My Superstar
My Superstar belongs to a larger suit of works titled My Material World, a project that recycles and fictionalises a found image of the artist’s (Mexican) grandfather holding a bottle of tequila “Herradura”. The photograph, presumably shot in Japan, is transformed and animated through the language of advertisements.
In this video the photograph is reconstructed into a Japanese Tequila advertisement, turning the subject into a pop icon. The work displays the homoerotic and heightened atmosphere that characterizes the language of anime and TV commercials, elevating the figure drawn from the original photograph into a faux idol. The result addresses both the consumption of the ‘Other’ in media and communication, symbolized by the bottle of Tequila, and the mobilization of Japanese and Mexican pop culture in today’s highly connected world. Querying the manner in which recent generations of audiences construct their identities through the lens of pop culture without anchoring their sense of self to place.
More broadly, this work is concerned with the cultural crossovers between Mexico and Japan. This is motivated by the artist’s upbringing in Mexico, where he was surrounded by elements of Japanese popular culture, particularly anime and the folding screen. Other concerns include mapping the sensibilities that typify kitsch (sentimentality, hyperbole, flatness and repetition) and its ability to communicate origin, class, taste, status and desire.
This project is indicative of the artist’s larger interest in active readings of popular and consumer culture, where audiences and consumers appropriate the signs of dominant culture to articulate their identities. Remixing official culture with the personal or the everyday.
In this video the photograph is reconstructed into a Japanese Tequila advertisement, turning the subject into a pop icon. The work displays the homoerotic and heightened atmosphere that characterizes the language of anime and TV commercials, elevating the figure drawn from the original photograph into a faux idol. The result addresses both the consumption of the ‘Other’ in media and communication, symbolized by the bottle of Tequila, and the mobilization of Japanese and Mexican pop culture in today’s highly connected world. Querying the manner in which recent generations of audiences construct their identities through the lens of pop culture without anchoring their sense of self to place.
More broadly, this work is concerned with the cultural crossovers between Mexico and Japan. This is motivated by the artist’s upbringing in Mexico, where he was surrounded by elements of Japanese popular culture, particularly anime and the folding screen. Other concerns include mapping the sensibilities that typify kitsch (sentimentality, hyperbole, flatness and repetition) and its ability to communicate origin, class, taste, status and desire.
This project is indicative of the artist’s larger interest in active readings of popular and consumer culture, where audiences and consumers appropriate the signs of dominant culture to articulate their identities. Remixing official culture with the personal or the everyday.
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