One week it’s holy water in sneakers. The next, it’s a handbag smaller than a grain of salt. For almost a decade, Brooklyn-based art collective Mschf has confounded, provoked and delighted industries from fashion to fine art with a string of unpredictable, culture-hacking interventions. Now, the group is channelling that same irreverent energy into Applied Mschf, a newly launched creative agency designed to help others harness — rather than fall victim to — their brand of cultural mischief.
Founded in 2016 by CEO Gabriel Whaley, with co-chief creative officers Lukas Bentel and Kevin Wiesner, alongside COO Stephen Tetreault, the art collective has become a bona fide business. By 2020 it had raised around $11.5 million in investor funding, and although the company doesn’t disclose financials, it reports annual revenue growth of 100 per cent since 2019, powered largely by its now-signature product “drops”.