Description:
from "In America" portfolio
Label Text:
The T-shirt in this photograph demonstrates appropriation, the incorporation of existing imagery into new work. Artists in the 1980s often used advertising motifs to critique contemporary culture, while advertisers capitalized on the cachet of fine art to sell products. Sometimes, appropriated imagery subsequently reappeared in its original medium. This photograph describes a similar loop.
The T-shirt’s designer has taken the Pepsi logo and criticized its commercial, indulgent appeal by replacing the product name and original slogan, “The Choice Of The Next Generation,” with “JESUS” and “The Choice Of The LAST Generation,” a reference to one interpretation of the Book of Revelation as prophesizing an end time. Mark captures the irony of the self-righteous, anti-commercial design’s placement on a T-shirt—a commercial object—which undercuts the design’s message. Yet Mark’s act of taking this photograph is another appropriation. With this reworked logo, the wearer, and his child, Mark suggests that the viewer ponder what may be valuable in life, to whom, and why.
MD, PHOTOdocument exhibition, March 30, 2012-July 22, 2012
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+1993.53.5 |
