Scarves of Red © Jenn Levo
When Charles Youel started ARTCRANK, a bike poster art show, he wanted it to be an antidote to the 9-to-5 work life. It was 2007, and as a creative director for an advertising agency in Minneapolis, he was familiar with the daily grind.
“The idea of doing a live, pop-up art show featuring limited-edition, handmade, bike-inspired posters was as far from what I was doing during the day as I could think of, and also tapped into a couple things that were personal passions of mine, principally screen-printed posters and bicycles,” he says.
Flying Machine © Brendan Totten
ARTCRANK shows have a grassroots, underground art kind of feel. It’s an event where cycling fanatics and creatives meander with cups of beer in hand and admire whimsical, nostalgic, colorful, and geographically-specific depictions of the unique bliss that is pedaling a two-wheeler.
When planning the first ARTCRANK, Youel decided to give all the proceeds back to the artists, “just in case it was a failure,” he says. It was far from a flop; 500 people attended the first show—ten times the turnout expected. Since then, ARTCRANK has expanded to 66 shows across the U.S., as well as popped up in Paris and London. Named “Cycling’s Coolest Art Show” by Bicycling magazine this summer, the LLC also launched a new website on Sept. 1 to further extend its reach.
When curating the shows, which feature anywhere from 25 to 50 artists from the host city, Youel looks for a diverse representation of cycling, not the stereotypically spandex-clad, pricey-bike riders. “I think the reality of cycling is a lot more diverse and different and interesting that that,” he says.
We Roll at 45 RPM © Rockets Are Red
Youel estimates 90% of ARTCRANK artists are not full-time artists. “For the vast majority of people in our show, this may be the first time they show their work in public,” He says. “It may be the only time they show their work in public.” Some artists, like Minnesota-based Adam Turman, had day jobs in design, or art direction, or illustration when they first contributed to ARTCRANK, but have since gone on to launch their own creative enterprises.
Because of the cost of mounting the shows, ARTCRANK now charges commission, though artists still take home the majority of the sale price; currently, it’s 60% to the artist and 40% back to ARTCRANK. There is still no admission charge to attend the show, making art appreciation that much more accessible to the masses.
The catalyst to expand ARTCRANK worldwide came in 2009, at the end of what would be Youel’s last full-time position in advertising. He was freelancing and interviewing for jobs that, on paper, would have been ideal for him. “I would leave every interview with the same feeling, that I needed to try something else,” he says. He realized that ARTCRANK had the potential to be a legit business. Using social media, he scouted out contacts interested in bringing ARTCRANK to their cities. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Boston, Denver, New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Detroit and Austin are just some of the cities that have since welcomed the “poster party for bike people,” each offering its distinct aesthetic to the theme of cycling.
Cycle Cat © Little Friends of Printmaking
The goal of ARTCRANK’s new website is to spread the bike art mania even further—without detracting from the energy and excitement of the events. Youel says it’s “one of the things we’ve struggled with for a long time, in terms of how we wanted to do it and how we could stage the website without undercutting, invalidating, or galvanizing the event-based business we’ve spent eight years growing.”
To that end, most—if not all—of the posters for sale on the site will not be available at a live event. After an event concludes, posters might move to the site, but, says Youel, “There’s never going to be a situation in which those two things are in direct competition with each other.”
The site will make ARTCRANK gems accessible to fans in countries where shows have not taken place. Using a stock rotation model, 30 artists are featured at a time; each $45 poster is limited to a quantity of 30; posters are available for 30 days, or until they sell out. Then the next batch of artwork comes in. Visitors to the site can even submit artwork samples to be considered to design their own ARTCRANK poster.
Dreamside © Hilary Clarcq
“It’s a very new endeavor for us. We realize that this model of commerce isn’t common,” says Youel. “I think there’s a lot of pent-up demand for what we’re doing. I think there’s going to be a lot of interest.”
