The following article has been updated since it first appeared in print.
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The “Hello, My Name Is ...” international sticker exhibition runs Sept. 5-30 at Gallery5. (Photo courtesy Bran Mauer)
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Photo courtesy Ian Hess
Ian Hess (the owner of Supply arts and crafts store), arts organization Little Giant Society and host Gallery5 aren’t adhering to convention for “Hello, My Name Is ...,” an international exhibition of stickers. The showcase premieres 5 to 11 p.m. Sept. 5 at the nonprofit cultural space in Jackson Ward. Besides the work of more than 270 artists from around the world, there’s a bus, a book and a movie all about these little depictions that occupy a niche somewhere between graffiti and street art.
Stickers are perhaps best known for decorating car bumpers, but there is much more to the adhesive art. “The game is repetition, distinctness, collectability and longevity,” explains Hess, who is also advocating for a public art park beneath the Manchester Bridge. “Stickers can be found on the back of stop signs, dive bar bathrooms, museum panels and Romanian buses. They have become a staple of the modern-day cityscape. They declare proudly, and at times secretly, that the artist was here.”
For the Gallery5 exhibition, Hess solicited contributions from makers located across the globe. Some he personally knew, and others came by way of friends of friends, Instagram and an open call. He needed plenty of stickers, because he purchased a decommissioned school bus to cover it with 18,000 of them as a “moving, sculptural, public art piece.” The public is also invited to bring their own adhesive art to contribute to the bus during Gallery5’s First Fridays event on Sept. 5. The project was inspired by a sticker-laden bus in Romania. Hess says, “I would’ve been hard pressed to believe such a project is possible without the people at Stencibility [who created the bus].”
A companion to the exhibition, the forthcoming “Hello My Name Is: The Book” is a collaboration between Hess and his friend Becc Keyes, whose previous work, “The Last Couple Yrs.,” presents an array of the Richmond area’s abandoned spaces and graffiti from the past decade. The book will feature stickers from the exhibition as well as designs and statements from artists around the world. It will cost approximately $60, and proceeds will defray exhibit expenses and fund the proposed public art park. Available now for preorder, the book will be published after the exhibition concludes. Anyone who donates $100 to the public art park campaign at littlegiantsociety.org will automatically receive a copy.
As a companion event, the 2023 documentary “The Sticker Movie” will be screened at The Byrd Theatre on Sept. 13. The film delves into the sticker-making subculture, discusses the history of the adhesive art and includes interviews with a couple dozen artists and enthusiasts. A community of creatives and filmmakers from across the country made the documentary, including Will Deloney, Stacey Governale-Bloom, Ricky de Laveaga, Tori Luecking, Alicia Parrott, Sha-Risse R. Smith and Jim Tozzi. “They’ve agreed to show this in Richmond in tandem with the [exhibition], and we’re honored to host them here in our city,” Hess says with excitement.
Which all goes to show that no matter how small or large an art form may be, there is no royal road to accomplishment. Bringing the work to completion requires sheer stick-to-itiveness.
