UNBRANDED is a series of advertising images that were made to target African-Americans. These ads were found in magazines from the late 60s to current day and have been digitally manipulated and appropriated by artist Hank Willis Thomas. He has removed all traces of advertising information like logos, headlines and text, in an attempt to challenge the viewers response and understanding of advertisements-as we are bombarded with them everyday.
" I believe that in part, advertising's success rests on its ability to reinforce generalisations around race, gender and ethnicity which can be entertaining, sometimes true, and sometimes horrifying, but which at a core level are a reflection of the way culture views itself or its aspirations" -
Hank Willis Thomas
It's fun to look at these images and figure out what was being advertised in the first place!
i have a book of all of this stuff... my wifey wrote about it in sf camera works journal a couple years back... they have some of his prints in their collection... my favorite being "slack power"(https://sfcamerawork.org/events/auction_catalog6.php#138)... we get to keep some prints as gifts from the gallery, and it's one of the ones i wanted, but i got overruled.
ReplyDeleteawesome post lady.