Maciej Toporowicz
Artist Exhibit
View of walls of Obsession.
Seven or eight from Obsession plus projection on large screen TV. Photos courtesy and with permission of the art and Lombard/Freid Fine Arts, NY.
Individual poster images with "Obession," "Escape" and "Eternity" were originally designed as a "street action" in the SOHO district of New York City. The lettering intentionally juxtaposes the names of Calvin Klein perfumes and that company's style of advertising with images of the Third Reich. The "Obsession" series by Toporowicz is not endorsed by Calvin Klein.
Artist's Statement
The sculpture by Arno Breker called Die Wehrmacht seems to be in perfect tune with contemporary advertisement. Many designers including Calvin Klein use images from German art and photography from the 1930s.
It comes as no surprise. Anybody who has seen Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of Will can agree that National Socialism created in Germany was the most successful advertisement campaign ever. There is ubiquitous emphasis on fitness and cult of body in the USA and elsewhere, which forces upon us an ubermensch type of human being. Instead of emphasizing the differences between people we should rather accept their diversities.
As we learned from the past...there is no ESCAPE from OBSESSION to ETERNITY. (From the obsession street action March-May 1994)
- Maciej Toporowicz
Other Resources
Maciej Toporowicz at Lombard-Fried - Art Exhibition
Maciej Toporowicz - Medium is a Message: Photographs, Text, Music
Maciej Toporowicz Photography
Maciej Toporowicz artspacenh.org
Maciej Toporowicz - Perfume Ad Photography
Maciej Toporowicz - Obsession
Mirroring Evil Art Exhibition Review #1
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