PES
October 14, 2009
After watching the animations by PES in class yesterday, I decided to examine a bit more of his work. Overall, I find it extremely fascinating – I might even say brilliant. Yes, brilliant is a good word, if not for the artist, at least for the work. It’s very colorful and lively, with lots of motion and crisp sound. It’s also imaginitive and a bit fantasy-like. PES uses everyday objects and uses them to create entirely new objects and worlds. There’s that theme of appropriation again. His work also usually has some element of confusion, or tension that is resolved at the end in a surprising or funny manner. I watched a number of his pieces of work, and I must say that my favorite (maybe not his best, but my favorite nonetheless) was a series of commercials he did for Bacardi. I know it might sound funny to say that my favorite work is a commercial, but I’m going to stick to my guns. Hear me out.
The tension and release of the commercials make for a great 30″ storyline, the colors are vivid, and he does a great job of being a commerical artist, and making sure that the product is not the secret that is revealed at the end (thereby not acknowledging the product but for a few seconds – sorry, I’m a Communication major). Lastly, I really like that he created his own little world inside these ads. You can see elements that reappear between the different spots, such as the landscape, and city, frequent use of martini glasses, and even the train tracks in the Train and Yacht clips. Take a look at the Yacht spot below, and visit either his webiste or YouTube channel to see the rest of the spots. And don’t be mad at me for liking commercials.
