Altered images, subway edition
Subway riders to bridesmaids: "RIDE ME"; Nassau Ave G, 2011
Subway posters aren’t designed to be interactive, but sometimes they get hijacked—graffitied, blackened, torn and rearranged. Generally, I enjoy the results. The posters are ads to consume or deflect, not frescoes to revere.
The altered versions tend to conform to just a few common themes. It isn’t exactly original to draw a moustache on someone—Duchamp milked that act of appropriation for all it’s worth when he drew one on the Mona Lisa in 1919. The charm is in the execution. Anarchic sentiment, gender ambiguity, casual misogyny and bloodlust… all themes explored by artists from Dada and Surrealism through feminist art and Japanese printmaking.
The Moustache
"L.H.O.O.Q." = "Elle a chaud au cul" ~ "She's got a party in her pants"; Nassau Ave G, 2011
Transgendered
If you want to make fun of a man, turn him into a woman.
René Magritte's 'Rape'; Metropolitan Ave G, 2011 & Clinton-Washinton G, 2005
Transplanted
Go Island of Dr. Moreau.
Hans Bellmer's surrealist doll photo; Metropolitan Ave G, 2011
Defaced
Hate me because I’m beautiful.
Barbara Kruger; Metropolitan Ave G, 2011
Splatterfest
Put some blood on it.
Suehiro Maruo and Kazuichi Hanawa give traditional muzan-e (atrocious prints) a gory update in artbook Bloody Ukiyo-e in 1866 & 1988; Clinton-Washington G, 2005
What’s Kim Kardashian got to do with it?
- Kim gets a Duchamp moustache (Show and Tell)
- Kim as Barbara Kruger’s muse (the Atlantic wire)
rebecca henretta | design » into « words 
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