A Concept for a gallery show inspires one street artist to try an on-the-street experiment.
Billi Kid recently completed his version of a shoe-shine box to contribute to the unusual show that Bed-Stuy gallery Brooklynite opens next week, and he decided to take his box a step further.
The 100 artists, mostly street artists, have created their own version of a shoe-shine box, a metaphor for the entrepreneurial spirit. “Having been born in a third world country, Colombia, I have seen many a kid making a living shining shoes,” says Billi. “They hustle a modest living out of their shoeshine boxes. It is a testament to the human will to survive that these kids stretch their craft day and night to simply put food on their table. That is, if they even have a table.”
Billi Kid is a bit of an entrepreneur himself so he used his shine box on the street to sell some of his artwork. In New York City, as a result of street artists winning a fight with the Giuliani administration in the late 1990’s to sell their art on the streets, you are allowed set up a table and sell your own artwork without fear of reprisal.
“I took Brooklynite’s challenge to heart and set out to see if I could actually put food on the table working out of my “SHINEBOX,” says the artist. Taking into account overhead costs for creating his postcards, “I figured that I would need to sell at least 16 postcards per hour @ a $1.00 each to make $8.00 dollars in profit an hour.”
Traffic was pretty good on his spot near the park, and a number of people stopped to look at his signature political-personality postcards featuring the likes of George Bush, Sara Palin, and Michelle Obama. Within a couple of hours, 20 postcards of Billi Kid’s had sold, and the short-lived experiment ended up with Billi and his cameraman in a nearby pizza joint eating the profits. Luckily, there was money left for the subway home.
AND HE MADE A PROMOTIONAL VIDEO WITH THE EXPERIENCE
More on Billi’s experiment Here
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week. Hope you had a good Thanksgiving, although it is hard to imagine anyone feeling like it was great, considering that we now have long food lines around the c...
When Jan Sauerwald, Urban Nation's Artistic Director, began making plans in earnest for the new facade for the museum, he was pondering what the art on the walls should convey. Given the difficult Co...
Since its explosion of pigment and hue on subway cars and in the streets of New York and Philadelphia a half century ago to its spread to the hundreds of cities worldwide, the truly grassroots movemen...
Here's our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring A Visual Bliss, Buttless Supreme, Case Ma'Claim, Dre, Jaye Moon, KAS, Kelly Towles, Lexi Bella, Mr. Prvrt, Pear, Shark Toof...
“Getting a feel for dramatically upscaling my process,” says London born Jake Aikman as he brings a foreboding and riling image of the Black Sea to Kiev in the Ukraine. Primarily a studio painter back...