Thursday, August 11, 2011
Anonymous says 'Vhils Levis Work'
was reading this article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/11/levis-riot-ad-uk-violence?intcmp=239
and had a look at the advert it mention on YT and was recommended the vid below.
Levi's - Now is our TIME! launch in Berlin - Vhils explosion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=HQUUknfjqNY
Is raging against commercialism like pissing into the wind.?
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So in the first one they're using riot imagery to appear cool, but at the same time are denouncing the recent riots because of a backlash against their ad. Just shows how shallow and fake these hypocrite cunts are. They'll leech off of anything they can to boost their image, but then drop it in an instant if it's no longer to their advantage to exploit it.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Vhils thing...that was featured on most of the mainstream street art blogs, and they didn't even realise it was an advert. That's how seamlessly street art and advertising have meshed nowadays...even the so-called experts find it difficult to tell one from the other. Probably because most of the time they are in fact the same thing.
There's a comment below that vid saying that this is "...advertising to people that hate advertising by co-opting their cultural influencers." Which is pretty much true, but nevertheless it's up to us to point what is really going on and that street artists are sucking corporate cock, because many people might not realise.
I don't believe it's pissing in the wind to highlight these things, because it often only takes a small thing to trigger a backlash that snowballs. I think a lot of these brands and artists are actually going to find that they are damaging their reputation by doing this kind of thing, because the public don't like being taken for fools and manipulated. It tends to create a resentment that attaches itself to its perpetrators in the form of a lasting stigma.
What´s the big difference between that or doing a left political statement and sell it to Simon Cowell or a oil shake from dubai?
ReplyDeleteNot much really. Many people are now aware that Banksy is a hypocritical, PR hyped, egotistical champagne-socialist prick who steals his ideas from lesser known artists. No harm in exposing a few other people as well while we're at it though.
ReplyDeleterumour going around that banksy has been helping jboy with all this shit that they have been pumping. pow print out at christmas. Not even a rumour as a few people have brought it up and its mental
ReplyDeleteIs this like those rumours that everybody should buy Mr. Brainwash prints 'cos Banksy was behind them.
ReplyDeleteShepard Faiery got beaten up because of his latest shitty advert. hahaha! http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/aug/12/shepard-fairey-beaten-danish-mural?CMP=twt_fd
ReplyDeletefucking epicly deserved. Shame they didn't break the prick's whiney jaw.
ReplyDeleteI still don't understand why you all get upset when an artist works for a brand. They have to earn money the same as the rest of us, because unfortunately in this modern world making art for free doesn't put food in bellies! There's far worse things people can do with their lives than to make pretty pictures to help people sell things. And ultimately the power is with you, as you can choose not to buy either the artists or the brands products.
ReplyDeleteLevis paid friends of mine to build a skate spot for a one day event below one of these Vhils pieces. They told me Levis paid 6 grand to rent the wall for the Vhils piece for two weeks. Building the skate spot would have cost at least another 2000 in materials alone. So Levis spent a lot of cash on this promotion, so hopefully Vhils got paid well, and can spend time making more personal/street work. If he's damaged his reputation as an artist then he's the only person who will suffer from it, so I see no reason for us to complain. And Berlin got a concrete skate spot (which doesn't have any Levis branding!) That's a good thing in my eyes!The face we see in the tv commercial is, I believe, a local Turkish youth leader. If I remember his story correctly he was a troublesome youth who turned his life around and now helps keep other young Turks on the straight and narrow. For those that don't know, the Turkish community in Berlin I guess could be compaired with the black community in London ie they usually end up with a worse education than their white peers, and are blaimed for much of the crime and other social ills. I would image that for a Turkish teenager to see a member of their community get such "respect" as to have their portrait put on a wall by a big brand and appear on television could only be a good thing (as in "this guy turned good and gets respect, so maybe I could do that too")So yeah, another big brand leeching on the scene, but at least there are some positive points there too. Maybe the bad outweighs the good, it usually does, but like I said at the start you can make your protest by not being a consumer of these products. I know I shan't be buying any Levis!
of course, and it's the same in Berlin. a lot of white parents don't want their kids to go to schools where 9 out of 10 kids are Turkish as they will feel like a minority, and their German language skills suffer (many Turkish kids speak no German at home, so speak it badly at school, which effects the other pupils too) and as we know being able to communicate is important if you want to get on in the world, as is feeling one with your community/peers/etc. So I'm sure the white kids in "working class" neighbourhoods in Berlin suffer the same as in the UK.
ReplyDeletebut all this is beside the point. I said "white peers" not "white class-mates" as I was talking about London as a whole, which as you well no has a lot of incredibly rich people as well as working class people, and we all know that if you have money you get a better deal in life. But ultimately, It doesn't matter if I'm talking about black kids, white kids, green kids - I was painting a picture for you to show the relevance of the guy in the Vhils piece to the community it was made in.
Yeah, that's the point I was making, that it's not about race, but social deprivation.
ReplyDelete