IE Art & Business Club visit to Okuda San Miguel’s Studio

IE Arts & Business Club together with IE Art & Humanities Division had the exclusive opportunity to visit the company Ink and Movement, the Madrid-based studio in which street artist Okuda San Miguel produces his unique works. Students talked with the artist and the production team to learn different steps and roles that take part in an art company.

With the support of Campus Life, IE Art & Business Club hosted the event to celebrate Madrid February Design 2020, a month of contemporary art celebration in Madrid with Art Fairs such as ARCO and special exhibits.

The IE Art & Business Club, coordinated by President Covadonga Romero and Martin Nuñez Molina, invited undergraduate and graduate students to understand the business of art, with Ink and Movement representing the multidisciplinary ties that the club wishes to promote.

“Ink and Movement has an atypical and interesting business model, defining themselves as an “art project” rather than a company,” explained Romero. “Their team works to promote public art creation, development, and management of cultural projects, art events, and exhibitions at an international level.”

The company promotes contemporary urban artists and brings street art to the public through different media. The visit to the studio showed students the necessary interrelations between them with the open workspace of the different departments such as production, finance, and communications to obtain greater efficiency for the overall company.

The studio’s latest productions are Kaos Garden, a collaboration between Okuda and a music producer, and El Row Art, a platform for artists to collaborate creating innovative work combining contemporary art, electronic music and audience.

According to the artist, these works were a result of growing technology and the dilution of intermediation. Okuda told students any profile had a place in the art business: financiers, project operations, graphic design, communication, marketing and production.

“Students could see that not only sprays or brushes are involved in the process, but also computers. Okuda is an artist, but in a way, he is also an art entrepreneur,” said Catalina Tejero, Associate Director of IE Arts and Humanities Division.

“Students realized that no matter what their academic background is, there is room for them in this industry.”
Catalina Tejero - Associate Director of IE Arts and Humanities Division

For Okuda, color can change the world, and art can bring hope, joy, and happiness to the people who experience it. This is why he said he started doing street art in less privileged neighborhoods.

“It is in public places where I create the most powerful and direct art pieces, which demand an immediate response from those who run into it. In my studio, I create more profound and detailed artworks, which invite the viewer to deeper insight,” said Okuda.

IE Arts and Humanities said it has chosen the artist not only because he is a catalyst for social change, but as a reflection of IE’s core values of diversity and business.

“As Andy Warhol said, ‘Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art, working is art, and good business is the best art,” quoted Tejero. “To be an actor in this field you don’t necessarily need to be an artist or a dealer. There is room for all disciplines: you can be a data scientist, a marketing or finance specialist or an engineer and play a role in this field.”

Other opportunities the Art & Business Club and IE University provide the IE community include IE’s Building Art projection for the COP 25, talks with the former director of the art fair ARCO and director of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection.

New technology demands have opened up a new opportunity for students to join this industry and IE University helps them see the beauty in the business of art.