If you’ve been to the Brooklyn Museum lately, you know that Louis Vuitton and Takashi Murakami have formed an unholy partnership wherein Murakami’s “work” and his work for LV are conflated in the form of handbags sold in a store in the exhibit. You knew it was a matter of time before opening this Pandora’s box would result in a freaky unintended consequence…with legal ramifications. Yay!!!
Let’s break it down:
Murakami founded an artistic movement called “Superflat." Let’s get Wiki: “The term [Superflat] is used by Murakami to refer to various flattened forms in Japanese graphic art, animation, pop culture and fine arts, as well as the shallow emptiness of Japanese consumer culture.” Sounds right up LV’s alley. Murakami has designed bags for LV and also used the company’s logo in his art.
Was this LV trying to take control of the art world’s perception of its image? Was this the art world trying to prove a point about its own transience? Either way, like any science experiment by a sufficiently mad scientist, there were unintended consequences. Another artist, Nadia Plesner, has hijacked the LV brand for a T-shirt that she is calling her “Darfur campaign” (more on this later).
Of course, LV has lawyers, and lawyers love to write letters. The company is currently asking Plesner to cease and desist. What a sticky issue! Please stop trying to help victims of genocide while using our image.
On the surface, what the T-shirt points out is the hypocrisy of the rich West’s view toward the plight of Darfurians. From the blogosphere: “The artist’s explanation: My thought was: Since doing nothing but wearing designer bags and small ugly dogs apparently is enough to get you on a magazine cover, maybe it is worth a try for people who actually deserves [sic] and needs attention.”
More marketing irony: Now who is getting all the attention? Plesner and LV. Stepping outside the ken of postadvertising.com for a second: I’m fairly certain that marketing isn’t the answer to the world’s more serious questions.
The love child of the unholy partnership between Murakami and LV.