Kanye West Takes Guerilla Approach to New Ad Campaign
Following the clever unveiling of Yeezy Season 6, which saw Kim Kardashian wearing full Carine Roitfeld-styled looks in apparent regular-day paparazzi-lensed photos, Kanye West has taken an unorthodox approach to his ad campaign release; West has wheat-paste plastered Instagram screenshots of fans posting the images, as if they were an official ad.
The posters have appeared in six cities so far: Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, Amsterdam and Berlin. It’s likely only a matter of time until they appear in fashion’s biggest cities like New York, London, Milan, and Paris. Or perhaps, West, who hasn’t always received the warmest welcome in the industry, is excluding them on purpose.
The paparazzi-photo-as-lookbook-turned-Instagram-post-turned-ad-campaign actually has an artful precedent. In 2015, contemporary artist Richard Prince presented a collection of work, which was actually just blown-up screenshots of celebrity Instagrams. He sold each of those works for upwards of $90,000. Naturally, calls of appropriation and lawsuits of copyright infringement followed.
Though West has not always been a lauded designer, you cannot deny that he has never stopped innovating, often becoming the highlight of an ever-dulling fashion week.
