Oh noes, my vandalism got vandalized!

So, is art/vandalism (depending on your definition of un-requested marking of structures that aren't yours) when it is done for art's sake... but it is evil when he is getting paid for it?

At least now maybe the owners of the walls in question will have a corporation to sue to recoup their clean-up costs.

The links in the piece evidencing numerous attempts to the contrary, there is really no intellectual content to this argument - whether a piece of vandalism becomes more or less legitimate when the "artist" is getting paid to do it - at all. Its "your favorite band sold out" played out among self-adoring and self-styled urban policy wonks inhabiting the far left, wherein the "artist" is being flaggelated for not adhering to their ideological dogmatism.

Its about as interesting.

If an artist needs to take a corporate gig to make some money, then fair enough. We all have to eat. But when the work he creates looks like cool guerilla art, and we initially THINK it's cool guerilla art, but then it turns out to be an illegal marketing campaign to sell scooters ... well, that's just creepy.

We was tricked.

Why not just be upfront about what you're doing and why?

"You gotta work for the Man at some point."

I wouldn't say that's entirely true. I think it's just extremely hard to avoid forever.

As I've said before, I'm pretty torn about how I feel about the Vespa ads. I might as well just quote my own comment on Spacing's Wire:

I like Fauxreel’s work...his old stuff is quite great. He's continuing to do exactly the same kind of stuff that he did before, except now he’s getting paid. And technically, what he was doing before—hacking billboards, wheatpastes elsewhere—was illegal, too. I don’t think that art isn’t art just because there’s commercial value or a corporation attached to it. But it leaves a bad taste in my mouth that I can’t quite figure out why—I think it’s not the fact of these ads themselves, but the precedent they set.

HEAD ASPLODING!!!!!!

"I condemn Fauxreel for being an accomplice to the corporate abuse of public space, and trying to trick our immune systems by passing off commercial expression as personal expression."

This is a pretty good illustration how this "debate" is sub-intellectual.

David: What I meant was that he is no longer respected as a culture jammer. I don't doubt that he's still respected as an artist.

why you're targeting the artist instead of the corporation?

Mostly because I feel that Spacing did a pretty good job explaining why it's wrong on the latter level, and that that was the focus of almost all of the initial debate. Indeed, in the extensive email interview that the Spacing writer conducted with me (to learn my thoughts as a representative of the TPSC), I exclusively addressed the matter on the corporate level, except for the one question wherein she specifically asked me how I felt about Fauxreel working with a corporation in this way (and even then I held myself back).

I'm writing about it on the personal level now because, well, that's precisely the subject of this intervention on Fauxreel's latest work.

I think the more money Fauxreel can make, the better for him. I don't have a problem with artists "selling out" that much because the people making that judgment are either usually jealous struggling artists themselves, living with their parents or a million roommates, or comfortably judging from their corporate desk jobs and dental plans.

The concern should be focused on Vespa, who unless they got widespread permits (not bloody likely), are knowingly paying someone to break the law for them.

Yes, but couldn't someone stage the same "intervention" for Jonathan's work? He was formerly an independent blogger and activist, but now working under the supervision of one of the bigger corporations in Canada. (...and, unless you scroll through the archives, none of that is very up front here, is it?)

My point is, you gotta feed the monkey. And I think Fauxreel is doing that in a fairly honest way. Vespa isn't Wal-Mart, after all. And unless I find out he's received some kind of blood money or babies in Saudi Arabia are dying as a result of his work, I can't see any reason why this guy needs to offer rationalization or what requires the "intervention." I think if (and in Jonathan's case that's when) a big corporation comes around and wants to pay you for something you do anyway, it's understandable to say yes (no baby deaths, tho).

Anyway, glad I came here today. Feels like old times mixing it up on the TOist comment boards. Keep it up.

x_the_x - If you can reply intelligently I'd love to see it.

wow - I so spelled 'guerilla art' wrong...this site needs spell check

There is nothing wrong nor surprising about Fauxreel's commission to create advertising. As previously alluded to, he no doubt enjoys eating and having a roof of some sort over his head.

Advertising agencies (good ones) have their ears to the ground, know their target market and what they like. No crime there, that's just business. However, in this particular instance, one might argue that it's not the creation that's at fault but the canvas. A commercially sponsored campaign that hijacks space, public or private maybe 'on trend' but it legitimizes irresponsibility and sets a precedent for others to copy.

One only has to recall in the past year or so, Absolut ads painted on downtown sidewalks or more recently, stylistic, fibreglass 'T's scattered vicariously in city parks to advertise an automobile.

Other agencies have created 'trendy' campaigns in other eras that at least limited their medium to legal (or perhaps illegal, if it was an unlicensed billboard) venues. Specifically, 'The Legend is Black' campaign created in the late '80s(?) for Black Label beer.

"But when the work he creates looks like cool guerilla art, and we initially THINK it's cool guerilla art, but then it turns out to be an illegal marketing campaign to sell scooters ... well, that's just creepy."

Please take a look at the book "The Rebel Sell". Good stuff and highly recommended reading for many of you.

His very early pedestrian series stuff was great. But as soon as Fauxreel started to hack billboards, altering them to display semi-political one-liners, he's been selling out. Whenever he has been interviewed in the media for these stunts, he completely sidesteps any political agenda one might think he had.

In The Post, he claims that while his work has a political flavour, he is “not out to make a statement”. In The Globe, he maintains that he is “not trying to make [himself] out as someone who is against big corporations.” Instead, he says, he is “reaffirming how powerful ads are.” I've always seen Dan as self promoting: an ad-friendly guerrilla marketing exec for hire.

I pulled those quotes from his own website.

I agree with tripper - it's not that Fauxreel took a corporate gig that's the problem, it's that the context of that corporate gig was intentionally misleading. Do a print campaign with photos of the same pasteups, and I'd feel differently. But this is a corporation making money off public property.

My annoyance is definitely aimed more at Vespa than Fauxreel; I agree that artists need to live & that sometimes involves taking money for advertising work. But surely this wasn't the only paying project available to him?

I dunno guys -- the pieces are pretty ripe for interpretation. i.e. the locus of consciousness (the head) replaced with a product - reducing the person to an animal.

Wheeee! Cognitive dissonance.

I don't see ads that question themselves in this way? Quite self-reflexive no?

Does it matter if there is a corp behind it in consideration of the other pieces that we have canonized as art? (Just a question - not a statement.)

“The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.”

Walter Benjamin

“Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction.”

Walter Benjamin