Ask your sales girl who Claude Monet is and chances are she will simply smile and say she does not know who the great impressionist painter is.
Art to many is not an important part of their lives as it simply is unaffordable to many.
But the statement ‘’life’s not fair; the rich get richer while the poor get poorer” suits the purchase of artwork. Values of these pieces go up over time so the rich who can afford them will have works that appreciate more over time.
But there are also those who appreciate art but cannot afford them, so they buy prints.
Prints of famous painters abound in the museum galleries in the US and Europe. The shops also have merchandise such as cards, diaries and notebooks, shirts, books or calendars.
In the Philippines, the Ayala Museum is so far the only museum that sells items such as prints of the photos of Ayala patriarch Don Jaime Zobel de Ayala, a known photographer.
Amid this backdrop, U-BIX Corp. and national artist BenCab have announced a partnership.
‘’It’s a way of democratizing art,” says Ben Cabrera, better known as BenCab.
‘’We want to distribute and democritize the work and reach out to more people.”
He knows he cannot mass produce works of art, but via U-BIX there is a way.
U-BIX chair and CEO Edilberto B. Bravo says bankers (who lend him money) ask what else the future for copying and printers is “since the introduction of digital printing and the experience of technological resolution.”
He cited 3D printing where new opportunities still abound.
‘’The best is yet to come,” Bravo says.
Bravo, 76, remains hands on in his company which he started in 1974 with Enrique Belo, father of known dermatologist Vicki Belo.
U-BIX pioneered in quality office solutions. Today the company is among the top 1,000 corporations in the country.