Do you wear canvas high-tops, or are you all about the upmarket leather sneaker? No matter what type you prefer, everyone wears them! 👟
The OG high-top was a canvas basketball sneaker designed for Chuck Taylor in 1922. Today luxury brands retail sneakers for over $1,000, while Sneakerheads trade on platforms like StockX and compete at auction. The Yeezys that Kanye wore to the Grammy’s where he performed Stronger? That pair sold for $1.8 million this past April at Sotheby’s, a world record for sneakers.
Wait, did I just write “world record for sneakers”!?
This is a clear-cut case of “low,” or mass-market consumer goods, entering the “high” market of unique works of art, vintage cars, and fine wine. Clearly, the boundaries between consumer culture and fine art have collapsed. How did we get here?
In 1990, the “high-low” dichotomy was officially applied to art when MoMA mounted High & Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture, co-curated by my then-grad school professor, Kirk Varnedoe, also Director of Painting and Sculpture at MoMA.
For the first time in a museum setting, newspaper cartoons, comic books, graffiti, and mass-produced objects from consumer culture were shown side by side with iconic paintings that incorporated “street” sources. Think, Pablo Picasso (newspaper collage), Roy Lichtenstein (cartoons), Andy Warhol (soup cans), and Jeff Koons (inflatable toys), among other artists featured.
Thirty years on, Varnedoe & co. seem to have predicted the evolution of the art market. From Warhol to Koons, Contemporary art that incorporates mass-market imagery tops the charts.
SHOW YOU THE MONEY 💰
Andy Warhol, Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster), 1963 - sold for $105 million at Sotheby’s, 2013
Jeff Koons, Rabbit, 1986 - sold for $91 million at Christie’s, 2019
Roy Lichtenstein, Nurse, 1964 - sold for $95 million at Christie’s, 2015
Beeple, EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS, 2021 - sold for $69 million at Christie’s, 2021 (Spoiler-art: this one’s an NFT)
Context:
Warhol’s Silver Car Crash, 1963 set the record for any Warhol at auction, ever. The image was taken from a tabloid photo that shows dead people hanging from crumpled metal––pretty dark compared to soup cans.
So what’s the takeaway? Warhol not only understood our fascination with sensational violence, but he also knew that both the tabloid photo and the celebrity photo (#Marilyn) had the potential to transform the way we see — through art. Artists see differently from us - they see the art in “low” sources.
If these images were what the public looked at daily, Warhol wanted to use them to make art that would reach people. For Warhol, there probably never was a “low” or “high”, this is largely a curatorial distinction.
Ready to learn about collecting art? Check out the Cromwell Art Collectors’ Club.
WARHOL’S POPULIST LEGACY
Warhol was a Populist, not unlike Jeff Koons, whose sculptures are also at the top of the art-market charts. Pop art lends itself to merchandising, and Koons capitalized on that to reach a wider audience.
From the get-go, Koons made “mini” versions of his monumental sculptures that cross over from the “high” world of auctions to the “low” world of the gift shop!
His collaborations run the gamut from beach towels to a balloon version of Rabbit for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and include porcelain vases, as well as handbags ( a “low” version with H&M, as well as a “high” version with Louis Vuitton!)
Thirty years after the High & Low exhibition, that type of language now seems antiquated. If you can’t afford the sculpture, you can buy the handbag––both are tradeable. And P.S. art collectors ALSO buy the handbags!
Other artists whose work stems from Pop culture, like Richard Prince, took note of the handbag phenomenon. Missed the drop? You can find your bag on The Real Real or Rebag, fashion’s alternative to auctions. So who’s to say what’s high and what’s low anymore?
SHOW YOU MORE MERCH 🛍
*Enter the Pop Shop*
The first-ever art merch store, brought to us by Keith Haring
Opened in Soho in 1986
Critics called him a sell-out, but Haring started as a street artist and was just returning to his Populist roots
Opened a second store in Tokyo, 1987, where Haring was embraced by followers of Otaku, a sub-culture that embraced futuristic cartoons (Manga)
Fun fact: It was Warhol, the King of Consumer Culture himself, who encouraged Haring to merchandise his brand. Haring went on to make affordable items like t-shirts, stickers, and buttons with his signature imagery. (Of course, I bought every button and covered my backpack with radiant babies and dancing dogs... wish I had saved them as they now trade at auction for real money, sigh.)
Pro tip: Hold onto that merch.
JAPAN & THE RISE OF CONSUMER CULTURE
We can’t talk about the “merch” without giving Japan its due.
In the 1990s, Japan’s consumer culture, which was youth-driven and open to new brands, drove the luxury goods market to new heights
Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara, superstar Pop artists who emerged in Japan in the 1990s, rode the merch gravy train
Alongside their fine art practice, the artists produced toys (plush and plastic), keychains, fabric and t-shirts
These items became widely available at a low price point vs. privileged access needed to acquire a painting or sculpture through a gallery
A new model of coexisting “high” and “low” was born
This bridging of street culture and high art in Japan was hugely influential to KAWS who was active in Japan in the late 1990s
Simply put: Murakami walked so KAWS could run
KAWS & THE CONTEMPORARY COLLECTIBLE
*Enter KAWS*
Aka Brian Donnelly, who started off as a street artist––like Haring, who KAWS cites as an influence. In 1999 a Japanese toy company approached him to collaborate. He produced a vinyl toy, Companion, in an edition of 500, and the rest is history.
Fun fact: KAWS consigned some of his unsold Companions to the New Museum gift shop in NY, where they flew off the shelves. After seeing this success firsthand, the artist created an online store in 2002 (remember, this was before e-commerce ruled the world), to multiply sales. And that was the catalyst for KAWS to receive commissions for life-size sculptures based on the toys, which were sold in an art gallery. He entered the “high” art world through the “low” backdoor, forever collapsing the two.
⏩ Fast forward: Today KAWS’ entire artistic production––with brand partnerships too numerous to mention and his first solo museum exhibition hosted by the Brooklyn Museum––is proof positive that the high-low dichotomy is old news.
The artist himself is a worldwide brand, with a VR sculpture app that plugs Companion into any digital photo you choose, and a recent collaboration with the Japanese designer, Chitose Abe, of Sacai. How’s that for a glow-up?
Case in point: In this age of consumer culture, artists have the power to move the merch like never before!
COLLAB CASE STUDY: KANYE WEST & VIRGIL ABLOH
Kanye West hired Virgil Abloh, an architect (and fellow Chicago native), as Creative Director in 2007
That same year, West commissioned Murakami to create the cover for his album Graduation
Fun fact: Murakami also directed the animated music video for West’s song Good Morning
A KAWS commission followed for the artwork on West’s 2008 album 808s & Heartbreak
West and Abloh partnered with Nike in 2008 to create the Air Yeezy sneaker (little did they know, $1.8 milli later…💸)
Abloh and West entered into a sneaker collaboration with Louis Vuitton in 2009
A George Condo cover commission followed for West’s 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Abloh partnered with Murakami in 2018 to create an exhibition of sculpture and painting at Gagosian’s galleries in Beverly Hills, London and Paris, with lines out the door for each opening (are we even surprised!?)
FROM LOW TO HIGH AND BACK AGAIN
We’ve come full circle: from Warhol in the 60s to Kanye in the aughts, appealing to a consumer who has been raised on “collabs” and e-commerce
As evidenced by a myriad of trading platforms, product by Populist artists has never been in higher demand
Sure, a segment of the art world (i.e. abstract painting) will forever remain disassociated with mass-produced, consumer goods
THANK YOU 🙏 it’s refreshing to take a break!
But Populist artists have broken through the barriers that used to segregate fine art from its street sources
Today, it would appear that the street––and the sneaker that hits the pavement––are the ones to watch