A B O U T pptArt
"Art without frontiers”
pptArt is the first web-based crowdsourcing platform in the world
offering art-related services to corporations and individuals
About pptArt
pptArt is an Italian-based crowdsourcing platform offering bespoke art-related services to corporations and individuals. It is a highly innovative start-up which introduces the advanced features of modern communication systems in the traditional and consolidated art world. Working directly with a pool of over 2000 international artists, pptArt targets those corporations and individuals who wish to commission a piece of art but do not have direct access or familiarity with artists, galleries and auction houses. Therefore pptArt acts as an intermediary which creates a virtual art marketplace, establishing a direct contact between demand and supply by means of the modern mechanism of crowdsourcing.
Commissioning a work of art has never been easier.
If somebody needs a work of art to celebrate a worthy moment, a present for an important occasion or an alternative investment to diversify a financial portfolio, pptArt offers a competitive and transparent process, including a Personal Art Advisor who will follow the client until the delivery of the piece of art.
Pool of artists
The pptArt marketplace can count on a pool of over 2000 international artists. The pptArt Manifesto has rapidly become an appreciable element of discussion in the international art world and has gained formal acceptance from artists from all over the world, mainly the USA (30%), the UK (15%) and Italy (10%). The objective of the manifesto is to reestablish a positive collaboration between the artist and the client who commissions the work. It maintains that the dialogue with the client and the interpretation of his/her desires enriches and deepens the contents of the work of art within the respect for the artist’s personality and free creativity.
pptArt innovative concept
pptArt started off as a cultural association founded by a group of international MBAs and Italian artists to provide professional services to bridge the gap between the corporate and art worlds. It offers its clients highly tailored consulting and advisory services as well as corporate-image and brand related products.
pptArt is the incorporated expression of a contemporary art movement whose mission is to rectify a distorted and simplistic perception of the complexity of the Corporate World in the Art World and among the wider public, in order to promote the positive role of business in today’s society. Like Pop Art stands for Popular Art, the pptArt name is the acronym for PowerPoint, the symbolic and abstract language developed for and by the corporate world, which has become a universal and highly symbolic communication system beyond businesses, cultures and borders.
A typical pptArt corporate product consists of the creative representation of a company’s soul, DNA and its ultimate personality. In management terms, it is a visual statement of the company’s positive role in the world and society.
The corporate services offered by pptArt include: Corporate Art (works of art to celebrate a worthy moment of corporate life); managers’ professional portraits; redefinition of communication and social responsibility campaigns through art; executive education; Art Advisory services for managers and corporations.
In April 2014, the Master of Art of the Luiss Business School in Rome has launched the first pptArt course on the relationships between the art creativity and the corporate world.
Historical references
The traditional relationship between the Corporate world and the arts is principally a one-way affair limited to patronage. Although organizations may endorse, sponsor or fund artists and museums, the arts seem to have little to offer from a business perspective.
Over a century has gone by since the time when in its dada manifesto Tristan Tzara maintained that “advertising and business are poetic elements”. The contest of those years was permeated with the enthusiasm for the rising consumer society and for the surge of creativity that advertising was introducing in the art world.
The gap between the two worlds has widened in recent years. On one side, business is perceived as a dull product of the rational mind with the only aim to reestablish an order in the chaos of the markets and the human desires. On the other side, the arts are considered the indisputable temple of freedom and creativity: they stimulate an individual's thoughts, emotions, beliefs and ideas through the senses.
By avoiding the dialogue with the corporate world and ignoring the complexity of the corporate dynamics, the arts have deprived themselves of an interesting field of exploration.
Contrary to the commonly established perception, pptArt maintains that the Corporate World can be the object of art. A corporation represents an active agent which contributes to the progress of society. Business influences habits and tastes, promotes research, establishes bridges and professional relations across cultures. Its complexity can be a source of beauty.
The integration of the arts into the business world creates more value than sheer patronage.
pptArt manifesto opera
pptArt aesthetics, historical references and main messages are summarized in its manifesto “One and three logos”, a threefold representation of a company logo. The key message is that the corporate world, in its formal and conceptual representation, can be the object of a work of art.
Despite the apparent simplicity and minimalism of the triptych, this work is a powerful précis of the pptArt message. At the same time, it pays tribute to its historical precursors in suprematism and conceptual art: the tryptical structure is a reference to Kosuth’s “One and three chairs” while the central element is a reference to Malevich’s “Black square on white ground”.
The word “logos” in the title is also to be interpreted in the ancient Greek meaning as a principle of order and knowledge. This refers to the intrinsic nature of the corporate world as the product of the rational mind to reestablish an order in the chaos of the markets and the human needs.