ALEX LUKAS
2023 - Now
CA53776V2.gallery
CV FOLLOW
Don’t _____ Me, I ______ For _____
Don’t _____ Me, I ______ For _____ continues Lukas' investigation into print-on-demand graphics with a new series of custom printed flags, focused on the phrase "Don't blame me. . .". Popularized in 2020 after Trump's loss to Joe Biden, in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, "Don't blame me, I voted for him" or "Don't blame me, I voted for her" flags were preemptively available online. Here, the gendered phrase remains both ambiguous and specific, given Harris' historic candidacy.
Alex Lukas has spent the past several years scouring Amazon (and more recently, Alibaba), cataloging and downloading the graphics posted by vendors in their online advertisements for "custom printed flag." While innocuous at first glance, a deeper dive into these ad's default images reveals a troubling pattern: a subtle (and not-so-subtle) iconography design to appeal to the political right. This visual coding transforms the flag from a representation of shared ideals into an endlessly personalizable manifestation of a much-mythologized rugged individualism. While some images required simple reformatting, other low-resolution images require meticulous recreation as vectorized graphics before printing. This ongoing body of work questions how technological advancements, global marketplaces, and online image generation have facilitated an ideological drift in the medium of print from an asset for the activist left to a tool for the right to refute democratic ideals.
Sold by Wuhan Jarmoo Flag Co., Ltd., 2025
Sold by yiyini, 2025
Sold by Yiwu Vailpro Technology Co., Ltd. (B), 2025
Sold by Weifang Ronning Industry Co., Ltd., 2025
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