I wasn’t overly surprised to see Converse sponsoring an artist. I was, however, surprised to see them sponsor a tattoo wizard from Oaxaca Mexico. Dr. Latka’s first major US exhibition will be at the ICA in Boston which Converse is sponsoring as well. They’ve started with a pretty edgy video about his inspiration in which he says “this is where people come to cry, and bleed.”
I know that most brands would be scared to death to put something like this out and I like it because it’s not edgy just to try to be cool. It’s edgy because they found this really great artist that happens to be a) under the radar and b) really passionate about his art. Here’s the video:

Converse Presents Dr. Lakra from Highsnobiety on Vimeo.

This Converse idea is the type of creativity that will get people’s attention. I have knocked on Bravo’s “art” show before…. it’s basically run exactly like Top Chef and I’m just guessing here but I bet the last few will be the most obnoxious drama inducers that are on the show vs. the most talented.