Branded: Andrew Beck

The moment when artists become brands

Jeff my bubbles

The way artists are associating themselves and their art with high-end brands (what the advertising industry calls ‘partner brands’) has totally insinuated itself into the artworld but artists then denying that they do it, now that is a little more rare. Here’s Jeff Koons commenting on his recent association with Dom Pérignon

“I don’t do very many product associations, but you know Dom Pérignon is a fantastic brand, a wonderful Champagne.”

Other product associations with the Jeff Koons’s brand:
Illy - coffee sets
Bernardaud – illustrated porcelaine plate
BMW – car
FIFA World Cup - print
Supreme decks - skateboard
Kiehl’s – body products
Lisa Perry – fashion
Ikepod - wristwatch

Image: A bottle of champagne (rosé) with its limited edition stand by Koons (the bottle rests on the sculpture between pours) on sale at US $20,000.

Sunnyside up

Anyone who's talked with Billy Apple will know of his struggles to get the Billy apple up and running - that’s a Billy Apple apple, grown on a tree and named Billy. Now we've come across a potential fast track: burning a Billy Apple Trademark directly onto a ripening apple via a photogram process. Another art association would be Dennis Oppenheim’s 1970 work Reading position for second degree burn. Oppenheim left a book on his chest as he lay in the sun to capture a pale book-shaped patch against red sunburnt skin. Everything you ever needed to know about Apple branding here.

Images: photograms printed on apples including top the Tsar of Russia and his wife made in the late nineteenth century.

Branded: Dawson

The moment when artists become brands.

Other artists in the transport series:

Braddock

Peryer

Ritchie

Tapper

Booth

Walters

Mitchell

Hotere

Branded (doubly whammy edition): Regan Gentry and Andrew Barber

The moment when artists become brands

Branded: Arnold Wilson

The moment when artists become brands

Branded: Bill Hammond

The moment when artists become brands. (thanks to H and S)

Toot Suite

Ans Westra’s images hit the road in Wellington thanks to a bold branding effort by Suite Gallery who have a stand alone Westra Gallery on Oriental Parade.

Branded: Christopher Braddock

The moment when artists become brands

A persistent wine

The first New Zealand artist we remember being represented on a wine label was Gretchen Albrecht back in the eighties for Collard Brothers. Billy Apple did a terrific label for a dessert wine with the bottles sold in Apple designed cartons. You could buy them at the local W&S merchant and Les Paris got a couple of cartons. He always regarded them as art works as much as we tried to get him to open a bottle or two. Nowadays there are not only artist labels on wines but artist wines themselves as in the Dick Frizzell line. The most recent contender is Martin Poppelwell who is partnered up with The People’s Wine people. Strangely, the Frizzell, Poppelwell and wine merchants Glengarry have all gone for the same kind of primitive in-your-face graphic style with shaky lettering, populist imagery and awe-shucks messaging. If it’s an art movement, it’s probably Struthism.

Branded: p mule

The moment when artists becomes brands

Branded: Shane Cotton

The moment when artists become brands

What they don’t know won’t hurt them

A while back we posted about artists heading off shore to exploit their brands in the secluded havens of foreign markets. Movie stars have done it for years and before the internet mostly got away with advertising unappetizing items like booze and fags far from the critical eyes of the home crowd. In Singapore we recently saw another spin on what you might get away with.

Always on the lookout for foyer art we chanced on a pair of the biggest, and possibly ugliest, paintings by James Rosenquist ever and, to top it off, they were tarted up with the gold frames from hell. Had Rosenquist pulled that sort of stunt in New York he probably would have been laughed out of the piazza, but installed in the Far East the Rosenquist reputation was safe. He wasn’t the only one to trust in the adage out of sight, out of mind. Nearby in the courtyard a Roy Lichtenstein sculpture awkwardly looped around the space wishing it had never left the studio.

Images: Left James Rosenquist going for gold at the height of the madness in 1985. Right Roy Lichtenstein brush strokes randomly swooping around the square

Branded: Lisa Crowley

The moment when artists become brands

Branded: Michael Stevenson

The moment when artists become brands.

Branded: John Reynolds

The moment when artists become brands.
Thanks F

Branded: Peter Peryer

Branded: Barber

When artists become brands.

Priceless

We did say we would keep Billy Apple out of our Artist Brand series. But seriously.... this is just too good to miss.

Brand aid

Here’s someone else with the old OTN spirit. Michael Klant has been collecting brand names that are also the names of an artist. His book Art Brands: When Dogs Eat Beuys is packed with names as brands including the bright yellow crane branded Vermeer. In New Zealand we have the textbook example of this concept in brand Billy Apple. The parallel to Apple (logo included and even closer since Apple dropped the word Computer from its name in 2007) slips perfectly into the genre.

So, we’re on the hunt for brand NZ artists and any help you can give will be appreciated. Now, where was it we last saw that Angus construction crane?