The art of slogans: a creative mash-up

Andrew Shanahan is inspired by a new exhibition at The Lowry – and starts making his own, um, ‘unique’ adverts…

Ever since Andy Warhol’s pop art classic Campbell’s Soup Cans took a branded product as its subject, well-paid men (and even the occasional woman) in sharp suits and laughably fashionable hair have done their best to convince us that advertising can be an art form too. This is the subject under discussion when ad agency BJL take to The Lowry with the exhibition, Art and Advertising – A Creative Fusion. The exhibition features artists plundering the imagery and icons from BJL’s clients and attempting to use ‘advertising and media as creative canvases’. If the thought of advertising being re-positioned as art rather than the increasingly unavoidable face of commerce has turned your stomach then you might like to look away now: to celebrate the exhibition we’ve taken some classic paintings and tried to imagine what they could be used to advertise. The results aren’t pretty.

If you think you can do better (and let’s face it, you wouldn’t have to try too hard), then upload your own art and advertising fusions. All you need to do is find a picture that’s in the public domain (anything older than 75 years is usually fair game), open up Photoshop, get creative and upload using the link below. No nudity, lewd images or anything that’d make your mum blush, please. The best one will win a package of exhibition tickets, launch invites and goodies. Entries close on 31 January 2010.

Add your own work of art and caption to the gallery below

Select a work of art to upload:	Browse for file  Enter URL Import Image by URL
Caption:

E.T. 2: Returned Call

Art and Advertising – A Creative Fusion, The Lowry. 23 Jan-11 Apr 2010. Free. Andrew Shanahan is an award-winning freelance writer with work ranging from journalism with The Guardian and The Independent and national magazine titles to scriptwriting with the BBC. He has also developed a series of innovative writing projects for the internet with Moving Audio.

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