Art and Brands

By Clara López, member of the Baud team, in collaboration with Eva Mauricio, artist, and Elena Yélamos, art historian.

A work of art and almost infinite ways to get excited about it.

Personally, I am in a stage of plateau confinement in which I long for the same feeling that I recognize in this work.

. The embrace of the sea, the game with it, surrenders to the sensation of weightlessness. I thus incorporate this work into my life and my stage out of vital necessity. It is called INGRÁVIDA IV (2018), it belongs to the series that bears the same name, it is by the artist Eva Mauricio and in each one it can awaken different nuances.

Art is capable of awakening many and very different sensations and nuances.

It is what makes us human since prehistoric times, expression for expression, aesthetics for aesthetics. It elevates what it touches, perhaps because it is created from, and reaches into, the deepest part of the human being and the connection between us.

Brands, especially those more exquisite and that have more stories to tell, often take works and codes of art, of course, from a carefully strategic approach, managing to rise, multiplying their meanings and connections with their audiences.

In order to ask ourselves more questions and not necessarily get more answers around the complex and interesting debate of art and its 'appropriation' by brands, we have the point of view of two exceptional professionals.

Eva Mauricio and Elena Yélamos.

Eva is the artist of the work that opens the publication

. Graduated in Fine Arts from the University of San Carlos in Valencia and born in the small coastal town of Águilas (Murcia), Eva's artistic concern was born in her childhood. His grandfather Ernesto, a veterinarian, vaccinated animals in traveling circuses and, in payment for their care, he used to receive tickets for the evening performance. Eva drew those circus characters and her grandfather, proud, displayed them hanging through the glass of his clinic. After those first exhibitions, many others came and still are, making Matisse's wish his own: "I want worried people, fatigued by overwork, to have a peaceful feeling when they look at my paintings."

Elena is the coordinator of cultural projects. Graduated in Art History and specialized in the management of museums and artistic spaces with a Master's degree in Museums and Historical Artistic Heritage from the Complutense University of Madrid, she has experience in different cultural institutions and art collections in countries such as Spain, Italy and the United States. United.

We open the debate for your expert and complementary input in two parts. In the first, they will help us delve into the art itself, their vision of the current and future state. In the second, they will share their opinion and examples of the relationship between art and brands, from an image point of view to a product point of view. Let's get started.

Eva, Elena, what is your point of view on the current state of the art and your vision for the future?

Eva, artist:

It is difficult to talk about the current moment of Art because we need to take distance, a certain perspective to be able to specify what is happening in the present. However, there are some easily observable aspects that could be distinctive features of current art. At an institutional level, the recognition of the work of women artists who were forgotten for a long time and who are now paid posthumous tribute through large exhibitions in museums stands out. The presence of women in competitions, talks and exhibitions has also increased. The feminist discourse along with the one that defends the environment are recurrent today.

At the opposite pole, present in the work of painters that I follow, especially on social networks, we see that its theme is precisely the absence of it. As if we had reached a point where it is no longer possible to dialogue with the viewer on the same issues as always under another guise and what is shown is banal, witty ...

Finally, one could name the art created through the use of technology that has found a place within the miscellany of styles that coexist in galleries. Although the number of artists who make this medium their form of expression increases, I do not think that traditional painting, so often dead and resurrected, or the rest of the arts will disappear. Or so I hope.

Elena, art historian:

At this moment art is in an uncertain situation and it is difficult to predict where it will evolve.

The pandemic has broken the schemes of how to consume art due to the limitations that make it difficult to attend an exhibition. In this way, artistic institutions and agents have had to renew themselves by leaps and bounds to continue bringing creation closer to viewers. These new initiatives, mostly based on digital media, allow a much wider audience - and without the barriers of time and space - to access works of art. However, they also cause direct contact with the work to be lost and that almost 'mystical' experience generated by certain pieces. It is possible that this mixed model will continue in time and that new alternatives to the large 'mass' exhibitions will appear that allow the public to enjoy a more direct and intimate contact with the work of art.

It can be affirmed that art will continue to play a fundamental role in society since this situation has shown that people, in times of crisis, seek ways to escape and art, as Clara has commented with Eva's work, and as has been seen in the reopening of the institutions, it is an escape route and their experience is what is most missed.

Baud's note: to delve into the future of art and culture, you can read our related post.

Let's talk about brands, art and artists, how do they relate and feed each other?

Eva, artist:

The contributions of great painters to the design of brands have been very frequent. The main ingredient is the creativity applied in this case to the image of a certain company or institution. Design has its own language based on 'less is more'. A brand is like a bouillon cube, a lot of concentrated flavor. And a challenge for artists who, after all, are storytellers.

Elena, art historian:

I can think of interesting brand collaborations with visual artists also in the field of product design, such as the handkerchiefs made by Julio LeParc in collaboration with Hermès or the recent campaign carried out by the Otazu winery in which, every year, they carry out a harvest in collaboration with an artist, the most recent, the Madrid sculptor David Magán, who has designed an original container-sculpture for the bottle.

In this way, brands seek to elevate the category of their products, making them something 'more exclusive' while allowing a certain democratization by giving a wider audience access to an object with artistic category, which is not, moreover, the conventional work of art.