Image courtesy of Susquehanna University
Available Dates: December 1, 2015 through December 30, 2020
Space requirements: approximately 1,200 to 1,500 square feet
Rental fee: $6,000 for eight-week exhibition plus round-trip shipping
Organizers: Catherine Tedford, Director of the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery at St. Lawrence University (Canton, NY, USA) and Oliver Baudach, Director of the Hatch Kingdom Sticker Museum (Berlin, Germany)
Description
In the last twenty-five years, street art has evolved dramatically from the aerosol and painted mural graffiti that peppered subway stations, back alleys, and train yards. Today, new forms of visual communication are created in public spaces, often attracting viewers in more contemplative and/or interactive ways. Street art stickers have emerged as a provocative vehicle for self-expression and an effective way to engage passersby. Stickers may be used to “tag” a space and make it temporarily one’s own, to sell products or services, to publicize social media sites, or to offer social commentary and critique. As one of the most democratic art forms, hand-drawn or printed stickers can be distributed quickly, cheaply, and widely as one-of-a-kinds or silkscreens, stencils, linocuts, Xeroxes, and offset lithographs. Some artists create homemade do-it-yourself (DIY) stickers in small numbers, while others mass-produce hundreds at a time though commercial online services. Measuring around 2×2 to 3×4 inches, stickers are “hidden in plain sight” on street signs, telephone poles, dumpsters, and windows. In urban sites dominated by commercial advertising and corporate logos, publicly placed stickers, by their very presence, re-write the streets and produce what curator Nato Thompson calls elsewhere “creative disruptions of every day life.” Representing a diverse array of voices and perspectives, stickers offer a spirited “ground up” alternative to an often “top down” media-saturated environment. And although ephemeral by nature, stickers capture the creative, cultural, and political pulse of time and place.
Incorporating the finest examples from two collectors, Catherine Tedford in the United States and Oliver Baudach in Germany, the exhibition includes over 800 original, unused stickers grouped by artist, theme, date, and geographic location. Catherine Tedford, gallery director at St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York, has been collecting stickers since 2003, and her collection numbers over 11,000 stickers from around the world. She writes about stickers on her research blog Stickerkitty. Based in Berlin, Oliver Baudach is the founder and director of Hatch Kingdom, the world’s first museum devoted to sticker art. Representing three decades of work, his international collection numbers over 25,000 stickers spanning genres from character design to skateboarding, streetwear, and music. With an extensive network of artist contacts, Oli is a leading expert in the field.
Individual artists and artists’ collabs in the exhibition include Cupco (Australia); Hoplouie (Denmark); Flying Fortress, Haevi, Ping Pong, Prost, Tower, 24/7 Crew (Germany); Bust, Sol Crew (Netherlands); Evoker, Obey Giant, RobotsWillKill, Zoltron, and 14Bolt (United States). Artists often use humanoid figures, robots, zombies, food, animals, insects, eyes, hands, and other imaginative designs to tag the streets. Artists also play with type fonts and graphic design elements to subvert corporate logos in what’s known as “culture jamming.” Stickers in the exhibition that serve as social commentary and critique address animal rights, civil liberties, the economy, environmental issues, identity, and political protest movements.
Re-Writing the Streets: The International Language of Stickers is geared toward college and university galleries and museums, as well as alternative art spaces. The exhibition introduces street art stickers to new audiences, offering those in academic and art circles an exciting and versatile educational resource. A multitude of subjects exists in this field for teaching and research in disciplines ranging from art and art history to communication studies, cultural studies, global studies, government, modern languages, and sociology.
Contents
- Fifty-three framed sets of stickers grouped by artist, theme, date, and geographic location;
- Two main text panels with exhibition overview and description of the collections;
- Forty-two artists’ statements and curators’ interpretive statements;
- Fifty zine exhibition catalogues;
- Sticker-related publications, zines, and sticker rolls for display cases and hands-on viewing.
For information about scheduling and fees, contact Catherine Tedford at 315 229-5174 or ctedford@stlawu.edu. See also: http://www.stlawu.edu/gallery/traveling/re-writing.php.
Images from the exhibition can be viewed here. The Richard F. Brush Art Gallery also oversees a Street Art Graphics digital archive that includes over 2,600 examples of stickers from around the world.
Categories: Traveling Exhibitions