{"id":6459,"date":"2019-05-07T14:05:14","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T12:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/52.30.207.235\/corporate-lies-and-popaganda-who-is-ron-english\/"},"modified":"2019-05-07T14:05:14","modified_gmt":"2019-05-07T12:05:14","slug":"corporate-lies-and-popaganda-who-is-ron-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/corporate-lies-and-popaganda-who-is-ron-english\/","title":{"rendered":"Corporate Lies and POPaganda: Who is Ron English?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re sure you\u2019ve heard of the name Ron English by now. At the very least, you\u2019re bound to be familiar with his unique brand of pop-culture-influenced art. English is the creator of POPaganda, a term he created to describe his signature fusion of lowbrow subject matter and fine art techniques. We\u2019re big fans of Ron English here at Foot District<\/a> \u2013 and he is undeniably one of the most striking artists in the modern art scene \u2013 so we decided to dive in and take a closer look at the man behind the \u2018Grin\u2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Ron Ron English<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Ron English, the\u00a0creator of POPaganda<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Ron English is known as \u2018the godfather of street art\u2019 \u2013 and with good reason. From the early 80s until well into the new millennium, English was actively producing street art, both in considerable numbers and scale. Like KAWS, who we previously explored<\/a><\/strong>, English favoured subvertising in his work. Where his approach to street art differed from that of his contemporary, however, is that, rather than subtly editing existing advertising materials, as KAWS tended to do, English would typically take over the entirety of an advertisement. He would commonly paste his own billboard creations over existing advertising real estate \u2013 typically aimed at a completely different target than the advertisement he would be concealing. It was a form of \u2018culture jamming\u2019, with the act seen as \u2018billboard liberation\u2019. English\u2019s desire to target advertising real estate was fuelled by his disgust of corporate America, as well as a desire for his artwork to be seen and noticed \u2013 and by attacking valuable advertising locations he was guaranteed to achieve just that.<\/p>\n

\"Ron<\/p>\n

Waging war on corporate America became core to English\u2019s work, specifically the colourful mascots created to entice and influence the habits of young children. Infamous cigarette mascot Joe Camel became a particular target of English\u2019s, as did Ronald McDonald \u2013 who he reinterpreted with a dose of fast-food-fed reality into the overtly obese \u2018MC Supersized\u2019. English\u2019s most famous cartoon creation though is his character \u2018Grin\u2019, which originally reworked Charles Schulz\u2019s Charlie Brown, but has since been reimagined into other childhood favourites, like the Teletubbies and Bart Simpson.<\/p>\n

English wouldn\u2019t just limit himself to fictional characters in his war on corporate America, however. He also targeted brands that adopted the image of famous individuals in the real world to promote their wares \u2013 including long-dead\u00a0historical figures, as\u00a0in the case of Apple\u2019s famous \u2018Think Different\u2019 campaign. English\u2019s response, in this instance, was to produce his own \u2018Think Different\u2019 billboards that replaced the campaign\u2019s use of acclaimed free-thinkers, like Einstein, with the sinister visages of Adolf Hitler and Charles Manson \u2013 two men who arguably still live up to the campaign\u2019s motto, but give it competely meaning.<\/p>\n

\"Ron<\/p>\n

English\u2019s style<\/h3>\n

Not all of English\u2019s work is fuelled by aggression, however. At his core, English is a traditionally trained artist with a Master of Fine Arts and a preference for oils on canvas. He has put these talents to good use through his outstandingly life-like spin on pop art, including recreations of famous works from the likes of Van Gogh and Picasso with a dash of pop-culture influence.<\/p>\n

English\u2019s eye-catching style and finely-honed talents have earned him widespread praise and seen his work leak back into the very culture he has continually targeted. He has created album covers for popular musicians like Slash and The Dandy Warhols, and his \u2018MC Supersized\u2019 character became a mascot for Morgan Spurlock\u2019s acclaimed documentary Super Size Me<\/em>. Although his work and identity spawned as a critique of capitalism and consumerism, English has sporadically collaborated on projects in recent years, including a set of skateboard decks with DGK and, on the sneaker front, a two-shoe capsule in conjunction with Vans Vault<\/strong><\/a> and Philadelphia-based retailer UBIQ<\/p>\n

Nowadays, Ron English has shifted his work from the streets to galleries (much to the appreciation of his wife, Tarssa), where his original works sell for well into the thousands \u2013 sometimes even into six-figure territory. While that might seem like a huge sum for a pop-culture parody, it\u2019s not hard to see why his works command so much given English\u2019s profound impact on the genre. Some even suggest that, without English, we would never have had Banksy. According to English himself, Banksy was quite the fan of English\u2019s work in the late 90s and even went so far as to claim that he wanted to be \u2018the Ron English of Britain\u2019 at the time.<\/p>\n

\"Ron<\/p>\n

Ron English will forever be known as one of the true greats of modern street art, as well as one of the most proficient and prevalent artists in pop culture-inspired art since Warhol.\u00a0He is a king of kitsch \u2013 and we couldn\u2019t be happier to have his unique brand of POPaganda challenging the conventions of fine art.\u00a0Long live the one true Ron!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re sure you\u2019ve heard of the name Ron English by now. At the very least, you\u2019re bound to be familiar with his unique brand of pop-culture-influenced art. English is the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22221,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,63],"tags":[],"powerkit_post_featured":[4,7,5,6,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-6459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-noticias"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6459"},{"taxonomy":"powerkit_post_featured","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.footdistrict.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/powerkit_post_featured?post=6459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}