With ads like these, you could almost skip the museum.
From cradle to grave, we are being marketed to. At this point in life, we’re more inclined to tolerate the relentless bombardment from Saatchi & Saatchi as long as our personal aesthetics are given the respect they deserve. Make us feel clever and we might even consider buying that thing we don’t really need; at the very least, a clever ad will get talked (and blogged) about.
The point being, we consumers love a good arty ad. But even Mad Men‘s Draper would agree that the modern day advertiser might be piggybacking on the shoulders of The Masters a bit too contentedly. It’s fatiguing, like shouldering an otherwise adorable nephew for five minutes too many on a trip to the zoo. I’m even beginning to wonder if repurposing and sampling great art for mediocre ads is passing into Madison Avenue cliché.
Take, for example, Salvador Dali: the George Clinton of the advertising industry. Few artists are sampled as much as he is, save maybe Van Gogh and Andy Warhol.
Here is his masterpiece The Persistence of Memory:
And here he is pitching Lexus and VW.
Leonardo da Vinci has had his Sly & The Family Stone moments, too, sampled by campaigns as diverse as an online gambling website to rat poison.
Here’s Mona selling pizza and casual sex.
The entire genre of Chinese landscape painting was the inspiration behind this Skoda ad.
Meanwhile, red-soled, stiletto pusher Christian Louboutin recently relied on French Neoclassicism to sell his wares.
Here, Marie-Guillemine Benoist’s Portrait d-une Negresse with the Balda Booty.
And Georges de la Tour’s Magdalene and the Flame lusting after the Puck Boot. Can you blame her?
René Magritte is another, here sampled by VW (again) and veggie-chopper’s Magimix.
Nevertheless, designer Igor “Rogix” Udushlivy has elevated the not-so-fine art of re-purposing famous artworks to genius with his Magritte-inspired coat hangers.
Here’s to something truly surprising, innovative and wall-worthy that makes parting with cash truly worthwhile.
Images: The Telegraph; Cuded; The Dandelion Chronicles; Design Milk