Fashion statement
’Money talks but has nothing to say,’ the artist Max Wiedemann splashes across his one of his subversive canvases which parody Vogue magazine covers. The models are painted with murderous drips pouring from them, while punning straplines loudly mock status-obsessed consumer culture.
Yet Wiedemann is an ad man, who spent ten years as a brand strategist and account director at agencies including BBDO, before setting up ’art-vertising’ agency Edwards Wiedemann, where he creates artworks to help sell brands including VH1.
’I spent ten years selling things to people that they don’t really need,’ he admits, ahead of his upcoming art exhibition How to Make A Billion.
Wiedemann’s twin stance – apparently both for and against consumer culture – initially appears unsustainable, which he denies.
’I have noticed in the past few years that status symbols have taken over the definition of persona. In my art I am trying to de-mask branding, but at the same time
I am not really criticising anything. I am a fun-loving man who likes the good life, and I am slightly taking the mick out of the vanity of that culture. I just want my pictures to be funny,’ says Wiedemann.
His protesting content and style, comparable to that of Banksy and Stuckist artist Stella Vine, still seem at odds with his claims that there is no harm intended.
But on closer inspection, Wiedemann’s is an interesting standpoint that reflects our own ambivalent relationship with consumption.
How to Make a Billion runs at the GG Gallery, 15b Blenheim Crescent, London W11 from 22 October to 22 November
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