Since 2018, the Brooklyn-based collective MSCHF have been subverting the art system with outrageous projects. Far from being merely pranks, their ‘drops’ challenge our preconceptions of creativity.


Picture yourself at a party. In one corner are the hypebeasts; in another, the mid-30s to 40s Supreme dads. Across the room, teenagers steeped in art and fashion, while law students and professors mingle with Silicon Valley techies. You might be under the impression that this diverse group of people would make for an awkward gathering. But when it comes to experiencing a MSCHF show, it all makes perfect sense.
“Creativity, whether we plan it or not, acts like a Trojan horse – bringing people together without them even realizing it,” says MSCHF founder Gabriel Whaley from a deep-green hotel room in Stockholm.
Amid social and financial rifts, few artistic experiences bridge these divides as effortlessly as MSCHF’s. In speaking with Gabriel, one thing is clear: nothing is scripted. For Whaley, who’s coded, designed and pushed boundaries for as long as he can remember, MSCHF has become a space for collaboration – a collective and brand that’s now grown beyond him. “What MSCHF is today is the sum of its parts, of different people that I’ve met over the last, honestly, 10 years,” he reflects. The MSCHF most are familiar with today started in 2018 with the founding team of creative directors, Kevin Weisner and Lucas Bentel, their COO Steven, and Gabriel himself, who today operates as what he refers to as the “space maker”.
“We were four nobodies who had nothing going for them. And what I mean by that is that we didn’t have impressive careers that we had to turn down to do this, or like, incredible trajectories that we were going down. I think we were all just trying to figure out a version of the world where we could make the best creative work of our lives, while also making it be a sustainable practice,” he says.
In a world where progress and performance seem to be the point of everything, from the social feeds to careers and even the concept of aging, MSCHF takes a different approach. There’s no grand plan or formal structure. Here, creativity has no guidelines, boundaries or conventional markers of success. The diverse group of 30, based in Brooklyn are people from all walks of life, with various types of qualifications (or lack of qualifications, as Gabriel puts it), coming together to make almost anything they dream of. It’s fluid, fearless and perfectly unplanned.


“In the beginning MSCHF was almost like this mysterious black box putting out work that hopefully made people stop in their tracks and revisit their own reality for a moment. Although that continues to be the case. We want to put out work that challenges norms, subverts existing systems and objects and makes people reflect on their own reality. But as we’ve grown and become less secret, we’re challenging ourselves to take on more formats and become as prolific as we possibly can,” he says.
Gabriel’s world, in which anyone at any given moment can explore any topic in any direction with equal amount of intention, sounds like a creative utopia – one that MSCHF has decoded. It often seems that it’s what they choose not to do that fuels their success, an unintentional rejection of conventional progress as a means to redefining it. “A lot of people who reach out to us were raised to see creativity as either a hobby or a service job,” Gabriel notes. “We’re trying to show anyone watching that there’s a world where you can create for yourself – purely and unapologetically.”
The results are wildly intriguing projects and products, such as Satan Shoes (2021), which was a collaboration with Lil Nas X featuring modified Nike Air Max 97s containing a drop of human blood, and the Museum of Forgeries: Warhol Edition (2021) containing 999 replicas of an original Warhol print, mixing them with the real one and selling each for the same price.
One might picture MSCHF in a sleek boardroom, plotting which cultural norm to dismantle or political territory to infiltrate next. The reality is the opposite. “I wouldn’t say we’re here to make the world a better place – that’s not really our role,” Gabriel explains. “We’re a business, but we’re also an art collective, made up of people who are constantly looking at our own environment and surroundings as an opportunity to play. An opportunity to create, to see the hidden side of things, and to like, misuse,2 and make new.”

For the collective, a lot of those opportunities lie in our existing societal structure and shared value systems. “There’s an inherent tension in our relationship to power, to each other and the shared value systems that we’ve created as human beings. People will ascribe value to the most banal of objects for the sake of their own ego or for the sake of being accepted by their social circles. I think that’s why we love playing with the concept of value, because it’s such a pure reflection of you and the people that you desire approval from,” he says.
Gabriel cites Tax Heaven 3000 (2023) as a quintessential MSCHF project– a tax filing software disguised as a dating sim, where players end up completing their taxes by the end of a cute anime-style date. Sold alongside a body pillow, it also offered a free online version that saw 20,000 users ditch TurboTax last year. “There’s a lot to unpack – the monopoly, dark UX patterns, lobbying influence – all designed to stoke audit anxiety so you’ll pay for protection,” Gabriel explains, highlighting the system’s exploitative flaws.
The concept of art as business – or business as art – isn’t new. Back in the 1960s, Andy Warhol pioneered what he called “business art” with works such as Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962), positioning the artist as both creator and commodity. Today, in an era where commercialism is more pervasive than ever, this idea feels even more resonant. As Gabriel puts it, “Creating within these themes means putting the work into the systems you’re critiquing, rather than shouting from a hilltop. I think it’s very easy to fall into the trap of having your work only show up in spaces where inequality might not exist.” This approach keeps MSCHF’s work grounded and challenging the very spaces that feed it.
Experiencing art can often feel exclusionary – big white walls with an air of elitism that stands between the work and a genuine connection. But MSCHF flips this on its head, creating a space where anyone, from the Supreme dad to the law professor can bond, at an art show, over taxes filed in an anime date sim, side by side with techies, hypebeasts and art teens. The lines blur, and art starts to feel like a conversation open to all.
Words by Hannah Magnusson
MSCEF can be seen in Andy Warhol – Money On The WallSpritmuseum in Stockholm: 18 October 2024 – 27 April 2025
All images courtesy of MSCHF
Left to right:
Yellow bag: Global Supply Chain Telephone Bag (2024)
Bag in the middle: Our Cow Angus (2024)
Nike sneaker: Satan Shoes (2021)