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FEAR EATS THE SOUL

VR-All-Art

MOLLY CHILD

400 x 300 cm

In 2018 a new type of stickers started showing up on Belgrade’s streets. Those were the stickers with dark, somewhat, disturbing motives and equally unsettling messages. Artistically, just the right kind of in depth assessment of our society, that was needed. Interestingly these stickers were a case of ‘commercials going wrong’. Molly child opened his tattoo studio and wanted to advertise it via stickers, but instead of making a commercial he ended up making tiny artworks. Since he is, in general, interested in graphic techniques and produces fine art as well as tattoos and stickers, he found that technique and style can bind all these into unified artistic expression. And since stickers have unbound potential to interact with wide arrange of audience in real time and real space they became his favourite means of expression. Here we see a human head on the spider legs accompanied with the message “Fear Eats the Soul”. It is a title of a cult German movie from 1974 that talks about social anxieties and the consequences of the collective fear of the unknown. There was also quite popular sticker that included Allen Ginsberg citation “Follow your inner moonlight, don’t hide the madness.” But most of them were gone from the streets quite quickly because people liked them so much they took them off so that they can keep it.

Exhibitions with this piece

Street Art Belgrade

TAKE 3

Loving Street Art Belgrade

While there is no substitute for looking at graffiti and street art in real life, it has become evident in recent years that new technologies can add an extra dimension to these art forms. At the end of 1990s, graffiti culture had already recognized the potential of the world wide web as a platform for this global movement to intertwine and cement its reign in urban settlements. One of the pioneering web sites, ArtCrimes.com, served as a gallery where one could see the artworks from all over the world. So, in the beginning, it was the culture itself that recognized the potential of what the digital revolution could bring. Since the mid-2000s and following the rise of street art, it has become obvious that not only graffiti culture and, consequently, street art, have had the need to document and share art on the streets, but that this has also become a favourite activity of those frequenting social networks. Next to cute cats, food porn and selfies, sharing photos of graffiti and street art has become extremely popular. However sociologists or psychologists interpret this phenomenon, it shows one thing clearly – people do notice and enjoy graffiti and street art. In this exhibition, let us explore the world of the digital content and a selection of the most popular artworks among social network users. One could ask why would this selection be relevant to the art world and what can this curatorial approach bring to the viewers? Well, the answer is simple – we wish to see if the audience picks just random ‘pretty’ things or whether there are more significant processes going on. Therefore, we are going to take the photos with the biggest number of views and likes on our organisations social media and organise them in groups so that they can be put in context and analysed. The outcome will be clear at the end of this virtual presentation. So, take one Level at a time, take the ‘wisdom potions’ on each Level and at the end of the exhibition you will have gained the ‘ultimate knowledge’. Enjoy! Ljiljana Radošević, curator.

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Other works by MOLLY CHILD