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Category Archives: Cultural Inquiry
Re-appropriation Art?
Appropriation Art results from borrowing elements of visual culture (either completely or in part) and re-contextualizing them into new works, that play on the ideas of the original. But what happens when an appropriation artwork becomes iconic enough to be … Continue reading
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Vandalism or Activism?
Shocking at first and second glance. The Las Vegas police received numerous panicked calls at 6:30a.m. on Wednesday, August 8th about a billboard located on I-15. This billboard, reacting to the record high unemployment and suicide rates in Nevada, was … Continue reading
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Pictorial signs
→√ΔØ! Pictorial Signs (also known as pictographs or ideograms depending on their form) are meant to relay ideas beyond the barrier of language, yet ironically, their simplified messages can sometimes create cultural and linguistic ambiguities. Some signs can be considered … Continue reading
The Mystery Spot: Bumper Sticker Semiology
Like some of the most profound wisdom, “The Mystery Spot” manifested itself on the rear end of a car. According to Sandlot Science, Mystery Spots are the product of the great depression, when the entertainment industry was trying to market … Continue reading
Ghostbike in Santa Monica
Ghost Bikes are small and somber memorials for bicyclists who are killed on the street. The memorial consists of a bicycle which is painted all white and locked to a street sign near the crash site, accompanied by a small … Continue reading
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Phantoms Rising – The Freedom Tower in NYC
Even in its digital phantom, the photograph qua photograph belies cultural anxieties. Ten years later and the site of 9/11’s most horrendous act is still ‘under construction.’ The view from a Bowery Street vantage point, reveals a half-built Freedom Tower … Continue reading
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Craig Owens by John Galt
For most artists of a certain age they can remember the first time the public discourse on HIV suddenly became personal through the death of a loved one, a diagnosis of a friend or a long afternoon as an HIV … Continue reading
Art hIstory reaDing liSt
Over the years, ICI associates have brought focus to AIDS through essays and artworks such as this image-test document which summarized the impact of AIDS on the discipline of Art History in the mid-1990s. This image was published in … Continue reading
