When selecting art for a corporate environment, we need to keep two principal questions in mind. First, how well does a piece suit the physical space that is available for its display? Second, what does it say about the company – what image does it present – to both external and internal viewers (Efron, 2012)? Since you have tasked me with selecting several pieces for the new corporate offices, I have toured the building and developed a good sense of its style and the functions of different areas. I have also consulted with our marketing and communications department to ensure that the art supports our brand. Based on these considerations, I have developed several recommendations.
As a young tech company, we want to express a sense of youth, vitality, and creativity. We want to both inspire our colleagues and, at the same time, give our clients a sense of having a distinct and grounded identity. For the main lobby, I have chosen several works from the impressionist period that express both solidity and fluidity. The impressionist style, originating in France in the late nineteenth-century, emerged from a desire to capture not a real, objective representation of a subject, but rather the transitory impressions created in the mind of the observer: the fleeting effects of light, color, movement, atmosphere, and other elements of a sense impression (Seiberling, n.d.).
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While most commonly associated with painting, there are impressionist works of sculpture as well, and a good choice for the central piece in our lobby would be the iconic “Thinker” by Auguste Rodin (fig. 1). In this piece Rodin explored the use of a variety of textures to reflect light in different ways. It conveys both a sense of monumentality and lightness and captures our companies values not only in the sense of deep contemplation on complex issues, but also of being more about foundations than finish – of not trying to hide the building blocks in our products and services. The Thinker mixes thoughtfulness with a capacity for action (“The Thinker,” n.d.). A small reproduction of this piece, cast in bronze, would effectively present our company to visitors and inspire our employees to think hard about their work and approach it from different angles.
To compliment the sculptural centerpiece in the lobby, we could include two lighter and more colorful paintings on the opposing walls. Two selections from the later work of Edgar Degas would bring a sense of movement and playfulness to the space. Famously obsessed with ballet dancers in his later career, Degas used them as subjects many times, trying to capture a fleeting impression through a variety of techniques. He approached his compositions from unusual angles, for example, and rubbed pastels over the final works to convey a sense of action and drama (Trachtman, 2003). Degas painted his dancers in a variety of soft, pastel colors; juxtaposing his Dancers in Pink and Dancers in Blue (figs. 2 and 3)would bring an excellent sense of color, movement, and light to a space in which we want people to feel comfortable and uplifted.
For the three meeting rooms upstairs, works in a more abstract style would be appropriate. Software engineering, programming, and project development are abstract processes and require the kind of visualizations found in abstract impressionism, cubism, and pure abstraction. The Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky represents the latter school, and, in his mature style, he produced works in which shape, line, color, and the basic elements of painting are treated on their own and not as part of a subject. His works are non-representational, being concerned only with the relationships between these basic elements. In this way, it bears some similarity to computer programming and contemplation of his works may help one’s mind see abstractly and recognize how a whole – a composition, painting, or computer application – can be assembled out of seemingly unrelated parts. This could inspire our staff to make connections they might not otherwise. For this reason, I would recommend a replica of Kandinsky’s work, Composition VIII (fig. 4), be placed prominently in one of the staff meeting rooms.
Abstract impressionism, a style made famous by American painters such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning should also be represented. This was, in many ways, a form of process painting – with, in some cases, paint being literally flung at the wall in a near-random manner – and as such, resembles the process of brainstorming or throwing out ideas and connection in early project development. Thus, for a second meeting room, a replica of a large-scale Pollock painting, such as Number 1 (fig. 5) would be appropriate.
For the final meeting room, we could include a cubist work. Cubism, which sits somewhere in between impressionism and abstraction, takes conventional subjects, such as portraits or still lifes, and breaks them down into fragments, then reassembles them in geometric shapes. In a sense, this again parallels the work of object-oriented computer programming, which assembles larger, functional pieces of software out of long series of smaller component parts. A famous work in the cubist style is Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 (fig. 6), and this piece, like Degas’, shows the process of motion in a two-dimensional art form. Where Degas’ work had an organic quality, however, Duchamp presents his figure in a much more mechanical manner.
Art is an important addition to any office space, and many tech companies are investing in artwork and “exploring the link between data and art” (Corbett, 2014, p. 6). As Wilton (2011) writes, art in the business environment not only expresses a company identity, but “provide inspiration, direction, and escape” (p. 18). It also shows that we care about and support the arts (and, perhaps in the future, we could collect more contemporary originals to show this) and are a creative, multi-dimensional organization (Grant, 2014).
