rebel:art

Brad Downey: “This work is a gift to “Street art shows” and Leuphana”. Fotos: Just

Akim bei seiner Live-Action-Painting-Performance.

Brad Downey schafft es mal wieder den absurden Verhältnissen beim Lüneburger Graffiti-Spektakel ARTotale den richtigen “Dreh” zu geben: Anstatt, wie die meisten anderen Künstler, einfach nur die immergleichen Motive zu sprühen und kleben, reagiert er auf die totale Vereinnahmung mit der größtmöglichen Überidentifizierung – und malt gleich das McDonald’s-Logo inklusive Slogan. Das ist die wohl einzige Arbeit, die nicht der Dekoration der Stadt dient, und wahrscheinlich auch von den Einwohnern als “hässlich” und “werblich” abgelehnt wird. Und das gibt den Verhältnissen einen spannenden neuen Dreh: Wenn Werbung immer mehr wie Street-Art aussieht und Street-Art immer mehr Akzeptanz (im Gegensatz zur Werbung, die immer stärker als “visuelle Umweltverschmutzung” empfunden wird) bei allen Bevölkerungsschichten gewinnt, dann muss Street-Art vielleicht wie Werbung aussehen, um wirklich radikal zu sein. Nur so ein Gedanke. Mehr Live-Bilder von Just gibt’s weiterhin hier.

Update 13.10: Ekosystem hat ein kurzes Interview mit Brad Downey geführt:

Do the university and students enjoyed/understood your work?

Brad Downey: I have not heard any response from the university staff. So, I suspect they do not approve. Maybe they feel a bit cheated as I did not tell them what I wanted to paint. I maintained that my work would be created spontaneously. The university students understood my work very well. I was very worried that the painting would be misunderstood by the students and my fellow artists. The University is undergoing a process of “Rebranding”. To my understanding, Leuphana has recently paid a large sum of money to design a new logo, name, and concept for the whole Universiy. Part of an effort to raise student fees. One student explained to me that it has been referred to internally as an Americanization of the old German school. And many of the students are unhappy about this. Some have made their own films addressing this same issue. Our ARTtotale, street art project, seems to be a part of this re-branding.

Do you think the wall will last long?

I hope so. I think it’s a good work.

Have you already received any reaction from Mc Donald yet?

This work has nothing really to do with McD. I just wanted to insert “random logo with power.” It could have been any well know logo. I feel that many of the so called “street artists” do this anyways. They travel the world painting logos. So, I thought I should show up and just paint any logo.

Anything else?

Special thanks to the The Wa (he helped paint the whole thing.)