Branding, on the brain

Artists are in a unique position to critique advertising, because they use the same tools and techniques as the creative directors of ad agencies. Heck, they're probably old school chums. They're only different in that advertisers purvey dreams; artists seek to wake us up.

Hank Willis Thomas's black-and-white photo "Branded Head" comes as a jolt. Thomas deploys a style borrowed from advertising; this image looks as if it belongs on a billboard. It shows the head of a black man, with his face cropped out and the Nike swoosh Photoshopped onto his scalp.

As Fox suggests in her catalog essay, the man's color brands him, especially when we can't see his face. The branding on his skin chillingly cites slavery. Nike's catchphrase "just do it" imbues the Nike-brand wearer with his own agency, but Thomas hints that none of us is really a free agent; the corporations own us.

Many artists in "Branded and On Display" use familiar graphic language, from corporate logos to bar codes. Louis Cameron scanned the bar codes on every item in his apartment, then blended the images into an animated video projection. It's surprisingly gorgeous and hypnotic, with black bars shifting to white and back, giving the sense of doors opening and closing, or curtains ruffling in a breeze. There's triumph in its harmonious minimalism; Cameron has appropriated the ugliest stuff of commerce and made it beautiful.