Saw these, enjoyed em… but soon figured they must be some form of advertising. Thanks for explaining, though maybe it would have been better if I had never known…

Something like separating the artist from the art?

You may be my favorite blogger in Vancouver… good to see you safely home — keep up the good work.

just saw this & thought youd like: http://www.buzzfeed.com/scott/muto

yeah, saw these all over toronto and was like, dude is also here, then I saw them inside a Vespa store.

I knew these were vespa ads immediatly, they were way too clean, non-threatening and meaningless not to be ads.

I hope Vespa, the agency responsible and any other cunt who tries this shit is appropriately arrested, jailed and fined the maximum amount.

the answer to your last question is yes. as we have seen with hip-hop, graffiti and many other art forms and cultures as soon as it is co-opted by corporations and used as a mainstream vehicle its integrity is always compromised.

the real question is, does anyone, other than writers/streets artists and those that keep an eye out for that type of work, even notice these ads for what they are? i would think no, seems like a whole lot of nothing to me……

These were actually designed by an artist, not the agency. Dan Bergeron aka fauxreel. fauxreel.ca - his “projection” are pretty cool.

First off, I’d like to express my disappointment to the author for not giving the artist his due. Like Jack says, these posters were designed and photographed by fauxreel, a Toronto-based street artist and photographer. Whether you like the work or not, at least give him the credit he’s due.

I met Dan when he was here and we had a pretty good chat about this project. I have to say I really liked the image when I first saw it, and was disappointed to hear that it was advertising for Vespa. One of my favorite things about street art (and one of the initial things that drew me to express myself through this medium) is that it advertises for no-one.

That said, I think that regardless of its purpose it is a very effective and well-crafted image done by a master photographer. I also really appreciated the other (unsponsored) work that Dan put up while he was here - follow the link below for some flicks. I also appreciate the hard work that has gone into this project - from conception to execution to dissemination, it’s a lot of work for one person. I mean, it took four days to cut out each individual poster by hand….that’s a hell of a lot of time and effort.

Art costs money to make, regardless of whether or not it hangs in a gallery or is put up on the street. For any artist to take on a project of this magnitude (5 cities across Canada) it would be almost impossible without some outside form of support. I do think, however that it’s too bad for Dan that for many people in the street art comunity and outside of it, this will be their first impression of his work, and they’ll be quick to label him/write him off as “that guy who did the Vespa ads” when his body of work is much greater than this.

It was a job he was approached by Vespa and hired to do, that he took on only on the condition that he retain complete creative control over the creation of the image and it’s placement. In addition to street art, he supports himself as a commercial photographer, so I can see how it was not too much of a stretch to then take what he does commercially to the next step of putting it up in the streets himself.

And put it up he did - working 8-10 hour shifts, he and one friend managed to cover the whole city in just two or three days. I gotta give him props for that.

fauxreel will be back this summer (not for Vespa) and - regardless of my feelings about this project in particular - I still have respect for him as an artist who has been making large-scale street art for a very long time - and will probably be going out wheatpasting with him when he gets here.

Every movement that has started out as underground has been co-opted by mass media and other corporate entities in their continual search for ways to pull consumers in. This is nothing new, and should be a shock to anyone anymore. I don’t like it, but I accept it as a part of today’s culture. The decision to undertake this Vespa project was a controversial and complicated choice, and I’m sure Dan’s received a lot of flack from other artists and the general public because of it. I understand why he did it, but would not have made the decision myself. (or would I? That’s easy to say in theory but when starting at a contract filled with $$$$ and the possibility of traveling around canada getting up in every major city, it would be an extremely difficult thing to turn down.)

Ok long comment, sorry. Been thinking about this stuff a lot lately. Here’s the link to some more of his stuff.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shallom/sets/72157604552027742/

“Does advertising through street art compromise the art form’s integrity?”

No more so than any other form of art that has been co-opted by advertising companies in their relentless search for methods of hooking new customers.
Because no matter how many companies jump on this bandwagon there will always be artists out there who are keepin it real. Doing it for love not money.