ESCP Europe Alumni Magazine - n°150 - Septembre/Octobre 2013 - (Page 59)

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Despite its early contestation of the market, more
recently street art has witnessed a season of progressive market «contamination». This has occurred on two sides. First, street artists themselves
have started to follow market logics and progressively dismantled street art’s foundational principles.
For example, an increasing number of them has
left the streets to enter art galleries and museums
(e.g. PAC, Milan, in 2007; Tate Modern, London,
in 2008; Centre Pompidou, Paris, in 2011, etc.).
More substantially, some of them have started
selling street artworks through galleries and art
auctions. Today some galleries are in fact specialized on street artists and ride street art’s popularity.
Additionally, many successful street artists are selling artworks as well as merchandising via personal
web sites, and thus run their own business.
Second, the contamination with the market has
gone much further. Multinationals, symbols of the
capitalistic market culture, which should have felt
threatened by street art ideology, have actually
used street art aesthetics to sell their products
more effectively. Sometimes, they have also asked for street artists’ direct involvement in order
to safeguard the authenticity of their commercial
initiatives. Examples are countless and include various industries, such as street wear (e.g. Adidas,
Diesel, Puma, etc.), advertising (e.g. Ikea, Nokia,
Porsche’s commercials), and even luxury (e.g.
Stephen Sprouse’s 2001 Graffiti collection, reedited by fashion designer Marc Jacobs in 2009 for
Louis Vuitton). The trend is also on a global scale.
Australian iconic brand Aussie, a producer of appreciated beauty products, has launched a limited
edition with a street art inspired edge. On October
2011, American cosmetic brand MAC has introduced the «Street Art Eyeshadow Palette», which
proposes a pack of six different shades in the format of a street graffiti. In 2013, Toyota has presented a super limited edition (the «Urban Art iQs»)
of its iQ model. The Japanese company involved
Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos to realize five
different cars for five exclusive consumers!
How can we explain that street art has been
domesticated by the market?
First, as we observed in an article appeared in
the Journal of Advertising (Borghini et al. 2009,
p. 113), «Some street artists are themselves employed in the advertising industry, and some aspire

©Banksy

A progressive market «contamination»

to become advertisers.» As such, the visual rhetoric
of street art is informed by advertising rhetoric.
Second, some street artists have been seduced by
the market sirens. When museums, art auctions,
and even companies started flirting with street
artists -and they still do!- some of them simply accepted to overcome the foundational principles of
street art:
- from art in public space to art in private spaces;
- from art for free to art for money;
- and from an expression of ideological market
contestation to a compliant form of market exchange. Third, and more remarkably, I suspect the
incorporation of street art counter-ideology within
established market ideology also represents a way
to grant street art survival. A counter-ideology has
two main ways to survive: either it succeeds in
overthrowing the dominating system (in our case,
capitalism) or it becomes part of the dominating
system.
Each of us is free to conclude whether the epilogue of street art is the one (s)he wished...
Personally, I look at Banksy’s early interpretation of
the movement nostalgically:
«Imagine a city where graffiti wasn’t illegal,
a city where everybody could draw wherever they
liked.
Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases.
Where standing at a bus stop was never boring.
A city that felt like a living breathing thing which
belonged to everybody, not just the estate of
agents and barons of business.
Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the
wall - it’s wet.»
●

ESCP Europe Magazine N° 150 - Septembre/Octobre 2013 -

Table des matières de la publication ESCP Europe Alumni Magazine - n°150 - Septembre/Octobre 2013

Couverture
Zapping
Sommaire
BUSINESS
Personnalités du mois Michel de ROVIRA (97) et Augustin PALUEL-MARMONT (99 MA) : Les trublions du goût
Focus
Moindre appétit
La guerre des prix
Pour 1€ de plus
Le temps digital
The customer experience
Commandez en drive
À vos côtés !
La fabrique à cocktails
Itinéraires
Color your motion
Le choix des mots
Entretiens
Agroalimentaire
Infrastructures
NEWS
Vie du réseau
Alexandre KARA (MS Médias 93), Chef du service politique d’Europe 1
Digital Generation
Bringing energy and environment together
Nominations
La mode, pilier de la vente en ligne
Spring cocktail
Fiest’Apprentis 2013
Crise produits-clients, la rupture ?
30th anniversary
Tous à bord !
Carnet
Déjeuner d’amitié des Seniors
Agenda
Carrière
Réussir mes années quinquas…
Les nouveaux métiers dans l’univers retail & consumer goods
Voyages It’s not about running, it’s about loving what you do!
À lire
CAMPUS
École When the «street» invades consumption
Fondation La Fondation créé l’événement
Vie étudiante Regatta 2013

ESCP Europe Alumni Magazine - n°150 - Septembre/Octobre 2013