spaces of connection, where knowledge flows freely between continents, disciplines, and communities. We know that this openness implies a radical transformation: the foundation is no longer a "physical place" representing a single cultural context, but becomes a hub in a global network that brings together artists, researchers, and citizens. In this sense, The foundations of the future will be called to become custodians of universal values, not just promoters of artTheir mission shifts from "exhibition" to social and cultural responsibility, where artistic creation is a tool for collective awareness and change.
Foundations and the Art Market: Between Cultural Power and Identity Crisis
After years of art market euphoria, we are experiencing a moment of confusion due to several factors. The pandemic accelerated the transformation with promotion through digital platforms that have created a certain fragmentation where fairs, galleries and online auctions compete without a stable model. No less financial speculation has often prevailed over cultural value, reducing the work to an investment asset and fueling the system's loss of identity. And it is in this scenario that private foundations (Pinault, Prada, Vuitton, etc.), born as personal collections, have begun to influence artists' tastes, legitimacy, and even their price tags, through exhibitions, acquisitions, and communication strategies. A foundation today has everything it needs to "launch" an artist onto the market, almost like a record company with a musician.
An ambiguous balance that will have to find a solution
While foundations fuel the market by creating visibility and economic value, they can also create distortion: if the rationale remains that of branding and investment, there is a risk of strengthening the gap between art as a commodity and art as research. The greatest risk is that the public might perceive art as an elitist luxury, deepening the entire system's identity crisis. Foundations today act as mediators between art and the market in a mediation that contributes to the identity crisis of the art system where it is no longer clear whether cultural research or economic valorization prevails.
The ambivalence of foundations according to Pierre Bourdieu
A premise that we already find in Pierre Bourdieu – Sociologist – (in Les règles de l'art, 1992) where he describes art as an autonomous field with its own internal rules, in constant tension between logics of autonomy (artistic research, symbolic recognition) and heteronomous logics (market, economic power). Foundations today embody this ambivalence: on the one hand, they support artistic research; on the other, they participate in the construction of economic value, influencing prices through exhibitions and programs. In Bourdieu's language, foundations oscillate between the production of symbolic capital and the production of economic capital, risking confusing the two levels.
A new “manifesto” of transformation that fosters a new era for contemporary art
Foundations should be seen as spaces of resistance if they choose to value diversity, experimentation and inclusiveness, rebalancing market logic with ethical and cultural responsibility. We therefore imagine a future with a counter-hegemonic role, where the focus goes beyond spectacularization and economic valorization, but transforms into laboratories of cultural resistance. This is achieved through: diversity, giving voice to marginal artistic practices that the market tends to exclude; experimentation, supporting languages that aren't immediately profitable, such as performance, open-source digital practices, and social and community art; and inclusivity, opening the foundation's space not only to collectors and cultural tourists, but to local communities, students, and a broader public seeking knowledge. In this way, the foundation is no longer simply a branding or investment tool, but becomes a political and cultural actor capable of rebalancing market logic. Not an external alternative, but an internal counter-field that puts the ethical responsibility of art back at the center of the present.
