Welcome to itisnotart.com
This site was created for you.
You might be like me in many ways. You might like groaner jokes. You probably have good taste in decorating, furniture, clothes and art.
But you also recognize the value and identify with not being one of the crowd.
And you know, that it is so easy to organize your own space nowadays. You open Pinterest and browse through millions of ideally organized interiors and pick something that suits you. You might even hire an interior designer. Whichever approach you choose, you can be more than sure that your place will look good.
But there is one caveat to this.
It might look perfect, but it will not have a soul.
It is as if you traded real life with a sterile perfection. Instead your place being your spot for revitalization where you can sit and relax, you might feel as if there is nothing “yours” there. You cannot even put your worn clothes on the chair, because it will spoil the utopian flawlessness.
In The Gallery you will find a number of drawings which absolutely are not art, thus showing in an imperfect way, that there is real life going on here – people can joke, make mean comments, share challenging thoughts. Just be themselves.
Your friends will wonder why you choose THIS piece to accent the rest of your private space (your room, office or maybe even living room).
Here is where you get to remind them of your independence (and uniqueness), maybe that you like to spice things up a little bit. Or maybe you simply wanted to manifest that this corner belongs to you (if everything else was decided by your partner).
More than anything these facets of you and me are what is important here.
If you really want to know a little more about me…
As an engineer who graduated from a technical university, you can imagine, I am not a great people person.
Honestly, the truth goes well beyond such mere conjecture. Instead of having face-to-face conversations, convincing people to follow my ideas or solutions, resolving inevitable conflicts between different characters, I would rather sit in my own private space, undistracted by anything else than a fast Internet connection.
However, I believe, I am not a typical recluse or a stiff. Of course in 999 out of 1000 cases, I would prefer to stay home than to go to the dance party, but that is because I fall into a category of people who cannot be taught how to dance.
Anyway, because I am usually withdrawn, I tend to have a good sense of observation, which combined with a genuine love of coming up with new groaner jokes and a lack of real drawing skills supported by possession of an iPad… All of this led to the creation of The Gallery.
This exhausting background combined with a day-to-day job in a corporation resulted in an easy decision to stay anonymous.
But the works need to be signed, they say.
So under great political pressure, I sign them… For you.
That is why I decided to bring into existence… an avatar. I named it It Guy. Boring? Weird? Yeah, I totally agree. It is simply I did not want to be another one with a rotund name, because this site is not about such an approach. Quite the opposite actually.
And do not get me wrong, I am not trying to be impolite or unpleasant on purpose. It just happens spontaneously, in the most natural way you can imagine. And no matter how hard I try, almost always it ends in the same way.
As if the universe has completely different plan for yours truly.
You can find some more thoughts on this topic (but not only) in my blog posts.
But if it is not art, then why does it hang on the wall?
As I mentioned before, I am an engineer, and I wanted to make sure you will not be fooled that I claim to be an artist or what I am selling here is art.
I’ve lived in different parts of Europe, including London and most recently Zürich in Switzerland. I also traveled a bit around Old Continent (for my American friends – I mean Europe) and when I visit a new city I always have a trip to the local museum of Modern Art in my plans. And believe me, I do not do that to experience a cultural enrichment.
I simply find it hilarious to see new and new ways of “selling” garbage as an art.
For me art is an art – you do not have to explain to people that what they see is art. People know that, they feel it internally.
But what is now presented as art requires a ton of background stories, explanation of what exactly the artist wanted you to see, because without that, it would not even have crossed your mind that you are looking at some adult “pieces of art” (who makes a living out of it!) instead of an exhibition of some first grade from the nearest primary school for special kids.
And always after such a visit in the MoMA I had this nasty feeling that somebody, again, wanted to make a fool out of me. And even the intention that brought me there in the first place cannot save me from this uncomfortable sensation.
I do not even know what the main root is of that conviction. Is it because the artists do not even try to pretend they care about the quality of what they do/sell? Or… that somebody else who is paid to do their job in picking artists and selecting their most valuable “pieces” for the exhibitions made another bet to move the boundary of absurdity even more without causing social or political unrest.
I do not know. I have no clue.
So if it is not art, then why bother?
First, in the section above, I wanted to make sure that what I want you to explore here is not art, I do not even try to pretend that what you can buy here stood anywhere close to art, because it was not the intention of starting The Gallery.
On the other hand, having seen all these exhibitions, would I be surprised to see such posters in the gallery…? Well lets do not go down this path;)
So what the intention?
To have some fun among the absurdity that surrounds us.
And instead of hanging another poster promoting cozy comfort (e.g. “hygge” concept), why not look at something that would make you smirk just a bit, but without aggressively deriding others who we do not like.
And why plants?!
Why not?!
We tend to think plans are always well-intended. We never suspect that they could have “bad intentions” or be unkind. But what if this is not entirely true? Would that change your perspective of these live-beings that surround you?
And why not put posters depicting plants next to real plants? (Yo Dawg, I heard you like plants…)
Simply decide: in your own space are you going to be more like other people want you to be or you’ll simply be yourself?
