Your Sneakers, your iPod or Your Life. Branding has never been hotter. Adults and children alike are targeted by ads and pressured by peers to buy the right clothes, the right toys and the right cars, and often pay extra for the privilege of being a walking advertisement. Many items have become worth killing for just for the logo.

Throughout the world, political artists are taking advantage of highly marketed advertising campaigns to bring diverse social causes to the forefront. An iPod ad becomes an image of torture in Abu Ghraib prison. Insecticide “Raid” becomes anti-immigrant spray “Fraid.” “Tony the Tiger” becomes “Frankentony.” Whether they are protesting the Viet Nam or Iraq wars, drawing our attention to sweatshop labor, or opposing the use of pesticides and genetically modified foods, these posters provide an alternative view of reality.

This online exhibition has been made possible with support from The Andy Warhol Foundation; Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles; The James Irvine Foundation; The Getty Foundation; The Los Angeles County Arts Commission; and The John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation.

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