I like murals, well...ok,
some murals. Living in Philadelphia, you kind of get used to seeing one on almost every other side of a building, thanks to the city's
mural arts program. The murals are good and not-so-good but, overall, I think they tend to bring another level of life to an old city.
A few weeks ago, I was out on an errand. Walking past Fleishman's Fabrics (pictured above) I noticed the outlines for a mural on the side of the building at 5th and Monroe.
"Nice", I thought,
"something other than the black walls to look at..." A couple of days later, I saw the mural taking shape with two guys painting the walls and colors starting come through. About a week in, the wall was finished.
I didn't know what to expect, but I definitely didn't like what wound up there. As you can see, it's basically an ad for
Pabst Blue Ribbon beer using the art of
Pabst art contest winners. It seems Pabst has an art contest where the works have to feature the beer prominently. The winners, apparently fans of the beer, get a monetary prize, spots in a traveling exhibition, AND they get to have thier works reproduced in murals. Great, now I get to look at mediocre images of a mediocre beer every time I pass this corner, which is at least four days a week.
This movement of so-called
'viral marketing' has got to be the most cynical and tired efforts by corporations to gain new consumers. Not that it hasn't worked, but most of these campaigns, especially those targeting the 18-25 demographic, come off as heavy-handed and usually missing the mark. I'm reminded of some ads for a PSP video-game console that mimicked street artists by using grafitti-inspired characters and
wheat-pasting. That campaign was basically laughed off the walls, and faced the wrath of business owner who didn't want the ads on their businesses. In fact, there were some prominently displayed on the walls of a business directly across the street from the one I'm complaining about.
I'm guessing Fleishman's were offered some money to have the murals put up. That's the only way I could imagine them agreeing to have it up. Maybe, they
really like Pabst and wanted to show that love to the world. But what do I know? I know that if they really wanted something artistic, eye-catching and
original on the walls, they have a school-full of creative, energetic grade-school kids right around the corner who, with some guidance, could probably have put something up that was amazing. Not to mention that there are thousands of LOCAL artists and would-be artists who would have been happy to help spruce up this dark corner. Instead we passers-by get a bland, corporate logo to brighten our day.
Yay.
A related item is here
One way around it is to opt out of the market side altogether, make what you want when you want to, work another job and make peace with that.
There is a middle ground there. A place where I suspect most of us creatives inhabit. We work jobs which don't take much from us creatively, keep fairly regular studio hours, might be lucky enough to work with a good gallerist or two, if we're lucky, manage to get grants when possible and do whatever we can to make sure that our art gets the time it needs to develop.Attempting to keep up with the demands of the art market is deadly to the artist and to art: the artist burns out and winds up making things that don't satisfy them and the art isn't as strong as it could be. These conditions might push some to greater limits of creativity, but does good art result from the frenzy-inducing schedule of say, the fashion industry? No, I don't think so.