There are two distinct ways to approach an art fusion collaboration. If you are a Brand considering collaborating with an Artist, you will either choose the Deconstruction process or the Integration process, depending on your needs and goals. What the heck are those, you ask? And what’s the difference? Well, let us explain.
If your Brand is in need of consumer attention where a halo of integrity, innovation and creativity is desirable, deconstruction may be the route to take. What will the process be like? Well, frankly, an interrogation – a painfully revealing, yet an endlessly rewarding experience. The main objective is to courageously question the assumptions behind the traditional and the established, whether of a product, a service or an event. In other words, the initial phase of deconstruction needs to break down as many existing forms and patterns as possible. It needs to expose and eliminate a countless amount of invisible barriers that eventually will allow for a new space from where the unfamiliar and unexpected can rise and be recognized and ultimately interpreted.
An effective example of art fusion-by-deconstruction was a collaboration between Lacoste x Campana Brothers in 2009. The acclaimed furniture designers from Brazil deconstructed the iconic Lacoste polo shirt by using modified Lacoste logos to create everything from chairs to polo shirts that verged on social commentary. The effort managed to deconstruct the notion of the iconic Lacoste polo shirt, and create talk-value through inventiveness and a sense of humour.
Most of the collaborations we see today however, are based on art fusion-by-integration. The most successful ones are a juxtaposition of sorts that unites differences in a surprising, yet pleasing way. In other words, using integration doesn’t need to dig deep as deconstruction does, but rather cast as wide a net as possible in order to find two distinctive opposites that can be brought together in a most extraordinarily way. Is your Brand considered traditional? Perhaps a collaboration with an innovative, modern Artist would be just the ticket.
A good example of this is Herman Miller x House Industries – while Herman Miller isn’t exactly considered ‘traditional’, its collaboration with House Industries brought a currency and a sense of ‘newness’ to its classic modern pieces.
So, if art fusion-by-deconstruction is about finding and bringing out the Art in a Brand, art fusion-by-integration is about joining an Artist and Brand to create something that represents both. Of course, some of the best examples of art fusion has integrated both forms to create a show stopping combination of branded Art coupled with incredibly desirable products. Louis Vuitton has shown the way in their collaborations with Takashi Murakami and Yayoi Kusama.
At ARTS & LABOUR, we are naturally very interested in contemporary Artists and follow the work of many very closely. In our next post, we’d like to introduce you to a few who we think would make fantastic art fusion collaborators with the right Brand. Stay tuned.