The (sort of pirate) pulse of the poster art world

[cimorene]

Some of you may remember that when I quite recently got it into my head to make modern art icons, a few of my topics were Matisse's cut paper collages, the paintings of Hilma af Klint, and paintings by the art instructors from the Bauhaus.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, I discovered first that Ikea's current assortment includes several large Af Klint posters, and then that H&M Home is currently selling both Bauhaus posters and Matisse cutouts posters. For a second I was weirded out at the apparently staggering coincidence, but then I remembered...

...I got all three of these interests, originally, when I was browsing designs on Redbubble that are popular in the "Art" and "Art history" tags. (I got a bunch of stickers and then some cloth masks last fall.) This made me feel a bit silly.

But the question remains: where did they get it? I mean, I don't think Ikea and H&M got these trends from Redbubble, so I assume they represent trends in - poster art, or something like that, more broadly. Interior design perhaps? But what I don't know is what kinds of primary sources or whatever the Redbubble sellers have been plugged into that have informed them of this. I mean, and also the Ikea and H&M designers. Maybe there's a place somewhere where people are upvoting and downvoting vintage posters??? Maybe it's an obscure corner of Instagram. Maybe it's a social networking site I haven't heard of. I'm really curious now.

Comments

[phosfate]

I think it works the other way around, that Redbubble's algorithm is really good at telling you that what it thinks you want is also popular, in order to make you feel better about buying it. I won't pretend to know how Ikea and H&M work.

[cimorene]

Huh, that would seem to make it random coincidence again. Unless they somehow were more representative of some external trends while also not being popular...

[phosfate]

I'm sure that they have a process for choosing their art for the year, I just have no idea what it is. There may be some equivalent of fashion 'trend hunters' for interior decoration.

[cimorene]

Yeah, like editors, you mean? Maybe they're all tuned into like... art exhibits and art book reprints and the orders made by professional interior designers.

[phosfate]

Mmmmnsorta. There are people whose job it is to go out into the wild (e.g. campuses, fashion malls, etc.) and look at what people, especially teens, are wearing, carrying, doing with their hair, etc. They find new, often homemade styles that look interesting or "fashion forward" (I have no idea what this phrase actually means, if anything), and report back to their employers. So, probably a couple of years ago there was someone who spotted a few kids wearing shredded jeans for whatever reason, went back to their employers with it, they decided it was a good idea, and now stores are full of expensive pre-shredded jeans in styles from a few strategic holes to Oh My God I Can See That Girl's Underwear. When I was younger one trend started with acid washing and moved on to other "washes," which sometimes involved no chemical treatment at all. Such as "shotgun wash," which - I'm not making this up - involved taking jeans and firing shotguns at them so that they were riddled with pellet holes.

Anyway, I'm wondering if there are people who somehow scout poster and card trends. Or, is there going to be some huge art exhibit that will start a trend that they can exploit? Especially one with work that is out of copyright? When the King Tut exhibit toured the US, suddenly you could buy Egyptian stuff of varying quality and taste EVERYWHERE, from greeting cards to tinned teabags.

This is all speculation, though.

[cimorene]

There probably are poster scouts! Are they scouting like... homemade posters or... or maybe the rates that antique posters are reselling for, like some kinda stock market of artist reproductions?

[phosfate]

I couldn't begin to guess. Pinterest and Etsy? Art auction figures? After Sunflowers made $$$$$$ there were Van Gogh things everywhere. But there still are, because everybody likes him. Van Gogh washi tape is a staple.

[cimorene]

Yeah, you can probably buy Van Gogh posters from multiple major retailers all the time too. I mean, I feel like I see one once a month or so and I'm not even looking for them.