As the LA Times reports, the well-known street connoisseur Skullphone, known for his bombardments of billboards and dumpters, has been incorporated into a Riverside Art Museum show, though not quite in static forms but as an experiment in flux, of sorts. The once furtive designs show up scattered, in semi pell-mell style, throughout the museum inside and out. In a fascinating synergy betwen host, savvy local commercial interests, and the outsider artist himself, the show is sponsored by a waste management company and teenage fashion heart-throbs Volcom. The article does note that his work is also featured in the gift store of another museum, and graffiti and other forms of street art have been turned into a cottage-industry by galleries for the last thirty years. Let’s talk, again, of the commercialization of street art, or the incorporation, or co-opting, of youth trends and styles, but also the responsibility, or desire, of museums to stay “in touch” with trends and the dynamic undertaking of artists in order to create meaningful “conversations” with communities. Also, the article does highlight the sense of “branding,” so let’s discuss: Do we define branding, or does branding define us? Can there be a two-way street in terms of commodification? Is this an example of branding developing “from below,” organically, and naturally, or something that highlights Volcom making such an event simply seem that way, in order to generate loyalty?
See the full article here:
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh306/leftofthedialmag/dumpster.jpg
And here are some quick vivid snippets:
“And it’s just the latest project for the elusive Skullphone, whose stickers and wheat-pasted posters began appearing in 1999 throughout the West Coast and New York. Earlier this year, he gained more attention when several Clear Channel electronic billboards throughout Los Angeles featured inserts of his namesake image, prompting rumors on the Internet that the artist had hacked into the billboards. As it turned out, the artist paid for the ad time, which created a backlash claiming Skullphone had sold out to corporate interests. “Not many people got through the surface labels in the blogosphere,” the artist says of the minor controversy.
In the Riverside show, curated by the museum’s Lee Tusman and sponsored by street-wear brand Volcom and a local waste-management firm, Skullphone’s work is displayed in installations depicting a gas pump, a bathroom and a parking meter, as well as throughout the building. Tusman says it’s an attempt to capture the seek-and-find nature of street art — to reflect the fact that, in the wild, Skullphone’s works go up overnight on the backs of billboards, in alleyways and on electrical boxes.”
-Camilo Smith
