Between art and commerce
Piet Parra (Pieter Janssen, 1976) is an all-round artist and has grown internationally into a typical Amsterdam brand. With his idiosyncratic style, he has been defining the image of the youth scene in the Dutch capital and far beyond.
His absurdist illustrations with swirling letters and striking figures – a woman with a bird’s beak, a man with a tomato head – in cheerful colours can be found on clothing, in graphic design (the Patta logo) and paintings , but also spatially in the city’s parks. The frightened rabbit with the hanging ears in the Flevopark, designed for the Appelsap hiphop festival, is by him.
Parra can do anything
For his own clothing company Rockwell Clothing, Parra (Surinamese for ‘paranoia’) determines the design of the clothing and accessories , which are sold as far away as Japan. He designed his first major advertising campaign for Footlocker and has decorated trainers and jackets for Nike. Parra performs with equal ease with Le [lul-lu], a band with optimistic electronic beats. Moreover, his paintings are regularly on display at international exhibitions. As an illustrator he has drawn hundreds of posters, flyers and CD covers, but also book covers for Penguin publishers and advertisements for large companies such as Coca-Cola and Ben & Jerry’s.
Heineken goes urban
To connect with urban culture, in 2004 Heineken enlisted the help of marketing agency StrawberryFrog. The result was the award-winning advertising campaign ‘Social Cocktails,’ with drawings by Zeloot and Piet Parra. Parra came up with this nostalgic design of the Manhattan skyline with yellow and white skyscrapers, as if filled with beer, against a night sky. An elegant hand lifts a glass of Heineken beer. The text contains the recipe for a city party à la New York, with the following ingredients: 76 HEINEKENS . 1 BOOM BOX . 56 STRANGERS. At the upper right is the Heineken slogan ‘Meet you there,’ which was also introduced in 2004. According to the annual report: ‘As the brand extends its global market share, and its positioning becomes more consistent, our marketing is becoming increasingly international.’
Art and commerce
Piet Parra mixes art and business in a constructive way. Since Footlocker, he has combined his independent work with commercial assignments. He has no problem with that: ‘I understand why big companies come to me. I am a voice of youth. What I make is popular art: cheerful and always easy on the eye. A feast for all ages.’
BEER
Other artists see this mix a little differently, such as Erik van Lieshout, with whom Parra exhibited at the group show Chapter 1NE in Het Hem . in 2019. Van Lieshout’s entry BEER humorously questioned the current financial development of art. Where does commerce begin and creativity end? As an artist in the Western art tradition, do you still have the freedom to be politically critical when you receive a great deal of money from a multinational?
Heineken Prize
BEER was occasioned by the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Art, which Van Lieshout won in 2018. The biennial recognition and stimulus prize established in 1988 by Alfred Heineken (like his grandfather Gerard Adriaan a genuine art lover) was then celebrating its 30th anniversary.
