All American Temper Tot is the name of the new installation by Street Artist Ron English on the Houston Bowery Wall in Manhattan, and the US flag-based design may be comforting to the average patriotic New Yorker until you realize he is offering a not-so-subtle critique of mindless consumerism that indicts probably everyone who passes it. Part of his Popaganda series, a sort of retrospective of it actually, the famous subverter of billboards has just delivered a one-two punch to the culture of comfortable consumerism that reduces all life experiences to a commodity.
Ron English (photo © Jaime Rojo)
The enormous nose-tweak is more ironic perhaps on this island that has raised its rents so high that most artists have had to abandon it and little genuine Street Art actually is on its walls anymore. This particular high-profile spot has become revered not only because of its lineage of Street Artists (Haring, Scharf, Faile, Fairey, HowNosm, Swoon among others) but because greed and gentrification has effectively wiped out the sort of organic scene that gave it birth.
Ron English (photo © Jaime Rojo)
While some passersby will see references to Jasper Johns here we are reminded of another more grassroots politically satirical flag. As early as the 1990s we began to see anti-corporate protesters carrying flags with the stars replaced by corporate logos and those may be a closer analogue to the stripes on display here.
In the last decade and a half as media was consolidated into a fewer hands and tabloid TV began serving up absurdity as normality, everything from pesticides to wars to gas fracking became slickly commercialized products to brand and sell and artists like Ron English has been drawing attention and alerting the public to the mindless consumers that we are becoming via his postering and illegal billboard “takeovers”. With playful parody on fast food purveyors, sugary cereal sellers, and right wing news channels, these were more comedic satire like those you may find in MAD magazine than the pointed approach of early 1970s takeover artists like “The Billboard Liberation Front” or the full frontal lobe subvertising of folks like the Adbusters.
Ron English (photo © Jaime Rojo)
In one more twist to this new wall story, a few will undoubtedly argue that this installation is also a billboard advertisement itself since a print of the piece went on sale this week on the artists website, and it’s central figure, the Temper Tot, is also a 3-dimensional vinyl toy that is highly collectible. But not everyone is scandalized by this — the print already sold out. This is the soup we are all swimming in – even while the little green hulking monster baby flexes his muscles and trembles with fury at what has been happening to that flag behind him.
Like his site says in the sales copy for the toy “The only thing worse than a toddler with a tantrum is a very STRONG one!” Terrifyingly strong and terrifically immature, don’t get in the way of this well armed boy nearly popping off the wall and running across Houston Street to punch someone’s lights out. English has poked his finger in the chest of popaganda and we all will see how it responds.
Ron English (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Ron English (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Ron English (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Ron English (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Ron English (photo © Jaime Rojo)
<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA
Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!
<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA
This article is also published on The Huffington Post.
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
We knew that Rammellzee deserved an intellect and artist operating on his wavelength to give a fair examination of his work and this exhibition, and very few can rise to the occasion the way that EKG ...
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities. Now screening:1. BATTLEGROUND. A short film by Mark Bone and Kwesi Thomas2. RIPDMX Via @NYCGRAFF.HEAD3. Giganti...
“Liberty Asleep” is the name of this image by French artist Liliwen who paints it at a time when liberty needs to be awake. Liliwenn. "Liberté endormie". Vannes, France. May 2017. (photo © Liliwenn...
For everything, there is a season. Now that autumn turns to winter we see the remainder of the leaves and the flowers succumbing to the cold temperatures and bitter winds. As an experiment this fall t...
Something completely fresh today from artist Adele Renault, who tells us she is thinking about the beauty of nature more than ever. With this new mural of green leafy covering in Liège, Belgium, she ...