Check out this project Steve and I are doing in Paris…
About L’Attraction de la Boue
Steve Powers (aka ESPO) designed raincoats for Canal Street flyer touts in 2006 and rock stars and parking lot attendants in 2007. In honor of World Aids Day 2008, he and Matt Goias reach out to the ultimate nexus of entertainment and street life; Parisian Prostitutes. It’s a project Mr. Goias titled, “L’Attraction De La Boue” or the “Pull Of The Mud”, after a term the French use to describe the desire to patronize working girls.
In the week leading up to World Aids Day on December 1st, Mr. Powers and Mr. Goias will design and distribute raincoats to the street workers in the red light districts of Paris as a functioning metaphor of the protection we as a society should extend to those most at-risk. Powers said of the project, “We strive to protect you from the elements in high fashion and function, from the slick yellow vinyl shell to the latex condoms in the pockets. It’s the most we can do.”
As a commemorative token from “L’Attraction De La Boue”, Goias has produced a limited run of custom hotel key cards that echo our yearning for escape and the search for physical and psychological safety. Led by the hospitality industry’s promise of manufactured comfort, the cards are symbolic of the ways we look for emotional shelter. They act as both a transient and a transformational item that helps unlock (and contain) a separate reality.
A limited edition run of 200 hotel keys will be signed by Powers and Goias and on sale at Colette beginning December 1.
About “A True Provider Is Good To Find”
From the series called “Using Other People’s Electricity To Light Your House”, These portraits of lesser-knowns and unknowns, both deride the celebrity obsessed art of our time, while getting in on the action. Going beyond image, I paint the names of people that have made significant contributions to the world, but missed out on the fame or fortune. Rather than use celebrity to sell a painting, I use painting to sell you on people worth knowing. A comment on the arbitrary nature of success? A jab at artists that make celebrity the central theme of their work that they sell to self-centered celebrities? Or am I worried that by making difficult work Im gonna end up like these these people I’m painting?
- Stephen Powers
Special thanks to Jisoo Hong for laying out the hotel key designs!
4 responses so far ↓
Protection Providers « Business Class // November 22, 2008 at 11:45 pm |
[...] Read more about the project here. [...]
L’Attraction de la Boue - Part 1 « Business Class // November 26, 2008 at 7:22 am |
[...] are some pics from L’Attraction de la Boue. This is the art project that myself and Steve Powers are currently doing in Paris where we are [...]
L’Attraction de la Boue - Part 4 « Business Class // November 30, 2008 at 7:54 am |
[...] L’Attraction de la Boue [...]
Go Stay « Business Class // December 13, 2008 at 6:24 am |
[...] original designs and “comfort” mottos. I have produced a limited edition hotel key for L’Attraction de la Boue and I have a few more coming soon. Below are some of the prints I have recently made with the help [...]