Avant Garde Diaries: Curtis Kulig & Colin Tunstall

UNLIKE CITY GUIDES
Avant Garde Diaries
Curtis Kulig & Colin Tunstall - 99 percent perspiration

Every morning when Colin Tunstall looks outside his TriBeCa office window, he sees a building emblazoned with graffiti art reading “Love Me.” Tunstall, the creative director and co-founder of Saturdays Surf NYC (an international surf shop and clothing brand with a smattering of shops on the East Coast and one in Tokyo) is impressed with the drive of the man behind the tag, Curtis Kulig, who took a simple two-word phrase and owned it. This self-made mantra has evolved into a branding that appears in the form of stickers, tags, and other art mediums seen all over the city, and is representative of a particular kind of avant-garde: the kind that takes something ordinary and pushes the boundaries, ultimately communicating meaning via a new context.