JOHN LEHR The Island Position
JOHN LEHR The Island Position. The “Island Position” is an advertising term that describes the premium position of an advertisement surrounded solely by editorial content. In The Island Position, John Lehr explores the facades of American commercial spaces that are threatened by the emergence of e-commerce.
In a rush to remain relevant, storeowners emblazon their windows and walls with anything that will grab attention: tessellations of quick-fading ads, floor-to-ceiling decals of fanned money or flowing hair, haphazard product displays, and desperate, hand-scrawled invitations. They repaint, renovate, rebrand, and rearrange, gestures which point to the desires and anxieties of people who are being left behind as our thumbs lead us into the new economy. The work presents a turning point in our cultural landscape: the transition from a physical culture to a virtual one.
Masquerading as a typology of storefronts, the surfaces in The Island Position embody something unseen: the people who constructed them. The signage is not simply an appeal to consumption, but a typography of emotion: vulnerability, ingenuity, distress, and hope—the language of capitalism as a form of public address. Lehr is not interested in what is for sale. He is interested in what is at stake.
The Island Position includes a short story by George Saunders.
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Read The Reviews
“The works represent the transition from a physical culture to a virtual one” – The Guardian
“Expressive, eccentric, anxious” – Photograph Magazine
“Lehr’s images locate themselves in the thinly stretched divide between real and virtual space, scarcity and abundance, settling somewhere near their breaking point.” – NY Art Beat
Mack Books
Mack is a global publisher of award-winning books on art, photography and critical studies. Founded by Michael Mack in London 2010. They work with established and emerging artists, writers and curators, as well as cultural institutions.
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