A beautiful collection cannot decide the terms of an artist's participation

A layout can make an unresolved idea look finished. Once sixty proposed artworks had been arranged into a coherent programme, each missing piece felt like a flaw in the whole. That feeling was a creative judgement, not a reason to assume that every artist had agreed to the use we wanted. Our February 2026 programme needed a different order of decisions. We could develop a visual direction while discussions continued, but publication had to follow the actual arrangements, even if the resulting collection was smaller than the one in the presentation.

I had worked with images since my first copywriting role in an exhibition studio. Experience did not make this tension disappear. As CMO, I could see why creative head Rakesh Talvuri wanted to prepare the collection together. A shared treatment helps the work feel intentional and can reduce repetitive production decisions. Yet that same coherence can make a proposed image seem indispensable before its relationship with the programme has been resolved. I needed to support the design effort without allowing it to decide the terms of somebody else's participation.

## Discuss the intended use while the composition can still change

The starting population was sixty proposed pieces. Some images had been shared to discuss an idea; some involved uses different from an earlier relationship. Possession of a file did not answer what the programme could do with it. I wanted the relevant commercial colleagues and professional advisers to work with the artists on the proposed scope and terms. My responsibility was to make the intended use clear enough for that conversation, not to issue a general legal conclusion about every image in the folder.

Retail and campaign settings create different practical questions. A piece may appear in a shop, in a printed communication or in a digital context with its own format and duration. Cropping or placing it beside a product can change what the viewer understands. A creator may be comfortable with one proposed use and unwilling to accept another. These are reasons to describe the plan clearly at the beginning. They are not reasons for marketing to assume that a broad initial conversation has settled every later application of the work.

I asked the creative team to keep alternatives available while discussions remained open. Otherwise, the business could arrive at a negotiation having already treated a specific piece as essential. That would place pressure on both the relationship and the budget. Designing for an unresolved collection requires more judgement than merely leaving blank boxes. The visual direction should be coherent enough to guide production and flexible enough to reflect the set of work that is actually agreed. An artist's decision to decline should remain a real option rather than an interruption the programme is engineered to resist.

The approach also required clear internal language. Proposed, agreed and published were distinct stages. A file in a working deck was not a released asset. A positive conversation was not the same as a completed arrangement. Teams needed to know which material could move into public use and which belonged only in the continuing discussion. I did not want colleagues to infer authority from the polish of a mock-up or the seniority of the person who forwarded it. The process had to make the status understandable at the point of use.

## Payment, credit and permission answer different questions

A fee matters, but its existence does not explain the scope of the relationship. Credit matters, but a visible name is not a substitute for resolving a proposed use. A positive response to one placement does not settle a different placement that emerges later. We needed the appropriate people to address these questions together while keeping their meanings distinct. That is a practical marketing obligation even when the detailed professional assessment belongs elsewhere. A CMO should understand enough to ask a clear question and recognise when the answer is still incomplete.

The programme's ₹86 lakh budget included the resources needed to establish and deliver the agreed collection. By the October review, spending was ₹68 lakh: ₹41 lakh in artist fees and ₹27 lakh in production and programme work. Those figures describe the actual spend at that point. They do not establish a standard fee for an artist, a universal allocation rule or a comparison of the value of one piece against another. The arrangements depended on the work and the intended use. I would not turn a programme total into guidance that it could not responsibly support.

We also needed to be careful about what participation appeared to endorse. Showing an artist's work in a retailer's programme could be interpreted more broadly than the agreed use itself. I did not want our communications to imply that each participating artist recommended every item sold by Zelquari or accepted every claim made elsewhere by the business. The presentation needed to describe the relationship accurately. Any additional statement would need its own basis, rather than being borrowed from the mere presence of the work.

The professional review did not remove the need for continuing care by marketing. Once a programme is published, someone may suggest a new crop, a new channel or an extended run. Those changes can look minor in a production conversation while being material to the arrangement. I wanted a route for checking proposed changes with the right owners. The aim was not to make every creative adjustment a board matter. It was to ensure that the business did not lose the relationship's boundaries as the work travelled through everyday production.

## Describe the unfinished collection honestly

By the October review, twenty-two pieces had agreed uses and were published. Twenty-six remained in negotiation. Twelve had been declined and removed. The categories reconciled to the original sixty proposals, and they told a more useful story than a single completion percentage. A negotiation still underway was neither a failed relationship nor a finished asset. A declined proposal was not something the creative team should continue treating as available. A published piece remained subject to the actual arrangement under which it was being used.

The ₹18 lakh difference between budget and spend was unspent budget at that stage. It was not a completed-programme saving, and it did not prove that every continuing discussion could be concluded within the remaining amount. That qualification mattered in management review. The team had delivered a smaller collection and still faced choices about the rest. A budget line should help directors understand those choices, not create an incentive to describe unfinished work as an efficiency achievement. We would need to review the remaining scope on its own terms.

I regarded the twenty-two-piece collection as a legitimate publication, rather than a defective version of a sixty-piece promise. We had to make the public account match what had actually been completed. If the creative concept depended absolutely on all sixty pieces, then the concept needed reconsideration before publication. It was not reasonable to solve that problem by treating open discussions as settled. The design should serve a sound relationship with the people whose work gives it substance, including their ability to decide against participation.

For my own practice, the change is to bring intended placements into the earliest conversation. A later rights review can identify a problem, but it cannot always recover the time or flexibility lost when the creative direction has become fixed. I want commercial, creative and professional judgement to inform one another while alternatives remain possible. A retailer participates in a creative community through many individual relationships. The quality of a collection includes how those relationships were established, how accurately they are described and whether the business respects their limits after the launch excitement has passed.