Increasingly, however, corporations have laid claim to public art in ways critics say make muralists accomplices to gentrification and consumerism. Wynwood, an upscale development in a downtrodden neighborhood of Miami, is perhaps the most infamous case of developers using murals to “artwash” a community, as art in service of gentrification is called. Goldman Properties bought up blocks of abandoned warehouses and dilapidated homes, then commissioned graffiti artists to create large-scale murals to beautify the neighborhood.H/t Tyler Cowen.
The resulting outdoor mural park, Wynwood Walls, became the centerpiece of the new upscale neighborhood that Goldman Properties carved out of the Puerto Rican enclave locals once called Little San Juan
To tourists, art lovers and those moving into the expensive new homes, the late Tony Goldman, Wynwood’s developer, was a public art visionary. But sociologist Marcos Feldman labels him “a professional neighborhood gentrifier” in the short documentary “Right to Wynwood,” which looks at how the development displaced longtime residents. Filmmakers Camila Álvarez and Natalie Edgar told WLRN public radio that, as artists, they like the vibrancy of the new Wynwood. But, Álvarez said, the murals felt “kind of artificial because a business model was brought and gentrification was planned. It was developer-led, instead of being artist-led.”
Commercial interests have funded the rise of internationally known street artists like Shepard Fairey, author of the Obama Hope posters, along with a Levi’s clothing collection and wall art built around Fairey’s “Obey” trademark. Sometimes the murals don’t include overt commercial messages but help a brand “get their name out there in the subculture,” Man One, a graffiti artist in Los Angeles, told the TV station KCET. His mural, “Elephunktl,” a stylized elephant wearing a feathered headdress on a storefront in Lincoln Heights, Calif., was paid for by Red Bull, for instance. While the mural does not include a direct Red Bull reference, the brand has received plenty of publicity for its video showing Man One’s artistic process.
The ads work because they don’t look like ads, says Francesca Romana Puggelli, who teaches a course on advertising psychology at the University of Southern California. Consumers, particularly younger people resistant to traditional advertising, “don’t think ‘what does this mural want from me?’” she says. “They just see art.”
Culture Magazine
Christine MacDonald, Street Art Used To Be the Voice of the People. Now It’s the Voice of Advertisers. In These Times. March 11, 2019.
