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)
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