Poster Boy Tiptoes Towards the Dark Side
Well now, our vandalartist friend Poster Boy has become embroiled in an edgy art world to-do! He's out doing authorized vandalmixes of MOMA posters. Uh, or is he? Yes he is. Is that bad?
NY Mag scooped this story earlier this week, which ended up bringing more attention to the whole thing than anybody except Poster Boy probably wanted. MOMA denied being complicit in the "destruction" of the ads. But you know who was complicit? MOMA's advertising guy!
The problem here is that having Poster Boy remix your ads does, of course, make them much more interesting. But it's vandalism and he's a criminal so even MOMA itself must decry this outrageous behavior, event though it clearly benefits them, and secretly they probably love it, because they're art nerds and they like being edgy or whatever.
The bigger issue is this: you're walking a very fine line, homeboy. Nothing wrong with ripping up some MOMA ads (presumably) for pay. But eventually Nike will come calling asking for the same thing, and you have to be able to tell them to go to hell. Remember: the Basquiat Reeboks didn't come out until he was long dead.
[NYP; Pic via NY Mag/ Doug Jaeger]