Sticker Art Made For Trade: Expo Stickers in Curitiba

12 May 2008 Category: Features, Street Art, Worldwide

How about an international collaboration between all sorts of sticker artists? Alasortis, BHC and JowJow, a trio of street artists from Curitiba, Brazil made it happen. Folks from around the world could send their sticky art to Brazil via snail mail to be scanned and gathered on Flickr. Until this June, the results are being shown at the very first Expo Stickers in Curitiba! PingMag talks to the three about how it all came about…

Written by Aroldo Cardoso Jr.

First, how would you define Sticker Art?

Jow: Sticker Art is a kind of urban artistic intervention that uses stickers and passes different messages – ranging from purely aesthetic or poetic to critically nonconformist.

It started around 1990 when American graphic designer Shepard Fairey started to seed what is today known as Obey. Fairey made stickers with stylised images of the wrestler Andre The Giant and the words Andre has a posse, and stuck them around.

And you can see his stickers in every city now… How did Expo Stickers 2008 come about?

BHC: The idea to hold Expo Stickers 2008, or EXS 08, came from our conversation on urban art: Despite being widely diffused and used in various professional areas, it still has a bad reputation in the greater part of society.

Jow: Most people don’t have an open mind to urban art and, with the coercive mechanisms against it, tend to support traditional artistic expressions instead. In this context, EXS 08 was born — with the hope of diffusing sticker art in a non-conventional environment…

Alasortis: Meaning the exhibition is using up an entire floor in Curitiba’s SESC da Esquina. We are having artists from diverse countries, workshops and lectures about the subject. We want to show the people who use this space for activities this other side of urban art, helping to relieve preconceptions.

And where did the stickers in EXS 08 come from?

BHC: We’ve received stickers from twenty-five countries. Most of them are from the United States, then Brazil, England, France and Holland as the top five.

Jow: And we should also mention others — like Finland, Indonesia, Singapore, Iran and Colombia.

Iran! Interesting. You certainly had to spread the word to get hold of all these. How did you make your call for entries?

Alasortis: Since most sticker artists use the Internet to show their works — especially our Expo Sticker site on Flickr and Fotolog — we made our contacts through these channels.

The practice of sending and exchanging stickers is a pretty common thing, so it was a relatively simple process. We received many packs. Some people sent works by several other artists along. This really shows the will of this group of artists, the will to participate and to show what they do, no matter where it is, either as exhibition or by going out in the streets.

What kind of stickers were accepted by the Expo?

Alasortis: The main criteria was that it was done by the sender himself and a sticker — which is what characterises ‘sticker art!’ In the exhibition, we are not just displaying the stickers, but also the envelopes, since many also customise them with colours or collage, making it something unique.

BHC: Being sticky qualified it to be in the Expo.

Haha! What makes a good sticker?

BHC: The question of quality seems very relative to me, since the concept of good depends on the observer. We received stickers which were done in a lot of processes – like serigraphy, laser cutting, stencil and freehand. Some were painted with gouache, while others were drawn with coloured pencils and still others were cut into the adhesives.

Now, the Internet would be a key piece to spread urban art as a whole…

BHC: The Internet is essential for the diffusion of sticker art. EXS 08 shows this very well.

How does a successful online collaboration work?

BHC: In general, one artist gets in touch with another, and in little time he receives the other’s stickers, while sending his own. The next step is to stick those he just got in places and spread the results through photos he publishes on photo sharing sites for the other to see what was done. It’s a two-handed way.

Alasortis: And Expo Stickers 2008 demonstrates exactly this, since we have works from people who heard of the Expo on the Internet.

Do the stickers’ styles develop with this sort of local-global interaction?

Alasortis: The global interaction sped up the production of an already speedy medium.

Can you still tell where a sticker comes from by its style?

Alasortis: That is difficult, since today’s production is multi-layered; talking about the style of an artist is like talking about his history, culture and aesthetics. What everyone has in common is a street-directed production. However, the “Hello, my name is” stickers or the well-known postal labels from the United States can show that the artist is from there.

BHC: That’s not guaranteed. Sometimes, artists send these — especially the mail ones — to other countries.

Are there a few styles that are instantly recognisable?

Jow: Before we get to the aesthetic characteristic of a sticker, its visibility and recognition depends very much on its massive production, its network of contacts and, consequently, its distribution.

BHC: Indicating one sticker style is very complicated, especially after we received works from 165 artists and spent months surfing all these sites and Flickr blogs connected to street art.

That must have taken some time! On your Flickr site we saw an Expo sticker in Peruvian Machu Picchu. What is the story behind it?

Jow: In early 2008, it started as a trip going from Curitiba through Bolivia and ending up in Machu Picchu. Since the trip was done by land, a lot of stickers were placed on the way. In the case of Machu Picchu, the sticker on a backpack was photographed in a way to interact with the setting. Represent Expo Stickers in yet another special place!

This would lead us to the mindset of a sticker-placing person: He or she can just as much place a sticker over a sign as he/she can privilege visible places to match with urban signage. In Machu Picchu, the intention was not to leave the sticker around in such a setting.

After Curitiba, where can we see Expo Stickers 2008 next?

BHC: Sao Paulo seems accessible. It would be quite important, since this is where the biggest street art movement in Brazil happens. I hope that, by the end of EXS 08 at SESC da Esquina, we will already have something set up.

Good Luck! We want to see more of these street art actions! Thank you, Alasortis, BHC and JowJow for Expo Stickers 2008! Check out their stuff, and also have a look at the making of Expo Stickers, documented by their official photographer Carol.

If you happen to be in Curitiba:
Expo Stickers 2008
Running through June 5th, 2008.
At SESC da Esquina.
Address: Rua Visconde do Rio Branco, 969, Curitiba, Brazil.

13 Comments

1. [...] Freelance Editor wrote an interesting post today on Sticker Art Made For Trade: Expo Stickers in CuritibaHere’s a quick excerptHow about an international collaboration between all sorts of sticker artists? Alasortis, BHC and JowJow, a trio of street artists from Curitiba, Brazil made it happen. Folks from around the world could send their sticky art to Brazil … [...]

   Posted by: Magazine » Sticker Art Made For Trade: Expo Stickers in Curitiba on May 12th, 2008 at 9:11 pm

2. Awesome stickers!
   Sadly this form of art is banned and illegal in my country, so the stickerartists have to be carefull not to get caught…

   Posted by: Amir on May 12th, 2008 at 9:47 pm

3. great coloring patterns!

   Posted by: i5bala.com on May 12th, 2008 at 10:06 pm

4. nice idea…well, as good collaborative forms are the (a?) basis of sustainable innovation I assume that cities that support such will be the ones that we can see succeeding over the next decade or two…. the shrill cry to ‘protect my property’ (which is driven more by moral entrepreneurship than any ‘real’ fear) will be the death (or dulling) of cities that fall back on those who seek to continue to feather their own little nests……and as Jane Jacobs said (something like)..even the rich leave when a city gets boring….

   Posted by: s.kokubo on May 12th, 2008 at 11:25 pm

5. It is very important for the human to pollute the environment with art expression. More obscenity and pornography placed in urban environment speeds us toward the Apocalypse of hip hop degeneracy and freedom to die without a care.

   Posted by: Hod on May 13th, 2008 at 1:51 am

6. Hello. .. I am Brazilian and I am very happy that the art here is having a good effect, even more in a magazine like this!

   Posted by: Luana Larrosa on May 13th, 2008 at 1:56 am

7. [...] COOL CHECK THIS OUT STICKER ART —> [...]

   Posted by: Sticker Art « Team Best in Bed on May 13th, 2008 at 3:41 am

8. really cool stickers!!
   if some of the guys who usually see this blog have time i would like you to check my blog.

   Posted by: o anemona on May 13th, 2008 at 5:35 am

9. Hehe, I want those hearty boobs :D

   Posted by: Marcel on May 14th, 2008 at 11:00 pm

10. I am in japan, and I am from Curitiba. I heard about this exibition from an australian friend.
    These stickers are really cool!!
    Really nice job!! these things really make the city happier and better!

    Posted by: Luiz on May 18th, 2008 at 1:29 am

11. Great article and photos!
    There will be a sticker art show in Portland Oregon on September 5th 2008 called SLAPTOWN!
    It is open call for stickers. Due date for stickers is August 25th 2008.
    If interested please hit me up on myspace, flicker, or e-mail me at newcolony@hotmail.com for more info and address.
    The show will also feature new paintings from KLUTCH, NOSE, CHRIS OF ROBOTS WILL KILL, and many others.
    Much love to all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    new colony

    Posted by: new colony on June 27th, 2008 at 4:29 am

12. nice article , yeah . iran was up wit this expo. :)

    Posted by: alone on December 11th, 2008 at 2:38 pm

13. Hey, I just started a new site/biz called bumperstickerz.com. Right now it’s pretty much got like 1200 stickers that the designers we hired put together, mainly from stuff they found on the web and most of it is redneck material.

    My goal is to change the content on the site over the next few months to sticker art rather than sticker rudeness and goofy sayings (although people are actually buying that!).

    But anyway, I saw this site and the artwork is awesome, and that’s really the type of stuff I’d love to have on our site. Does anyone have more info about the artists who created those designs? My site is set up right now to actually offer artists a % of total sales of each sticker design, so I was thinking about opening it up to any artist/designer to contribute to our site and they can make money on it themselves.

    We can print stickers in full color and contour cut them into any shape (yes ANY) in quantities as low as 1. Total freedom within a 10″x4″ area.

    Let me know if anyone would be interested in providing me any info to contact these artists… or other sites / org’s that artists like this are part of.

    email me at info@bumperstickerz.com

    Posted by: LD on March 25th, 2009 at 1:33 am

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