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:
One of the exciting book releases this fall drops today in stores across the country – which is appropriate with a name like Spray Nation. Martha Cooper. SPRAY NATION 1980s Graffiti Photographs. ...
As founding members of the Martha Cooper Library at the Urban Nation Museum in Berlin, Brooklyn Street Art (BSA) proudly showcases a monthly feature from the MCL collection, illuminating the extensiv...
It’s called ALL BIG LETTERS but it could easily be called ALL BIG DREAMS because the outward techniques, the history, and the tools of the trade of graffiti on display at Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery all...
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities. Now screening:1. Rose B. Simpson in "Everday Icons" 2. Jan Kaláb - Via Designboom 3. ENESS - Modern Guru ...
New Gallery Show Opens at Italian Cultural Institute of New York Ever the melting pot, New Yorkers take it almost for granted that we are going to hear 10 different accents just in the course of our ...