MoMA Severs Ties with HappyCorp

You would think MoMA would love an edgy ad campaign that draws even more attention to the museum than expected. However, following Doug Jaeger of HappyCorp's alleged involvement with Poster Boy's crew to alter their installation at the Atlantic/Pacific subway stop, they've severed all ties with the company (who created the campaign). Kim Mitchell at MoMA tells us, "No one at The Museum of Modern Art had any role in or prior knowledge of the acts of vandalism committed against posters in the Museum's installation in the Atlantic Avenue subway station. On February 27 we ended all work to be done by Doug Jaeger and thehappycorpglobal on this project and all others, and have completely severed our relationship with the company. The Museum deplores any kind of vandalism and is profoundly distressed that the posters were defaced." Prudes. No word yet on if HappyCorp has severed any ties with Poster Boy. To be continued!?

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By Jen Carlson in News on March 2, 2009 10:22 AM

Comments [rss]

Think2wice

Marketing hipster wunderkind du jour FAIL!

MMM42

All the images that MoMA put up in Atlantic/Pacific station were Art with a capital A: famous works of art that represent the history of the Art World. When a contemporary graffiti artist alters the images, it puts the work into a present-day context. It's like an art school MFA thesis.

Art/music/culture of the year 2009 is remixed and sampled, and has a DIY blog attitude. Look at the Obama poster that was taken from an AP photo; listen to Girl Talk remixes that pay homage to other music. You don't need to be "discovered" to be a serious artist. I think this one event can be used to sum up the entire climate of art and music right now.

cluguette

Not to burst your bubble, MM4, but those *reproductions* of ART with a capital A cost MOMA upwards of 65K to produce, not counting the cost of the media placement. If you invested six figures in yes, a marketing promotion, would you be happy it it were defaced? With mashups/remixes/sampling, you can argue that the original remains intact, and the "new" work is somehow a significant departure from the original. This just reeks of a bad publicity stunt to me.

posterchildofvandalism

MOMA loves

SWOON, a vandal

Keith Haring, a vandal

Basquiat, a vandal

Graffiti Research Labs

the High&Low show which was all about four categories: comics and caricature, grafitti, advertising and functional objects.

"they deplore any kind of vandalism*"

*except when its an overhyped art star whose work resides in our collection

Think2wice

Awaiting the 2029 Posterboy retrospective at MoMA.

NannyState

MOMA took Poster Boy public, then sold him short? Talk about ruthless capitalists.

tokyohanna

oops, meant to respond to a different commenter (#3)! sorry..

Bluealways

Enough of Poster Boy already. It's reminding me of the time when every third Gothamist article was about the oh-so-subversive graffiti community.

MrManhattan

If Posterboy had permission from the agency and got paid, it's not vandalism. Its something far more insidious and scary to the art world:

a job.

Gregoire

And yet, had this guy simply performed his vandalism WITHIN the museum, it would have been the subject of a lavish ad campaign and we would have been told it was new and innovative art.

tokyohanna

ha: http://15.media.tumblr.com/OlQU0ZuMakje1cl54pGmwbLHo1_400.png

luckmagnet

If Posterboy got paid for their involvement in the ad campaign, wouldn't that make him/them hypocrites for what their reasons for doing what he/they do?

nycviabos

Agreed. There's definitely something hypocritical about a culture-jammer (Poster Boy) being paid by the ad company (Happycorp) hired by the corporate object (MOMA) of Culture Boy's artistic "critique".

nycviabos

I mean "Poster Boy," not "Culture Boy." Whatever.

chris

Who cares? Some immature hipster douche that can't dress himself does something ill-advised with the only decent project his firm was likely to ever get. I suppose that might make a nice one-off fluff post, but this coverage is out of hand.