Sunday, April 26, 2009

Art or Advertising?








Before he became famous for his art, Andy Warhol worked in advertising. The more controversial stance regarding this age old question is that advertising can be art. The thing that separates art and advertising is that advertising can be evaluated in two ways: 1. Whether it is creative/original and 2. whether it fulfills the purpose of marketing the brand? There is no question that many ads I have studied are works of art. In these three above photos can you tell which are meant to advertise and which are not? I am reluctant to say because I think they can be art as well as advertisements. For those of you who must know..The top photo is of a chalk drawing by renowned British street artist Julian Beever, and there is no marketing ploy behind this work. The second photo is of one of dozens of neon bicycles placed around Manhattan. They are part of a guerilla marketing technique that DKNY launched to promote their new stores. The bottom picture is of a sculpture of a woman made out of 20,000 peaches. This sculpture also serves as an advertisement for Ella brand skincare. The sign in front of the sculpture reads, "Skincare that is good enough to eat." The Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art have both featured advertisements in exhibitions. So how can we say advertisements can not be art?

No comments:

Post a Comment