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 find myself in a stage of mesetastic confinements in which I yearn for the same sensation that I recognize in this work.

. The embrace of the sea, the game with it, the surrender to the sensation of weightlessness. I thus incorporate this work into my life and my stage by 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 can awaken different nuances.

Art is capable of awakening many different sensations and nuances.

It is that which has made us human since prehistoric times, expression for the sake of expression, aesthetics for the sake of aesthetics. It elevates what it touches, perhaps because it is created from, and reaches to, the deepest part of the human being and the connection between us.

Brands, especially the most exquisite ones and those with the most stories to tell, often take works and codes from art, but from a carefully strategic approach, managing to elevate themselves, multiplying their meanings and connections with their audiences.

In order to ask 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 Aguilas (Murcia), Eva's artistic interest was born in her childhood. Her grandfather Ernesto, a veterinarian, used to vaccinate the animals in the traveling circuses and in payment for his care, she used to receive tickets for the evening show. Eva would draw those circus characters and her grandfather would proudly display them hanging through the glass of his clinic. After those first exhibitions, many others came and still come, making Matisse's wish his own: "I want worried people, fatigued by overwork, to have a peaceful feeling when they contemplate my paintings".

Elena is a cultural projects coordinator. With a degree in Art History and specialized in the management of museums and art spaces with a Master in Museums and Artistic and Historical 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.

We open the debate for your expert and complementary contribution in two parts. In the first, they will help us to delve into the art itself, their vision of its current state and future. In the second, they will share their opinion and examples on 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 aspects that are easily observable and that could be distinctive features of current art. At the institutional level, there is the recognition of the work of women artists who were forgotten for a long time and who are now being posthumously honored through major museum exhibitions. The presence of women in contests, talks and exhibitions has also increased. The feminist discourse together with the one that defends the environment are recurrent nowadays.

At the opposite pole, present in the work of painters I follow, especially in social networks, we see that their theme is precisely the absence of this. As if we have reached a point where it is no longer possible to dialogue with the viewer about the same old issues under a different guise and what is shown is banal, witty...

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

Elena, art historian:

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

The pandemic has broken the patterns of art consumption due to the limitations that make it difficult to attend an exhibition. Thus, art institutions and agents have had to renew themselves by leaps and bounds to continue bringing creation closer to the spectators. These new initiatives, mostly based on digital media, allow access to a much wider public - and without the barriers of time and space - to works of art. However, they also lead to the loss of direct contact with the work and that almost 'mystical' experience that is generated before certain pieces. It is possible that this mixed model will be prolonged in time and that new alternatives to the great 'mass' exhibitions will appear, allowing 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, look for ways to escape and art, as Clara has commented with Eva's work, and as has been seen in the reopening of the institutions, is a way of escape and her experience is what is most missed.

Baud's note: for a deeper dive into the future of art and culture, you can read our related publication.

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

Eva, artist:

The contributions of great painters to brand design have been very frequent. The main ingredient is 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, at the end of the day, are storytellers.

Elena, art historian:

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

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