If you’ve ever looked at a sign and thought to yourself that a bit of mischievously-placed spray paint would make the message all the more telling, then Mike Flood’s latest collection of subversive communication should be right up your graffiti-covered street.
Exhibiting under the pseudonym Mike Lood – a play on the obscuring technique employed in his pseudo-advertisements – the American’s Ask Officer Pepperspray is his fifth solo show at Berlin’s Peres Projects gallery. Flood was the founder of punk band Culturcide in the late 1970s, remained very cross during “the hateful years” of Reagan’s administration, and the angry young man is still pretty pissed off with the state of things decades later. Flood’s skews mass media messages, muting their meaning by blacking out letters and words, or adding a partially hidden message of his own, which speaks to the original messages’ intended use as instruments of manipulation. Read between the lines at the gallery on Karl-Marx-Allee until 9 November.
Mike Lood (Mark Flood)
MUTED SOLDIER (2013)
Painting – Spraypaint on printed board
63.5 x 90.2 cm (25 x 35.5 inches)
Courtesy of Peres Projects
Mike Lood (Mark Flood)
PEPSI/ ASS, 2013
Painting – Spraypaint on vintage painted metal sign
139.7 x 104.1 cm (55 x 41 inches)
Courtesy of Peres Projects
Mike Lood (Mark Flood)
WE’RE OFF (2013)
Painting - Spraypaint on printed Coroplast sign
121.9 x 121.9 cm (48 x 48 inches)
Courtesy of Peres Projects
Mike Lood (Mark Flood)
“!” MUTE (2013)
Painting – Spraypaint on printed Coroplast
123.2 x 125.7 cm (48.5 x 49.5 inches)
Courtesy of Peres Projects
Mike Lood (Mark Flood)
TORTURE PRISONERS CAREFULLY (2013)
Painting - Acrylic on canvas
264.2 x 193 cm (104 x 76 inches)
Courtesy of Peres Projects
Mike Lood (Mark Flood)
TOUCH MY JUNK (2013)
Painting – Spraypaint on printed Coroplast sign
94 x 123.2 cm (37 x 48.5 inches)
Courtesy of Peres Projects
