ALEX LUKAS
2023 - Now
> Fanzines and Pamphlets University of California at Santa Barbara CONTACT FOLLOW
Written Names Fanzine, 2016 - Present Written Names Fanzine documents hyper-localized occurrences of unsanctioned public name writing. Each issue focuses on a place of gathering, ranging in scale from a single stand of bamboo to a mile-long stretch of highway. By chronicling and augmenting these shared experiences through documentation, research, transcription, and design, Written Names Fanzine examines place, history, tourism, and localized assertions of identity.
Stop Hiding Behind Masks, 2026
Stop Hiding Behind Masks interrogates the Instagram feed of a social media influencer notorious for his copious production of AI-generated videos. In late January 2026, several of his posts depicting NYPD officers arresting ICE agents went viral. Commenters gleefully celebrated New York’s Finest’s brave opposition to Trump’s violent federal immigration enforcement tactics.
The “tell” in these lifelike depictions, as several debunking response videos pointed out, was the patches on the cop’s shoulders. They were gibberish. Using optical character recognition software (and some guesswork), this publication recreates the nonsensical insignias. Patch transcriptions and stills from the videos are paired with a short essay contextualizing the posts as part of a nostalgic, center-left liberal fantasy that positions the NYPD as a heroic check to state violence, not active participants.
Dead at 232 /// \\\ /// Worthless Knockoffs, 2026
This dos-à-dos publication draws parallels between last year’s cessation of penny production and the imminent release of one-dollar coins featuring Donald Trump’s golden likeness. While Lincoln’s copper profile is
Both signatures explore the ubiquity, distortability, and desecration of presidential portraiture through photographs and texts sourced from news reports, transcripts of federal commission meetings, online guest books, and social media posts.
Street Writing: San Francisco, Calif., 2025
Tree Stone, 2019
Tree Stone couples academic research, period advertisements and Facebook posts about tree-shaped headstones with photographs of these “imperishable botanicals” from California to Maine to Texas to Wisconsin. This revised and expanded 2nd edition, released in the summer of 2022 and reprinted in 2025, features more than 30 new contemporary and historic photographs and illustrations.
A Faithful Re-Creation of the Ill-Fated: Souvenir Images Commemorating Wax Remembrances of Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination, 2024
Your Flag: Print-on-Demand and an Emergent Aesthetic of the American Right, 2024
In the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election, "This Machine Kills Fascists'' stickers were affixed to Risographs, laser printers, and relief presses across the country. Broadsides featuring the phrase were posted in the windows of cooperative and academic print shops alike, and my social media feed was peppered with repurposings of Woody Guthrie's famous slogan. Print, the adage supposed, would save democracy.
Flash forward to the first 2020 presidential debate, where then-President Trump urged the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by." Merchandise pairing the phrase with the hate group's name was available for purchase online almost before the debate concluded. Three months later, insurgents storming the Capitol were outfitted head-to-toe in Trump gear, draped in Trump flags, carrying dye sublimation printed Q-anon banners, and (improbably) sporting facemasks custom-printed with anti-masking slogans. In contrast to the hand-painted and carefully crafted placards of 2020's Black Lives Matter marches, January 6th was awash in low-run, professionally made swag. It's all quite simple and quick to have printed.
Despite e-commerce sites' efforts to deplatform far-right makers, easy-to-use mockup software and no-overhead drop-ship services continue to aid the speedy manifestation of slogans, iconography, and memes into custom t-shirts, lapel pins, embroidered patches, coffee mugs, and countless other formats. Direct-to-garment print shops, often clustered in tourist destinations like Keystone, South Dakota, or Gatlinburg, Tennessee, offer lightning-quick wearable quips responding to the latest political talking points.
Amidst this proliferation, a new aesthetic has developed. This coded look, readily apparent in the marketing and advertising of print-on-demand services, unmistakably brands these offerings as aligned with far-right ideologies. Distinct from leftist visuals, which remain rooted in analog printmaking technologies like serigraphy and relief printing, this emergent visual style builds on the popularity of memes and other digitally native imagery. Uniquely suited to bring CMYK images into the streets, print-on-demand has proven an effective visual tool for the right.
2023 - Now
> Fanzines and Pamphlets University of California at Santa Barbara CONTACT FOLLOW All content (C) Alex Lukas, 2011 - 2026 |
