Guess it shouldn’t surprise us when we find out that the sticker, wheat-paste, or mural we published of “Street Art” or graffiti actually turns out to be a logo or promotion for someone who is selling sneakers, t-shirts, lip-gloss, tampons, or toe fungus spray. That’s how people pay the rent, yo!
After all, we get press releases all the time from “Street Artists” who purport to get up all over the place in their home city of New Jesusville – but nobody we talk to has heard of them. Eventually word gets around and its not our business to trash people. And we all know at least one or two fine artists who have used the strategy of putting their stuff on the street to add some sort of “cred” to their “brand”. Fine. And look at the countless corporate names that have been inserting (or “integrating”) themselves into all manner of social/electronic media and “stories” in the last couple of years – just to leach off grassroots D.I.Y. culture and make the money and get the clicks but not actually support the art community that birthed it. It’s a complex story.
But it’s hard not to feel a little bit like you just got punked when you walk into a store and find the stuff you shot in a putrid garbage strewn alley is now silk-screened across a cheap flask or frisbee or truckers cap, giving it about as much meaning as a Kardashian wedding ring.
What are we going to do? Oh probably nothing – there is no purity test or reliable scale for measuring when someone has “sold out” and we don’t like pompous peeps who pretend otherwise. We’re just keeping an eye out, sister, and trying not to get fooled again.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Alinic, ASK, BAMN, Chris & Veng RWK, Gilf!, Icy & Sot, Lambros, Meer Sau, Mosstika, MUDA, Pixote, Tripel, and WD.
Top image > ASK (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Lambros (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Tripel (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Meer Sau “I Love Porno” in Salzburg, Austria. (photo © Meer Sau)
Meer Sau “Art is not a Crime” in Salzburg, Autria. (photo © Meer Sau)
MUDA (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Gilf! Her tribute to Malala Yousafzai (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Icy & Sot (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Chris, Veng RWK (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Bishop 203 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
BAMN does a memoriam for Aaron Swartz. Pixote on top. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Mosstika (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Alinic (photo © Jaime Rojo)
WD in Athens, Greece. (photo © Philipp Gor)
Untitled. Brooklyn, NY. Februray 2013 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA
Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!
<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
We return for Part 2 of this nearly incandescent display space in the northern woods of Catalonia discovered this month by photographer Lluis Olive Bulbena. Catalonia, Spain. (photo © Lluis Olive...
Welcome to BSA Images of the Week! April showers, babe. That's what we have been experiencing. Yes, that means we get May flowers. It's a whole system, see? Congratulations for our new Supr...
Berlin is slaughtered with Street Art, graffiti, stickers. It appears in so many areas and neighborhoods that you feel like you are being spoken to by artists everywhere you go, not just adverti...
This week BSA is in Barcelona to participate in the Contorno Urbano competition to select an artist for a new community mural and residency in the municipality of Sant Feliu de Llobregat – and of cour...
SWOON and "Pearly's Beauty Shop" are back! Heliotrope Benefit! Buy your TIX for Saturday 5/21 in Los Angeles HERE! BSA was an early and fervent supporter of the very first Pearly’s Beauty S...