The Star runs a piece today in the GTA section about a group that’s trying to save an old ad on Weston Road north of Lawrence from being eroded. They’d like to see the ad, painted as a mural on a brick wall some 60 years ago, earn some kind of heritage designation. (The ad advertises a set of two diamond rings for $125, a lot more bling than Spence can offer you for the same amount today.)
This story, for me, prompts interesting questions on what will be the most valued art of our era when we are all dead and gone. Will it be Damien Hirst’s formaldehyde-preserved shark? Annie Pootoogook’s colour pencil drawings of life in the Canadian north? Or Janet Cardiff’s moving multimedia installations? Much as I like all of these works, I doubt they will be revered as much as the advertising of our time. After all, the art we seem to laud most from other eras also falls under the category of “commercial”: Goya’s portraits of the royals, Michaelangelo’s frescoes commissioned by popes and bishops; perhaps even Robert Capa’s war photojournalism falls under this category.
This isn’t a tongue in cheek speculation, but a serious one. With so much of our society’s creative talent employed by the advertising sector, really how improbable is it that a cola commercial screened during Sunday afternoon football won’t land up in the 2106 MoMA next to some Bill Viola? Sad, but maybe could be true?
12 comments
Why is that sad? Is there no artistic merit in an ad or a commercial simply because it’s trying to sell something? Why is art created for some esoteric reason inherently superior than art created for a purpose?
It’s a weird (absurd?) idea you’re proposing.
The chief distinction between art and advertsing is that the former is created to inspire, while the latter is created to sell. They both happen to be visual media, but only in so much as typewriters and computers both have keyboards.
The MoMA already has a large collection of design and advertising material that they keep in a segregated space from the “fine art” pieces. One could argue that they could put the Coke cans with the Andy Warhol works, but I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a curator who would do so.
The other distinction is that advertising is almost always created by a team of staff (copywriters, designers, creative directors) and their original concepts are often watered-down by a paying client, who also plays a role in the creation of the work. A painter or scultptor, by comparison, is faced with no such limitations, nor any client to satisfy, can create work outside of any need to be profitable/accessible/inoffensive/polite/etc.
As someone who spends a lot of time designing and printing posters for rock shows, I’m a bit offended at your implication that what I do is “watered down” or “weak” in some way.
Andy Warhol almost never “made” his own work – he had teams of assistants to do it, or contracted the job out to professional sign shops and the like. Is “his” work watered down and lesser?
I find it amusing that a screen printed art print will bring $400-$500, but if I put some type on it advertising a show, it’s only worth $20.
“A painter or scultptor, by comparison, is faced with no such limitations, nor any client to satisfy”
What about commissioned works of art, such as portraiture?
I, for one, wish the Weston group some success in preserving the historic ad. If it were a historic TTC shelter – which is also created by a team of staff to meet the needs and budgets of a paying client – Spacing would be all over it like Garfield on lasagna.
Leonard ^ I don’t think Leah was implying that the ad shouldn’t be saved — it just prompted questions.
Personally, I like those ghost ads. They were usually for the business that the painted ad is located on. I can live with that kind of advertising in the public realm — it is not transient and helps the business right there, and not some shmoes living in a resort in the Bahamas. The permanence of the ad is what transformed them.
What is weird is that the city will give an outdoor ad company a permit to erect a billboard if it covers up an old wall-painted ad.
Just so you don’t think we’re anti-advertising, you should check out our public art issue where we discuss these issues at length. We defend ghost signs as well as the swinging lady on Eglinton’s Golden Mile.
What seems to be getting in everyone’s craw on this post has to do with what is art and where do we draw the lines. That’s up to everyone to decide on their own. I wouldn’t put silk-screened posters in the AGO unless it was an exhibit about posters, and I wouldn’t put Warhol’s art beside the Mona Lisa.
We all have our tastes and they differ. I think Art is meant to provoke thought, and one of the thoughts it is NOT suppossed to provoke is “what is it trying to sell me?” which is what ads do. There’s a big difference.
This is why there are terms like low art, high art, fine art, pop art, commercial art, etc.
I’m certain Garfield is not art. That cat isn’t even funny.
Jeremy — In Leah’s post (and my criticism), she was arguing the artistic merits of a million-dollar Superbowl commercial. Having produced some of that sort of “big money” advertising crap myself, I was trying to argue that there’s no “art” in a Chevy Silverado campaign, Captain Morgan’s Rum billboard, or Pepsi TV spot.
I’m surprised that you’d lump your own creative work at Popfuel in with these vapid multi-billion dollar corporate ad campaigns — I certainly wouldn’t. You’re providing an intimate “boutique” experience, and comparing your own process to Warhol’s is probably apt. I have several silkscreened rock posters on my walls. But I’d never put a Silverado bus shelter ad up on the wall beside them.
So are we distinguishing between commercial claptrap and art, or between art we like and art we don’t like? There’s “art” out there — sitting in famous, international galleries — I myself would never consider artistic.
Of commercial art … what about Toulouse-Lautrec’s posters? Or wartime propaganda posters, which are valued as vintage art today?
For that matter, to use a more blatant Silverado-equivalent of yore, what about automobile advertising from the 50s and 60s? True, it may in some ways have more to do with retro/nostalgia than self-conscious “art”…but perhaps that’s the latter’s problem more than the former’s.
Indeed, this whole argument illustrates the fundamental blinkered pitfalls these days of using too much of a self-conscious “art argument” on behalf of what is or isn’t “heritage”…
Hello there, I was looking around on spacing and came across this…I had to put in my two cents, even though this article was written awhile ago.
I think the thing here, is not that a billboard or poster, or the like, is commercial, made for a million dollars, or fifty dollars, but does it have any artistic expression? what is the audience getting out of it? There is alot of advertisements that are purely advertisements to me. They are designed in a way to sell the product featured, not offer any sort of artistic comment or expression. There is also advertising that is incredibly beautiful. It can be appreciated beyond the purpose of just marketing.
I haven’t seen the ad on Weston Road, but perhaps the billboard offers something unique in the design itself that is rarely seen today. I don’t think there is anything necessarily wrong with appreciating design or images, despite that they may also be used within the context of advertising. I guess its the fact that there is an endorsement attached to it that may make it hard for the viewer to accept (or separate), especially if that endorsement is for something one doesn’t agree with.
I think there is merit is preserving examples of these old ads, from a historical rather than artistic perspective.
It’s a theme I pursue on my blog:
http://brickads.blogspot.com/search/label/Protection