Here are the main things i was thinking when i took the photo:
1. Why display these three artists side by side?
2. What is the reason to still use images of these iconic individuals in particular, when so many others have impacted our world since?
3. Would any of these three artists have agreed to become neon installations at a furniture store?
So far, my thinking is going in this direction:
Although they all challenged societal norms, inspired others, and left a lasting legacy, I am not convinced i would have chosen these three as a set.
Looking at the second question, I feel that although their stories have a timeless cross cultural appeal, there is also an intentional curation looking to pursue commercial viability through familiarity. And it is working because they still sell decades after they were gone which leads nicely to the third question.
In my opinion, Frida Kahlo, as a fiercely independent and complex artist and John Lennon as a complex personality with a strong anti-consumerist stance (in his later life) would unlikely have agreed to their images being used on a mural/light sold at a furniture shop.
Marylin Monroe, on the other hand, I am not sure because although she was very aware of the exploitative nature of the industry and fame, and she may have seen this (about her without her) work as exploitative and/or trivialising of her legacy, she was also a business woman.
Now, the thing is, the more I thought about this, the more I realised that the above seeks to understand the reaction by those who they were. But the world we live in is not the one they lived in. Should they be alive today, would they all have felt the same? (Assuming , of course that the above was what they may have felt being who we are told they were) or would they and their outlook of life have also changed?
I live it here .
