Art consulting · Brands

A collaboration must raise the artist

A capsule collection, a bottle, a piece of furniture, a textile, an edition: whatever the object, the question asked before committing is the same. If the answer is no, the brand will lose out too, later on.

The match

Identifying the artist whose work genuinely has something to do with the house, not the one whose profile matches the budget. Then taking the project to their gallery, which will decide. A gallery turns down an ill-conceived project, and it is right to do so.

The forms

A clothing collection, a bottle and its packaging, a single piece or a run of furniture, a textile, a motif, a limited edition, a permanent work in one of the brand's spaces. The form is decided after the artist, never before: it is the work that shows what they can do with an object, and where they have no business being.

The terms

The nature of the work, the edition, exclusivity and its term, image and reproduction rights, credits, the artist's remuneration, ownership once the project ends. These are the clauses that decide whether a collaboration ages well or turns into a dispute.

Production

Oversight from studio to showing: schedule, fabrication workshops, shipping, installation, insurance, press. And the choice of venue, which decides how the project reads: in a neutral space one sees an exhibition, in a store one sees a campaign.

Corporate collections

Building and keeping a collection in a company's name: acquisition, inventory, insurance, hanging across sites, museum loans. The same methods and the same rules as for a private collector.

What I do not do

No supplying works by the square metre, no in-house fabrication, no hotel decoration. That trade exists, and others practise it well. Here the starting point is an artist, not a surface to fill.

The separation

Advising a brand and advising a collector are two distinct mandates, invoiced separately. I never place a work from a brand project into a collection I advise, nor the reverse. A collector who entrusts me with a collection must be able to verify that wall.