Global internet artist-activist Blcksmth goes viral with Detroit art installation
Michael Schneider has gone viral yet again – this time, direct from Detroit.
Known around the world by his internet handle Blcksmth, he is known for his whimsical, witty and thought-provoking typographical art that writes out both fun and profound quotes using balloons, flowers, leaves and/or LED lights. Commanding nearly a million followers on Instagram, almost every post he makes goes around the internet like a lightning bolt; if you've been on any major social media platform in the last few years, you've seen his work.
Schneider's most recent work was done right in the heart of the Motor City during his first visit, and he confessed to the Free Press that he's fallen in love with Detroit.
He was brought to town to create several installations around the campus of The Summit, a four-day event that convened business executives, major arts and music figures, and some of the most celebrated thinkers of the day to connect, collect and collaborate. One display he created here, a Campus Martius flower installation reading 'If being hard on yourself worked, it would have worked by now,' has racked up more than 23,000 Instagram likes since it was posted on Friday, June 7.
He became so enamored with Detroit that he also created two different video montages chronicling his experiences in the city.
Schneider, 51, first went viral in 2018 – before the balloons and flowers – with his 'Box Wine Boyfriend' series.
'I'd had a bad breakup,' he explained, 'and so I constructed a replacement boyfriend out of the boxes of wine that I used to self-medicate after the breakup. And we posted in all these different scenarios that I would fictionally do with my boyfriend. So we were grocery shopping together, and reading the paper in bed together, and it was just a silly, ridiculous series but it was actually pretty fun to do.'
The following year came the balloon messages, which blew up during the 2020 Covid lockdown when celebrities began sharing his images.
'I love typographic art,' he said, 'and so it's always been fun to just play with words and quote art. My friend Johnny says, 'One day, I lived in a world without seeing balloons on a wall. And then I saw balloons on a wall, and then I never saw anything else.'
'So I'm sorry if they are a constant presence on your social media feed,' he added with a laugh.
As the United States moved deeper into the pandemic era and the first Donald Trump presidency, Blcksmth's posts notably began drifting into themes of social activism and self-empowerment. Now, it's a regular occurrence to see posts with such phrases as 'You still haven't met all of the people who are going to love you' (a sign he recreated while in Detroit) or 'PBS didn't become 'woke,' you grew up to be a bad person.' The pinned post on Schneider's Instagram page reads, "When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king, the palace becomes a circus,' and he has also created signs that directly refer to Trump.
'My lean into activism was inevitable,' he said. 'As a queer, half-Mexican descent artist, my very life is political. That bled into my art, and quote artworks are so powerful to convey succinct messages. Unfortunately, they can also be interpreted differently by a great many people, but I feel like I have an obligation and a mission to amplify voices and words that would maybe not necessarily be amplified as much. My favorite thing is to collaborate with other artists and activists in communities that aren't seen as much as I am.'
More: Detroit's 'best art show in 50 years' closing soon at Carr Center
See also: Theaters, arts organizations across Michigan facing crisis after Trump's NEA cuts
He initially worried that taking a political stance at this uncertain moment in American history would close a lot of doors for him. Instead, he found the opposite to be true.
'At the beginning of this year,' he said, 'I was facing a very difficult decision, because I knew that I would book less jobs if I still remained politically outspoken. For a few weeks, I did even archive a great number of my politically oriented posts to make my social media presence appear more universal and more neutral.
'And when the week of the inauguration hit, I was gripping my phone in my hand tightly, and I was like, 'F that. I'm not going to do that.' And I unarchived all of those, and then I did a post that directly addressed the inauguration.'
The trade-off? Schneider quickly booked three jobs in a row.
'I intend to let my audience – who is, for the most part, aligned with my values – know where they should shop and where they should put their money, that they are worth people putting their money towards them and giving them their business,' he said.
'I had no preconceived notions of Detroit when Summit invited me out here, and since I have been here, I have been really, really charmed by the history of the city, a lot of the buildings. I find parallels between Detroit and Portland, honestly. I feel like they both have a really thriving art scene. Half of the people who have come up to approach me and say hi are artists!
'I went to the Eastern Market to do an installation, and there's an endless supply of colorful walls and murals that I could overlay my balloons on, so it was hard to pick one. And, again, everybody is so friendly, it also feels similar to Portland. I think both cities are coming from difficult recent pasts, and there's a sort of spirit of optimism in the air and hope for a brighter future. And, you know, anytime you visit a new city as a tourist, it's going to roll out the red carpet for you, and you're always going to find yourself being like, 'I could live here.' This is a great city, but I really do feel that about Detroit.'
To follow Blcksmth and see more of his work, go to instagram.com/blcksmth.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: An internet superstar fell in love with Detroit and went viral here
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