Art and advertising

Hiroshi Sugimoto's photograph as used on U2's album 'No Line on the Horizon'

Art has always had a tight relationship with commerce, economics and the market. Back when the Church controlled the purse strings, artists readily explored themes and stories dictated by the highest ecclesiastical bidder, and art has always been readily at the service of states from medieval kingdoms through to modern governments.

Contemporary artists have also been selling rights for their works directly to advertising firms and other media conglomerates. For example, the licensing of one of Hiroshi Sugimoto's Seascapes for use on U2's studio album 'No Line on the Horizon'. It follows in the tradition of musicians utilizing contemporary art work for their album art such as with Ornette Coleman's 'Free Jazz' which featured a painting by abstract painter Jackson Pollack. U2's use of Sugimoto's image was perhaps less of an artistic synergy as with Coleman and Pollack. Sugimoto's image depicts a horizon line, but the series of seascapes are more of a meditation on the genesis of life and the mythological relationships between water and air. U2's appropriation of the imagery is rather linear and literal. Coleman's synergy with Pollack captured the zeitgeist of the 1960s. Coleman's deconstruction of musical form in 'free jazz' or 'fire music' paralleled the meditative deconstruction of artistic form in Pollack's abstract splatter paintings. Perhaps though, in this sense, U2's use of Sugimoto is equally in the zeitgeist of commercially driver 21st century consumer culture - sound bites, linear communication and limited subtext.

Nicky Veasey imagery utilised in a current Lucozade advert

Another example is Lucozade's licensing of Nick Veasey's x-ray photographs. Veasey's portfolio is an arresting array of high definition x-ray images taken using industrial x-ray equipment often used in airport or port security screening. Veasey's work is sensational. The 'wow' factor of large-scale x-rays is certainly central to his success, but at a deeper level, many of his works communicate a fragile intimacy with the oft-forgotten “internals” that make the world (and us) what it we are. Lucozade's use of the artist's imagery is, similar to the above, linear - using the artist’s image as a canvas or template on which to place their product, brand and marketing communications.