The retrospective of Brendrealism
Not long ago I visited an exhibition “The Retrospective of Brendrealism”, arranged and brought to Rostov by well-known Russian artist and celebrity, Sergey Shnurov. It made me contemplate about brands in general and my relationship with them. Speaking about the exhibition itself: to me, its author is well-educated, smart and, of course, talented – both in the fields of music and visual art.
He has a gift to define and expose the flaws of contemporary surrounding, but without any moralizing or speaking about old virtues, using humor and satire, and making us think about absolutely everything in our life. Because when someone directly points out to our mistakes, we resent it. In case of Shnurov’s art, we laugh at first and then pay attention to a deeper subject hidden behind lightweight texts in a mostly dirty language.
Brands, trends, movements, and modern directions. If you live somewhere else than some tiny village lost in Siberia, first thing in the morning would be the abundance of information. Advertisment. We can keep saying that we never watch TV, but the Internet and social media sites influence us just the same way. With the development of communication via Internet, the advertisement has shape-shifted into something less visible. It is looking for human beings based on their search history, and follows until they buy what it promotes. Sounds interesting, but scary.
The subject of brands is not new, and we got used that “the dress in a card of invitation”. Still, we often forget that “a mind is a letter of recommendation”. Modern “dress” is a car brand, clothing label (the bigger it’s written, the better), favorite restaurants, fitness-clubs and hotels. Brands are everywhere. We can try to ignore it, but there’s no chance we’ll succeed.
In the field of design, we see the same tendency of brand influence. Furniture, lightning, equipment, accessories – well, everything. The question is, do we need to buy only trendy, big name things? The answer lies in the goal of a person, because a house is also a status sign. If the goal of interior design is to show the status, then brands can assist.
There are factories that only produce premium-class furniture, but their chairs can cost 20%-30% more than the same chairs made without a prestigious logo.
We get the same result, of same quality, and with a huge difference. It’s possible to decorate a house with only luxury objects, but the outcome and the feeling in this space will only be compared to a visit to some company presentation at iSALONI – it’s beautiful but has no heart in it. This is why it’s important to keep “only the best” within reasonable limits, because the result can be disappointing. If we give some accents with eye-catching objects where it’s relevant – the interior will only get better.
For the copies, there’s another story: same-looking lamps (a brand and a copy) can have different light characteristics and can influence the atmosphere of the whole space. So sometimes it’s better to pay more.
In conclusion, I can say that design is a complicated and subjective subject, and, creating a premium interior, we can use not so premium things. What matters, is the final goal, plus your designer’s good taste and sense of style. Then the result will surely make you happy.