In the era of Instagram, businesses turn to street art to attract customers

Inside the shops on Melrose Avenue there is a lot to attract young and trendy customers like Melissa Wang. But in fact, it was the exterior of Paul Smith's store the perfect place that this 25 year old girl was looking for.

"Have you really been visiting LA? if you did not stop to take a picture in front of this pink wall? "Wang wondered, taking a picture of her friend there.

From morning till night, a constant stream of visitors from all over the city and the world poses, grimaces and strutters in front of the wall of the shop, Pepto Bismol color. The number of people is such that the firm hired a security guard to keep everything under control.

Street art is rooted in the DNA of Los Angeles; the city's extensive concrete backdrop has served as a huge canvas for artists, from the muralists who pioneered the Chicano art movement to the creators of graffiti who do their work throughout LA. River. But in the age of social networking, this demonstration is finding a new role: providing the perfect backdrop for Instagram-worthy photos, and the ideal appeal for retailers looking to capture a certain self-managed demographic.

With millennia ready to do everything to find a piece of gold on Instagram, companies look at works of art as a tactic to attract people to the outside - and then, hopefully, to the interior - of their stores. Street art is no longer relegated to alleys or sliding gates; now populate the facades of yoga and spin studios, restaurants, bars and fashion boutiques.

At the Koreatown Line Hotel, Shepard Fairey's mural called Peace Tree attracts passers-by, said Gabriel Ratner, vice president of operations at Sydell Group, which owns the hotel. "People stop to take a photo and it ends up entering the lobby for a cup of coffee or a cocktail," he said.

The hotel commissioned Fairey - famous for designing the Barack Obama poster with the inscription 'Hope' - to create the huge 10-story work for exactly that reason. "It's for everyone in the neighborhood to enjoy it and to take photos and publish them on Instagram," said the executive.

A dazzling blend of rainbows, created by artist Jen Stark, made Platform's parking lot, an open-air shopping center for artists and independent merchants, an unlikely attraction. "We wanted to take a picture for Instagram," said Alisha Brown, a first-time visitor to the site, located in Culver City. "Now we'll go for a cup of coffee and shop."

The intersection of business and street art has not always been so rosy. The medium shares a tumultuous history with Los Angeles.

In 2002, as advertisers diverted money to convert walls into billboards, the city banned murals on private property to stifle publicity disguised as street art. After a debate and public reaction, the City Council lifted the ban in 2013, but only under the strict condition that no mural could contain commercial messages.

Since the ban was withdrawn, the Department of Cultural Affairs rejected 38 of the 123 requests for murals, some of which were intended to contain corporate logos, said Felicia Filer, director of the Public Art Division.

There is an irony in the associations between street performers and companies. As a branch of graffiti - a counterculture scene that has long been the nightmare of homeowners - street art and retail businesses seem to be natural enemies. This leaves some artists facing a moral dilemma: do they stick to the unconventional traditions of their art, or forge alliances that can exponentially increase the number of looks in their work and dollars in their pockets?

The question annoys the artist Colette Miller, who is responsible for one of the best-known backdrops on Instagram. After illegally painting a pair of angel wings in the Arts District in 2012, Miller gained popularity almost immediately. Instagram users flocked to the site, and local businesses began asking them to paint wings on their walls.

After meditating on the subject, the artist concluded that it was better to take her art to materialistic spaces and give people the opportunity to think about what is really important. "I know some who are trying to make money with my art, but the purpose of the wings is to remind people that we are angels on Earth," Miller said. "Whether it's in a mall, a prison or a hospital, it does not matter. We are divine souls wherever we are. So why be a snob? "

Since then, its Global Angel Wings Project has taken off and there are more than 200 pairs of painted wings around the world. About 90 percent of their work is on commission, Miller says. The rest is for areas of unrest, like Juarez, Mexico, as a way to provide a symbol of peace. "I prefer to work with permission and be sanctioned," he said. "Among graffiti artists who work without authorization there is a level of arrogance and disrespect; that their art lives in a building they do not own because their message is so great. "

Miller, on the other hand, refuses to compromise in one respect: corporate brands. When Angel City Brewery commissioned her to paint a pair of wings, she accepted. However, when he discovered that the company had put his own mark on the mural, he immediately asked for it to be removed (Angel City removed the mark, apologized to Miller and rebuked a responsible employee). "This is not an announcement, it's an experience," the artist said.

For businesses, writing a check to a respected artist can be a substantial expense. According to Fixr, the average commission on a 20-by-10-foot mural is $ 8,020. Depending on the complexity of the work and the size of the wall, that number can grow up to $ 20,000.

Instead of paying, some companies are finding alternative ways to attract Instagram users.

Four years ago, the furniture company Cisco Home took advantage of its internal marketing team, Small Green Door, to create a mural that read "Made in LA". Considering it the newest reference point of L.A., Cisco offered discounts to anyone who took a picture with the mural and sent it to Facebook using the hashtag #MadeInLAbyCisco.

The multiple sites in the town of Zero Degrees, an ice cream chain and a bubble tea chain, show a set of wings similar to Miller's work, and the imitation strategy seems to work. Customers regularly populate the Yelp page of the store with photos in front of the artwork. "Zero Degrees gave me wings," wrote one of them.