“People will believe anything if it is packaged and polished in a certain way. “That really worries me,” said the artist, whose name is an obvious toy in Focke-Wulf, the German fighter jet maker of World War II, known to generations of aircraft builder models who uses art to overturn the power and meaning of ads. In a world where billboards are widely accepted as infrastructure, sub-advertising serves as an antidote to challenging the legitimacy of advertisers. The practice, inspired by the avant garde status quo movement of the 1950s, usually forges political and corporate posters, taking the form of a new image or a change to an existing image. According to author Naomi Klein, the subdivision – also known as “jamming culture” or, more recently, “brandalism” – offers a way of talking back to advertising, “forcing a dialogue where before there was only one statement”. The Wolf ad for urban SUV owners. Photo: Instagram / @ FokaWolf Wolf’s work is based on global issues such as police brutality, climate change, corporate greed, workers’ rights, courtesy and the housing crisis. “Barclays: Proud sponsors of fossil fuels, climate collapse and the Premier League,” reads a report in Brighton with two footballers tackling amid a forest fire. Another, in Birmingham, a city that says it often stays out of the national debate, recreates a Barratt Homes ad with the slogan “Clear history to maximize profits”: in 2018, a church was demolished in Park Central, called formerly Lea Bank, to open space for luxury apartments, pricing locals. Wolf has also targeted the disproportionately large number of harmful products advertised in the low-income areas of the second city, but is reluctant to call himself a “right-wing activist,” saying “I do not go to demonstrations or anything like that.” Allow Instagram Content? This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is uploaded, as they may use cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click “Allow and Continue”. The process, he says, is simple. Choosing an image on the internet requires a little care: obviously, opportunities for cognitive dissonance are everywhere. Then, fueled by anger and a dark sense of humor, he works on images digitally (knowledge of software art school such as Adobe Photoshop and large-format digital printers is useful but not necessary). Attitude, says Wolf, is everything. Recovery of natural spaces dissolves the idea that outdoor advertising is untouchable. Although the act is illegal, he is wearing a high visibility jacket and has never been questioned. This may have to do with its impressive speed (usually 30 seconds, a maximum of one minute) or the blinding society to service workers – and advertising. Allow Instagram Content? This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is uploaded, as they may use cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click “Allow and Continue”. Thomas Dekeyser, a cultural geographer at the University of London’s Royal Holloway, suggests that the invisibility of advertising is its most painful and dangerous property, protecting the situation in cities. Does this limit the effectiveness of the sabotage? The Wolf does not think. People are interested in an alternative: they make a living from it. The creator hosts events, talks and sells prints on a cheeky website Megacorp: Profit Before People, which he describes as “deliberately evil and impersonal” and is headed by Clive Babbington, a pseudonym. Through a newsletter that now has more than 6,000 subscribers, the street artist also sends free PDFs for download and printing, some of which have ended up in New York, attached to the Trump Tower. Perhaps, just like advertising, its emotional and political impact works cumulatively. In January, he opened a counterfeit store in the capital of the Black Country, Dundley. a missing customer, he tells me, laughing, tried to buy a bottle of Lairy Little Prick, a Fairy Liquid pastiche. Photo: Instagram / @ FokaWolf I ask if he is worried about fueling the deception. In 2019, a series of posters (no name for full power) appeared on London Underground trains simulating a mispronounced Conservative party campaign commitment. One promised to “wipe out all people with disabilities by December 2020” and the other to “cut all the homeless by 2025”. Each poster featured the Conservative Party logo and caught the attention of Twitter as some passengers interpreted the ad as genuine. Full Fact, a non-profit organization that exposes and tackles misinformation, has been forced to demystify “suspicious images.” “We are in a post-truth revelation,” says Wolf. “I only throw one lighter at the house fire.”
