Fed up with life as a struggling artist, abstract modernist painter Hal Fisher of New York City decided to abandon his artistic integrity and sell out – only to find that no one was interested in buying.
“Talk about taking it in the balls,” said Hal. “It stung, to say the least.”
As Hal explained it, he’d been told for years how much his vibrant, edgy, urban-angst-filled art would appeal to brands like Adidas, Puma, and Gatorade. And, so, after yet another gallery show that entailed over ten months of intensive preparation, garnered rave reviews about his "brazen, Picasso-pushing style," but ultimately yielded him a grant net profit of only $2,750, Hal decided to approach these and other major corporations to discuss company sponsorship, advertising on his web page, and/or pay-per-click arrangements for brand mentions on his Instagram and Twitter feeds.
Unfortunately for Hal’s bank account, however, these big businesses – the ones that actually got back to him, that is – told Hal that they were already receiving those services and more, for free, from artists around the world who simply enjoy being associated with their brand. In fact, one Nike representative told Hal that one Las Vegas sculptor had even offered to pay Nike any time it retweeted one of his plugs for the brand.
As tough as the rejections were for him initially, Hal said that he’s since come to terms with the fact that he couldn’t find anyone to sell out to - and not only that, he now considers the corporate rebuffs as a sign that his art is simply too raw and rowdy and real to fit into any corporate box.
“Not to mention, I’ve never once offered a company money to retweet my corporate plugs,” said Hal. “So not only have I never sold out, I’ve never bought out either – which is more than a lot of my colleagues can say. I feel really good about that.”
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