Art is one of the key elements of human life and social life. Although art remains in the background in the general flow of life in today’s world, the need of individuals for art and art for individuals will never be exhausted. These two dynamics that feed each other must meet at some point.
This journey, which started with the pictures we hung in our office, reached its peak when we moved the exhibitions to the office environment.
Why shouldn’t we do a cultural activity when we come to work?
Today, individuals who are defined as white-collar workers and spend most of their day in the office often have difficulties in balancing their professional lives with their social lives, and therefore cannot participate in cultural activities. However, these people are perhaps the primary consumers of such activities in society. So, what happens if these people cannot join these activities? First of all, when we consider individuals’ own psychology, a general state of dissatisfaction and unhappiness begins with a life disconnected from social life. While this situation directly affects the work of individuals, the work they do naturally affects the industry and the general condition of the industry directly, and the multi-layered chain of bad events becomes inevitable in the long run. Apart from all these, as a result of staying away from activities that should be the mass of white-collar workers, organizations and individuals that carry out these activities suffer financially. If we examine these chains from the perspective of art, when an exhibition is opened, it is expected that at least three hundred people will come to this exhibition on a daily basis and only one percent of those who come to buy the art works. In this direction, the artist who owns the exhibition reaches the resources that will continue to produce art by benefiting from the situation, while reaching the goal of conveying his art to people which is actually his primary motivation.
If we examine the whole example from a different perspective, artists often bring their exhibitions to the public through agreements with organizations such as galleries. So what kind of deal is this? These agreements, which were created to receive commissions from the works sold by the artist, in a way lay claim to the work. Artists, who have no alternative in this regard, give their works to the gallery in line with these agreements in order to introduce themselves, to bring their works to the public and to generate income from their art. Galleries maintain their own existence with the commission they receive by selling these works. However, as it has recently emerged, artists are not satisfied with this process and in many different countries, artists try to perform their art by working extra jobs for a living.
So is there no alternative to this?
At this point, we move on to the main topic that we want to talk about in this article.
Office and art.
(Eser: Hülya Sözer )
The combination of these two concepts has the potential to solve the problems mentioned above. The first of these was the inability of the so-called white-collar people to participate in art activities. If they can’t go to art, by saying that art goes to them and transforming offices into exhibition areas, these people are enabled to take part in artistic activities, and although it seems like indirectly, the industry itself and the economy develops with the increase in work efficiency.
The second issue was that artists had to work with galleries to exhibit and sell their works, in other words, they had no alternative areas to generate income by supplying art. Art in the office also creates a solution for this. By offering artists alternative locations and deals, it paves the way for art and allows artists to simply practice their profession without having to do other work to make a living. Because no one demands commission from the sales made at the exhibitions held in the offices. This turns into a collaboration that companies and artists will benefit from.
Are there any examples?
(Eser: Umut Kambak )
We see examples of such activities in the world, although not very often. One of them is “How Did We Get Here?” group exhibition organized by Archerson. The name of the exhibition comes from “Can there be art in the office?” question. The question emerged as a criticism, a mockery. In this exhibit Archerson bring together a total of 9 artists in a group exhibition, Archerson has created a space where artists can benefit in this regard, while greatly increasing the satisfaction of members and employees. Art for everyone, everyone for art! Announcing that he would continue with the exhibitions, Archerson turned this exhibition into a traveling exhibition and moved it to Acarkent locations.
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