Oakland bar partners with artists nationwide to take a stand against AI-generated art

By Sara Donchey

Bay Area visual artist Pemex, who prefers to be referred to by his graffiti writer moniker, has spent plenty of time pondering the use of AI in creative spaces.

He doesn’t feel threatened by it exactly, but he acknowledges the threat it poses to artists like himself, whose lived experiences he feels are being ripped off and repurposed.

If AI can generate what looks like a painting, he says, that image will have been generated from countless other references from real-life artists who may not have consented to their work being used as “inspiration.”

In fact, Pemex takes issue with the word being used in the context of AI-generated art.

“It’s in fact the opposite of inspiration,” he said. “It’s theft. If anyone else did that, it would be theft.”

Pemex is known for his prolific graffiti art, massive murals, and colorful oil paintings. But early on in his career, he got started taking odd jobs like drawing up promotional flyers for bands that were trying to spread the word about an upcoming gig.

“You’d get a list of bands. You’d get the date, the location and depending on the band and the music that they played, you’d create a scene around that,” he said.

It sounds simple enough, but if you run a venue like Billy Joe Agan does, you would know these flyers are a part of the culture. They are quite literally plastered all over his Oakland bar, Thee Stork Club.

Agan noticed recently that the flyers that promoters and managers were giving him ahead of their bands’ shows seemed a bit off.

“There would be just glaring inconsistencies in someone’s hand, teeth, a character’s hair. The background would be the same texture as a character. Just things that a human illustrator would have never done,” Agan said.

The promoters had been using AI to make the posters, instead of hiring an artist to draw something up.

“It started with a few, maybe smaller artists that were sending us, using cheaper generative AI software, and so it was easy to spot,” Agan said.

This didn’t sit well with Agan, who caused a stir on social media when he announced he was banning the use of AI to promote his club.

He went a step further, though, and announced a partnership with artists across the country to get promoters the best possible rate on using a living, breathing human artist.

“I pre-negotiated the rate with these artists,” he said. “The rate is as cheap as they can go and we’re talking about people normally get ten times what they’re quoting us.”

Now, a band that is operating on a shoestring budget can pay one of dozens of artists fifty dollars for a poster that might have cost hundreds of dollars to create.

Agan has since received a groundswell of support and estimates that more than 100 artists are participating in his program.

If you are interested in being considered, you can email your resume to Agan here: theestorkclub@gmail.com