A non-sponsored series of street art
A series that was sponsored and dictated by a Vespa manufacturer (POSSIBLY VESPA).
...something which irked at least one individual.
I'm not sure who made this, but given how long it has been around (at least a few months as I can tell) then I am guessing it was at least sponsored by the TTC or another government body.
Further down into Big Company Towne...
...we have the always ubiquitous and generally scorned "Corporate Art".
Q: Which art form is more valid?A: None of this will matter after the Lizard Overlords finally reveal themselves.
Actually, I rather enjoyed Woody Allen's take on art in a book of interviews with him which I am reading: "Art to me has always been entertainment for intellectuals". Not to mention his take on being survived by his works: "...I'm not interested in living on in the hearts of my countrymen. I'd rather live on in my apartment!".
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9 comments:
I still like the Vespa-heads :P
All that matters with art is if it allows people to engage with it. Generally, judging it on any other non-technical factors* or detail is high flaming wankery. That's just my opinion, however.
Generally I agree with you Tom and I don't ever feel it's right to police people's enjoyment of art.
But I've had an interesting arguement put to me regarding authenticity and the vespa-heads. The person I was talking to said that he felt that though everything get's co-opted eventually, this felt particularly upsetting to him since it took something that can grab people's attention if only by merit of being unusual and coming from a special place (a lone artist taking risks to get his art out there) into advertising, which is not unusual by any stretch and neither is it special.
His ultimate fear was that when people catch on that not only street art but street artists have been co-opted, then all the guys and gals busting their guts to put out interesting art will be ignored in just the same way you ignore an add for gillete razor creme or whatever. So, in essence, urban living would have one of those things which contribute to it's oft-proclaimed vitality turned into just more background noise.
In this sense I can symapthize, if only because I would hate it to death if people ignored my writing the way they ignore banners for "No money down for 12 months on couches at Sears"!.
The guy certainly has a point and I should probably clarify that as interesting, well-designed and clever as some ads can be, I don't consider them art, unless they are in a venue where their purpose is for people to enjoy their technical merits, rather than serve their purpose as an advertisement. As for the actual co-option of the artistic medium, street artists will just have to evolve their art to compete with our Lizard Overlords. I may be being a little flippant here, but it's not like sticking I AM A AD stickers on things is going to actually solve the problem (as such) of corporate co-option. The only solution that I see for street artists is really to improve and refine their art so that it remains engaging and challenging to the audience despite the legions of vespa-headed hipsters adorning the wallspace around it, whispering dark secrets and lies into my ears.
It's all still art, though, regardless of the motivations of its creators. Whether it's 'high' art or 'low' art or corporate art - it does not matter. We have to have faith in the general population enough that we can differentiate between the two. It is easy to fall into the trap of being the 'concern troll' (as they are called on internet forums), commenting on how you get it but you are worried that others might not make the 'right choice.'
And if my last message was a little incoherent or poorly phrased, it's because I'm a damn tired man and I am going to bed!
Concern troll? Well sir, I don't much care for that term at all. Mostly because it made me think of the goblin thing from "Just for Laughs".
Tom: What your suggesting doesn't really work, though. It's not a question of quality but of percieved motivation. Someone could make the most marvelous stencil or installation since Jesus carved that amazing Wonder Woman statue out of jello and it would, if this problem my friend mentions came to be, be dismissed or at least held in less regard due to the public's assumption that it was made at the behest of a company to advertise a product or service.
Meanwhile, when I say "the public" I basically mean everyone who wasn't the original artist or a friend of the artist. This isn't a case, Shawn, of worrying whether der plebs will grasp the subtle nuances but of whether all street art will find itself lumped in with advertising and thus be largely ignored as "regular" advertising is.
It's a sticky wicket to which I wish I had a solution! Well, a solution past "don't buy the products advertised in this manner so that, hopefully, companies stop with this crap".
And what I am saying, Oliver, is that street artists have already managed to get their art beyond being ignored as graffiti, ergo they should be able to meet the challenge of fighting advertisements as artists and create something that stands out as a genuine artistic effort. I'm not saying that this is something easy, but the co-option of artistic forms for commercial purposes isn't exactly something new. That street artists have to face is so soon after they have just begun to be seen as legitimate artists, rather than talented vandals, is unfortunate, but the situation and problem facing them is far from new. It's not like street artists can stop the co-option of their medium, aside from perhaps banning (in the South African Apartheid sense) sell-outs. Certainly, dragging this issue into the public arena may do some good, as generally people like to see art over ads, I think, and it might create a meaningful discourse on the matter, but the only real solution for street artists is to continue what they do and try and outdo the street ads. I recognize that this is going to be frustrating for many street artists, but I have a hard time seeing another solution, beyond all street artists getting business degrees, joining ad firms, and providing conclusive evidence in a series of sharply designed Powerpoint presentations that indicate that street advertising is less efficient than other means of advertising.*
*Although the question of legal action is an interesting one, as if the Vespa Hipsters have been painted on a building that has not provided consent to hold advertisements for Vespa, and conclusive evidence could be provided that the paintings in question were funded by Vespa for the purpose of serving as an ad, then there might be a suitably effective lawsuit available.
I'm not a huge fan of the 'concern troll' term myself, but it really does refer to a particular breed of individual who spends their time in a hypothetical nightmare world without realizing that they're more or less alarmist parrots.
In any event, I simply can't see individuals lumping all street art together for the same reason I can't see people being confused between a film or television show and an advertisement. Take the world of viral marketing, wherein several internet 'phenomenons' have been exposed as being produced by some company or other and dismissed relatively quickly. In an unregulated medium, people still managed to collectively shun those whose intentions were less than at least somewhat genuine.
If the question is, 'Will people be able to discern between legitimate art and corporate-sponsored viral marketing?' then my answer is, 'They have so far!'
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