Vostell often utilized mass-media images of destruction in his examination of consumer culture. This critical, explicitly political stance was a primary strategy of artists associated with Capitalist Realism, established in West Germany in the early 1960s by Vostell (along with Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke, whose works are on view nearby) as a parody of an art movement. In this work, Vostell adapted a widely circulated war photograph of a Boeing B-52 plane dropping bombs over Vietnam. He replaced the bombs with tubes of lipstick—equating mindless consumerism with apathy toward contemporary injustices and violence.
Gallery label from "Collection 1940s—1970s", 2019
