I don't know how many of you are aware of what's going on right now in the subways, but there's this guy "Poster Boy." "Poster Boy" is a 20 something guy who cuts subway posters and collages them back together in different arrangements to be witty social commentary. They're pretty damn cool, and though I've never seen one in person I always keep my eyes peeled in the hopes that someday something will subtly catch my eye and make me realize, "Holy shit, that's really not suppose to be like that."
© Poster Boy
Really cool right?
Michael Anderson, on the other hand, began his career long before "Poster Boy", but I'm not convinced his work has the same power, or even the same potential for power that "Poster Boy's" work does. Here's why:
1."Poster Boy" takes pieces of the subway, and rearranges. He acknowledges with his work that advertisements really belong to the public. We are their purpose, so we always have the potential to alter it.
2. He honors the fact that the posters are meant for the dungeons, tunnels and piss scented rat caves and he leaves them there, all while re-defining and re-igniting an exploration of public art.
3. His work is performative. When people bare witness to an action it's much easier for them to imagine themselves doing it. (It is rumored that "Poster Boy" impersonators have been popping up all over)
4. Political commentary is meant for the masses, not for galleries. While Anderson's collages are undoubtedly beautiful, he's taking something meant for the masses and giving it to elitists.
5. Anderson showed up to the exhibition opening in a head to toe track suit, complete with cocked baseball cap. This may have been a nod to the "street" but lets face it, how many "Jenny from the blocks" really go to the Marlborough Gallery? It's that Post-modern irony seeping through again; track suits don't belong in galleries, just like subway posters don't.... but there they are.
© Michael Anderson
What I see in Anderson's work is beauty, composition, color, repetition, narrative, a homage to the great DADA artists, surrealist painters, and Picasso. As much as Anderson himself may see the work as being about "what it's like to be alive today," I think it's more of a statement about art its self. Anderson's work has very little to do with the actual ads. Sure, he rearranges them to make narratives, but they don't speak to subway/street culture. They are familiar, but I'm speaking to their familiarity as a lower middle class white female. I think perhaps Anderson's artist statement about the work being about life, suits "Poster Boy" more appropriately then it suits himself!
I've fallen in love with both of these artists. "Poster Boy" for bringing art to the subway, and Anderson for bringing the subway to art. The potential for great collaborations aside, I wonder what would happen if the two met. In some great world they'd get together for drinks at a bar and Anderson would talk all about how great it feels to be a sell out and "Poster Boy" would talk about the state of the states, and both would discuss how the people have the power, if only they knew how to get together to use it.
If you want to know more about Poster Boy here's a start:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/arts/design/04post.html?_r=1&8dpc
http://www.nypress.com/blog-3216-poster-boy-ready-for-his-close-up.html
If you want to know more about Michael Anderson:
http://www.chamuconegro.com/
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