Pino Boresta: Street Art as Anti-Marketing and the Fight Against Consumer Society

Pino Boresta, a self-taught street artist from Rome living in Segni, recounts his decades-long practice of using his own face as a brand to critique consumerism and surveillance. Since the early 1990s, he has created works such as S.S.R. (Rectified Road Signs), M.E.R.d.A. (Rectified Electoral Posters), D.U.R. (Rectified Urban Documents), and interactive stickers from the C.U.S. project. Boresta's philosophy is influenced by Sigmund Freud's 'Psychopathology of Everyday Life' and 'Totem and Taboo', Peter D. Ouspensky's 'The Fourth Way', Henri Bergson's 'Creative Evolution', Guy Debord's 'The Society of the Spectacle', and Naomi Klein's 'No Logo', which inspired his web art project 'No-Logo C.U.S.'. He cites the 1954 film 'It Should Happen to You' and George Orwell's '1984' as influences. Boresta argues that street artists are often snubbed by the art system but sometimes co-opted as 'useful idiots' to revitalize a stale contemporary art scene. He criticizes gallerists who lack genuine street experience and calls for a proper historical reconstruction of street art. Boresta's work aims to provoke reflection on manipulative advertising and the 'doublethink' and 'stopreat' (protective stupidity) described by Orwell, warning against surveillance technologies that analyze facial expressions.