“The urge to destroy is also a creative urge” as Bakunin said.
Consumerism in the liquid era is fast, compulsive and ephemeral. It´s more experiential. I already illustrated this idea using Banksy´s self-destructing painting The Girl With Balloon (October 2018) in The New Fashion Retail Paradigm .
Bansky, the anonymous satirical street artist, activist and film director, opened its first store in Croydon, south of London. The Pop-up store, called Gross Domestic Product, opened in October 2019 and is selling homewares.
Gross Domestic Product site
Banksy, the ephemeral brand
The store is not a typical shop. In fact, customer are not able to make purchases, neither entering the store. Croydon store is like a wall advertising, a store window where merchandise is presented to the audience. It´s a temporary showroom but customers are not able to “touch or feel” the merchandise. The only way to purchase Banky´s products is using its new only site Gross Domestic Product.
Polish-born sociologist Zigmunt Bauman described our modern life as “liquid modernity“, where change is occurring more and more rapidly. Bansky´s business model (because this is a business and marketing strategy) is based on liquid consumerism, uniqueness and scarcity (if you try to make an order at GDP site, everything is already out of stock). The store at Croydon is a showroom and the only way to purchase the displayed items it thru the online site.
Shopping it´s even more complex… customers that make an order will have to answer the following question: “Why” does art matter?. Purchases will be prioritized according the purchasers answers. Again, Bansky is playing with psychological factors as paying is not enough to ensure owning the piece of art.
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