Are there any valuable reasons that justify the ownership of artworks?

This rather simple question defines Nicosia-based the Office gallery’s approach to contemporary art. In today’s capitalist society art pieces are often treated as consumer goods and the ownership of art is generally related to the acquisition of a certain “enlighten“ social status. the Office gallery strongly rejects the bulimic practice of collecting art, praising the beauty of emptiness.

The gallery’s booth at Belgian art fair Art Brussels 2015 perfectly reflected this minimalistic ethos by showcasing a limited selection of pieces of two different artists, the Scottish Robert Montgomery and the Greek Dimitris Merantzas. Both Montgomery and Merantzas explore each aspect of contemporary times from a conceptual, political perspective. They freely experiment with heterogeneous materials that range from found objects to woodcuts. While Merantzas’s art conceptually investigates the relationship between forms and content through sculptures and installations, Montgomery operates in a post-Situationist tradition by composing subtle poems on different media, plastered, often illegally, over advertisements and billboards internationally. The works of Montogomery and Merantzas have a poetical quality that aims to move the spectators and establish an emotional connection. The art pieces are meant to become a part of life itself and evoke intense experiences that are both familiar and unaccountable for.

When such a relationship is established, the acquisition of the art piece becomes viscerally necessary.