Why Art is involved with luxury brands?
It is a fact that unknown artists can’t make their living with their artwork. They have to be well known and recognized in order to live from what they do. But it does not happen too often that an artist is recognized during his lifetime. Usually the appreciation comes post-mortem, after the artist’s death. A few examples of artists become famous during their lifetime are Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst and Stephen Sprouse. They are part of a small group of artist that can actually live from their what they do.
As Jean Noel Kapferer and Vincent Bastien reported “luxury is the artist’s means of financial subsistence”[1]. Indeed, when an artist collaborates with a luxury brand, he or she mostly becomes famous, no matter if people appreciate his art or not. They will know the artist because of the brand. And as luxury brands mostly pay well the artists will have the funds to create others things the way they want them.
But how do luxury brands can be a profitable business for artists? At the beginning many artists were against business and did not like the commercial aspect. The first person to change this attitude was Andy Warhol. As a matter of fact he named his own studio a factory in reference to the mass production of factories. Furthermore, he was the first one to set up the technical reproduction of artwork. At this moment some other artists clearly saw an opportunity to transform their art into a business too, and nobody can blame them for wanting to live from their creations. Nowadays, the main goal of artists like Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst or Takashi Murakami clearly is to sell what they produce. We can see that on the example of Takashi Murakami who started his KaiKai Kiki Corporation exactly in the same way as Andy Warhol did 30 years before. In fact he strives for profitability, which is what he expects of working as an artist. To accomplish this goal artists more and more frequently approach luxury brands and adapt themselves in order to earn money. Can we still consider work of these artists as artwork? More likely it seems that this way of doing business could kill the freedom of creation and force artists, who commit themselves to this direction to adjust themselves to the needs of a brand.
So, where is nowadays space for the freedom of creation and for pure inspiration and creative genius?
(Seated Ballerina, Jeff Koons)
[1] KAPFERER J.N, BASTIEN V. (2012), The Luxury Strategy: break the rules of marketing to build luxury brands.
