This project was about creating guerrilla advertising for promoting a cause, or thoughts on a topic. I decided to issue consumerism. It seems nowadays we are all involved in consumerist culture whether we like it or not, and it can be quite hypocritical to talk about how bad consumerism is when at the end of the day we are all caught up in buying certain brands and products, but consumerism does overall have down sides. For instance with so much pressure on the need to be 'green' and working towards a sustainable future but this is difficult when the economy runs on over-producing.

 

People are made to believe that we need to consume things to be happy, and they can be the smallest of items to the very biggest, flashiest items. In this project I thought about how consumerist habits have affected art. It seems common nowadays that art is no longer about the expression of an artist but rather it is a status symbol so that wealthy people can show off how educated they are and how much money they have. It seems the kind of people who collect art don't really care about art, they use it as a fashion statement so they can look cultured.

To put across my feelings towards this kind of ideal that art is a status symbol, I created this spray painted canvas. It simply reads '1 Art' and has a bar code on it to put across the idea that the content of the painting doesn't matter, as to these art collectors it doesn't matter. I created a description underneath the painting as if it were displayed in a gallery, it talks about the painting as it is to the art collector, claiming it'll make you look better than everyone by buying it. In addition I put a tacky, hand-written price sticker on it, implying that the value of art being all about the money in effect cheapens it and makes it more distasteful.