San Diego Opera Enlists Occupy Oakland Artist
This is simply fantastic. To promote a San Diego Opera production of Aida, media relations director Edward Wilensky has the benefit of a most unusual PR partner: Occupy Oakland image-maker R. Black.
Per a report by U-T San Diego music and art critic James Chute, the above image is the beginning of a beautiful 2012-13 season friendship. All sparked by Wilensky’s eagle eye and-or fine-tuned Google News alerts:
In several Occupy-related interviews, when asked what he wanted to do next, Black said he wanted to design an opera poster. It didn’t take long for Wilensky, a former buyer for Off the Record and a big Black fan (who even had a copy of Black’s 2004 book Futura: The Art of R. Black), to make an offer Black couldn’t refuse: design a poster for each of the opera’s five presentations and an overall season poster.
“My promise was — and whether I achieved it or not, I’m not sure — was opera awesomeness,” Black said. “However I could convey the awesomeness of opera, that’s what I was going to focus on.”
Extra points to Wilensky Black for putting opera and awesomeness together in the same sentence. The Opera is supporting this hip new campaign with large blocks of half-priced tickets that it hopes will attract younger patrons. Black meanwhile has done similar work up north for Berkeley’s Shotgun Players.
