Stop Using Art as a PR Stunt. Seriously 🥸

If you’re a brand — especially a huge one — please stop putting the word “art” on every campaign like it automatically makes your product more meaningful.
Art isn’t decoration for your marketing strategy.

And no, adding an artist to your commercial doesn’t suddenly make the commercial thoughtful.

Here’s the thing:
If what you create is genuinely great — if it connects with people, changes lives or captures a particular moment in culture — it can become art on its own.
Look at the VW Type 2.

Nobody needed to launch the Volkswagen Art Bus Experience™ and explain why it was culturally important.

It just became a cultural icon.
People decided that.
Not the marketing department.

Meanwhile, BMW — yeah, the same company whose cars reportedly produced more than 62 million tonnes of CO₂ in 2021 — continues building its cultural image through the BMW Art Car project, exhibitions and collaborations with artists.

And yes.

The BMW Art Cars are cool.
Some of them are beautiful.

That’s exactly why corporate art and artwashing are complicated.
Because something can look great and still be extremely useful PR.

Look, I’m not against brands using creativity.
I’m not even against collaborations between artists and brands.
Artists need money.
Brands have money.
Beautiful ecosystem.
Lol.

But hiring an artist to paint your product doesn’t automatically make your company more meaningful.

And putting contemporary art inside a marketing campaign doesn’t erase everything happening outside that campaign.

Art shouldn’t be a shortcut to cultural credibility.

If a brand genuinely wants to work with art, start with a real problem.
Your problem.
Pollution.
Labour.
Consumption.
Whatever uncomfortable thing your company would normally prefer to leave outside the gallery.

Bring that to the table.

Then let the artist respond to it honestly.
Don’t give them a marketing brief telling them what your brand values are.
Let them tell you what they think your brand values are.
Maybe you won’t like the answer.

Good.
That sounds slightly closer to art.
Because art comes from experience, pain, observation, truth, absurdity, reflection — sometimes even from a paycheck.

But if the paycheck decides what the artist is allowed to say, we’re moving away from art and getting much closer to art marketing.

Which is fine.
Just call it marketing.
Should we ban brands from using art altogether?
Nah.
That would be stupid.

But should artists think twice before accepting a corporate collaboration where their work is basically being used as beautiful packaging for a PR campaign?

100%.
Take the money.
Paint the car.

But maybe ask why they need you to paint it in the first place.
Art deserves slightly more than being a commercial sidekick.

...your worst artist and best friend,

hEhe and my contemporary art criticism