I like the idea of this so-called culture-jamming.  It has a funky ring to it and seems to take art to the street, by-passing the gallerists and the institutions (except when they are not, such as the case of Tom Sachs).  Gallerists and foundations are the Halliburtons and Enrons of the art world, base and corrupt.  Their fingers are best removed from real art and work with meaning.  In other words, real culture jamming is not taking place at Gagosian.  

So even when they tag my beloved Starbucks (mmmmm… mocha), I appreciate the sentiment.

One example brought to my attention recently was the Lazy Artist, a cultural jamming network based in Amsterdam.  From the LazyArtist.org Web site:

Claiming a scarcely available parking place in Amsterdam as a way of exhibiting art publicly was not just something a group of friends came up with randomly when creating Lazy Artist some five years ago. By organizing culture jams and various underground symposiums for example, this Dutch initiative sensibly strives to reflect on today’s volatile society while creatively resisting its increasingly mundane ramifications.

From Wikipedia:

Culture jamming is the act of transforming existing mass media to produce negative commentary about itself, using the original medium’s communication method. It is a form of public activism which is generally in opposition to commercialism, and the vectors of corporate image. The aim of culture jamming is to create a contrast between corporate image and the realities of the corporation. This is done symbolically, with the “detournement” of pop iconography.

It is based on the idea that advertising is little more than propaganda for established interests, and that there is a lack of an available means for alternative expression in industrialized nations. Culture jamming is a resistance movement to the perceived hegemony of popular culture, based on the ideas of “guerrilla communication”.

See also:  Culture-Jamming.de, Sniggle.Net, Gorrilaz’ Rejectfalseicons.com, and Shopdropping.Net, as examples.

Send me your favorite examples of culture jamming and I will feature them here.

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