Imp Kerr
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Imp Kerr (born June 6, 1980, Uppsala, Sweden) is a Swedish-French artist living in New York City, mostly known for her fake American Apparel advertisement campaign. She is The New Inquiry's creative director,[1][2][3] and runs the blog The New Shelton Wet/Dry.
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Early life and education
Kerr spent her childhood and teenage years in Paris, France. She moved to New York in 1999, where she graduated from NYU with a degree in magazine journalism and a minor in philosophy. Kerr has a sister, Rosa, who is three years older than her.
Some bits of Kerr's life were documented on her blog “stereohell”, but most of the content was taken off at the end of 2009. The same content was then reposted, in a fragmented and augmented version, on “shines like gold,“ an experimental blog[4] she runs for The New Inquiry.
Fake American Apparel ads
In 2007, Kerr started a fake American Apparel ad campaign in New York, which was covered on several blogs.
"For the uninitiated, over the past few months, a NYC prankster has created several bawdy two-color parodies of AA ads complete with real ad headlines." [5]
"The notorious, mysterious, and sexy American Apparel ad spoofer raises so many philosophical questions: What is art? What is advertising? What is porn? [...] The anonymous American Apparel ad remixer has consistently shown a marked devotion to actual "art." We're not dealing with just another vandal here. I don't think it's exaggerating the case to call this fake postermaker an educator." [6]
On September 9, 2008, a video posted on Stereohell.com revealed that the fake ads plastered throughout the city were Photoshop mockups, something nobody had suspected for one year.[7] Never before in the short history of street/guerrilla marketing has a project played so effectively with dissimulation, and for so long.
In a final twist, American Apparel ran a tribute ad on the back cover of Vice magazine (November, 2008), showing a compilation of the fake ads.[8]
Wall Street Casino
In December, 2008, Imp Kerr created a set of architectural drawings portraying investment banks as Las Vegas casinos.[9]
"Using the same two-color technique as the fake AA ads, the artist has playfully reimagined many of The Strip’s iconic signs. As an added element, the designs have been created on top of famous pop art. Imp from Stereo Hell explains: “The banks didn’t “invest” but gambled. Plus, they showed off. Everything looked under control and glamorous, like under the Las Vegas glittering neon…” Artwork was used as backgrounds because “that’s what art became under the flood of Wall Street money…ultra expensive, ultra-meaningless background.” [10]
Imp Kerr's vision was confirmed by the New York Times, in an editorial titled "Wall Street Casino," published on April 28, 2010: "Banks like Goldman turned the financial system into a casino. Like gambling, the transactions mostly just shifted money around." [11]
The drawings were shown in the group exhibition Spacer:One at the Tribeca Grand in New York (2010) [12] and featured in n+1 Occupy #4, April 2012 [13]
References
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- ↑ Dildo Holding Sex Toy, Animal New York, May 20, 2008 Animalnewyork.com, May 20, 2008
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- ↑ Stereo Hell Moves the Street to the Strip, Copyranter, Animal New York, December 16, 2008 Animalnewyork.com
- ↑ Wall Street Casino, New York Times, April 27, 2010 NYTimes.com
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ n+1 Occupy #4, April 2012 (PDF)
