Breathnaigh.com – 9.21.10
Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Philadelphia seems to foster subversive capitalists. Phila icon Ben Franklin has become a textbook cliche of lawful American ingenuity, but the real BF was a hustler who authored and plagiarized with equal zeal. The conservative politics of Urban Outfitters cofounder and CEO Richard Hayne occasionally rankle the customer base of his indie-retail empire. The happy and fruitful marriage of subculture to corporate culture makes DIY purists squirm, cynics smirk, and shareholders rich. That local tradition of blurring the line between art and commerce is strong with Steven Grasse. You know the feeling you get when you hear about a new band, or beer, or bar, when they’re just a little too polished? They feel focus-grouped. You get a spidey sense that you’re being sold something and soon enough you can make out the corporate fingerprints. Grasse and his marketing firm, Gyro, specialized for 20 years in the type of advertising that sold cool but wouldn’t leave any fingerprints. Grasse was responsible for giving Camel cigarettes a hipper image after the retirement of Joe C, and the campaigns, with fresh graphic design, gave new life to a brand in a dying industry. Big, bland clients brought Gyro in to give them what they couldn’t get from traditional advertising–a real edge. Gyro’s (occasionally controversial) methods were authentic enough to draw people in and clever enough to work. A documentary about tattoo artist Sailor Jerry drew praise at film festivals (and also happened to raise his profile while Gyro marketed Sailor Jerry tshirts); reclusive, ornery garage rocker Jay Reatard (RIP) helped market Sailor Jerry rum. Gyro gave sex, drugs, and rocknroll a job, but didn’t insist they shave and put on a tie. In the early 2000s Grasse was ahead of another cultural shift and used it to create a new brand for William Grant and Sons, a Scottish whiskey distiller. Grasse didn’t merely do the print ads, he designed the entire brand: a backstory involving rescued potstills, a strong graphic identity using anachronistic typefaces and apothecary bottles, and a liquor with herbal notes and a gilded age flavor profile that resonated with drinkers. Hendricks Gin has become the choice of connoisseurs worldwide, and with its aura of obscure craftsmanship it has largely escaped the backlash that affected other superpremium spirits at the end of the decade. Since Hendricks debut, the zeitgeist has gotten even folksier. Up and coming indie rock bands have ditched neon tshirts and synthesizers for waxed moustaches and mandolins. Etsy has made tattooed flea market knitters into internet entrepreneurs. Bartenders are now certified mixologists, resurrecting dusty cocktail recipes and infusing liquor with exotic herbs. And it seems like everyone is canning or pickling something. While bloggers and journalists debate the reasons behind our new taste for all things old timey, Grasse is busy catering to it. Last year he broke Gyro apart, decided to stop investing his creativity in other people’s products and started Quaker City Mercantile, a new venture that markets only its own brands. The first is Art in the Age. It’s a store, or an arts space, or a liquor manufacturer, depending on where you look. The flagship location is in Old City Philadelphia, and fills a bright space with carefully sourced clothing, books, and ephemera that evoke a similar feeling to Hendricks gin. The shelves also display bottles of ROOT and SNAP, spirits that seem pretty close to pre-Prohibition tonics, and both appealing enough that William Grant bought the whole thing in 2010, including the store. I had a chance to visit Art in the Age last weekend and ask a few questions of Mr. Grasse.
Peter W. Anderson: Art in the Age is an ambitious, uh, thing, as it makes stuff, sells stuff, and features music and art it’s not necessarily making or selling. If you had to narrow it down, what would you call it? A brand? A shop? An experiment? Something else?
Steven Grasse: You’re right, it’s an ambitious, uh, thing. At the heart of it, it’s a space where things happen… we sell stuff to keep the lights on. And the stuff we sell, we are very picky about. It’s a brand, a shop, a gallery, an experiment….all of those things. And all the intricate moving parts are all equally important to it working.
PWA: How do you feel Art in the Age has rooted itself into the landscape of Philadelphia culture?
SG: Pennsylvania culture more than Philadelphia culture. I wanted to celebrate my personal heritage, which is Pennsylvania Dutch. Pennsylvania has a very unique folk heritage that is extremely interesting and authentic, but rarely gets any attention. We have also worked closely with unlikely institutions like the Pennsylvania Historical Society. These are places that have had my attention for years. My goal was to put them into a fresh context.
PWA: Another Philadelphia institution, Urban Outfitters, has been criticized in the past for allegedly copying artists’ designs without credit. Art in the Age seems to turn that around, intentionally enlisting artists and artisans and giving credit whenever possible. What was behind that decision?
SG: Our business model and philosophy is probably a full 180 degrees from that of Urban Outfitters. They seem to frantically search for what is fresh and new, then try to mimic it and mass produce it as cheaply as possible in a factory in China, and then get it on the shelves as fast as possible before moving on to the next thing. This is the same for every mass retailer. However, most mass retailers tend to get their “ideas” from the runways of Milan or Paris. Urban tends to get theirs from struggling artists. The problem is, these artists are barely making a living as is… and with the internet, the cycle just gets faster and faster. Urban is a public company. They need to feed the machine and deliver shareholder value. Their business is based on trendspotting and coolhunting. It is a neverending cycle. Art in the Age is different on almost every level. Our philosophy is that people need to slow down and stop buying so much shit. And what you do buy, you should be happy to pay a little more for… if you know the people who made the product got paid a fair wage. That is the new luxury. Knowing where the shit you are buying actually came from and who made it. This is also why we make and sell spirits. It takes some of the pressure off making money on the store. We use that money to fund events and programs at the store.
PWA: Art in the Age’s mix of commerce and “indie” culture might make some DIY folks uncomfortable–what would you say to people who worry about commodification of culture?
SG: There is nothing wrong with commerce as long as the artisans who made the products get proper credit and get paid fairly for their wares. We are named after the Walter Benjamin essay because we believe the more something is mass produced, the more it loses it aura. He wrote this essay about art, but we have applied it to life in the 21st century America. The more you buy cheap shit from China at the mall, the more you patronize public corporations and their relentless pursuit of profit, the more you, as a human, lose your aura. Yes, we want to make money. Of course. But we want to make it without being exploitative. And, let’s be clear, I do not consider what we are doing to be “indie” in any sense of the word. That implies that we are trying to be part of some sort of popular street culture or trend. We are not. Art in the Age is based off personal experience and heritage. And a belief in pride in craft over ruthless and blind pursuit Wall Street bullshit profit.
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