Firma
The FIRMA group – Michal Škapa, Jan Kaláb, Michal Cimala, Karel Štědrý, Martin Krajc, Pasta Oner, Matěj Olmer – was founded in 2021 out of the need of its members to revise romanticized ideas about the character and roles of the contemporary visual author in order to reinvent the artist’s credible and dignified starting position. The founding manifesto of the group states: “In the gears of accelerating capitalism, the artist has not left much space to humanize the social order through his work and cultivate social dynamics by stimulating upbringing, education and care.” The prototype of the starting point for the artists is to be “mutual prosperity”, both between authors and market-institutional mechanisms, as well as between artists themselves. Individually established authors then replace mutual competition with models of cooperation, collective decision-making and elements of corporate culture. At the same time, through the implementation of marketing thinking and entrepreneurial spirit, they aim to create a unique, rare artistic unit that goes beyond the traditional concept of artistic group.