The Indigenous art sector has experienced an immediate drop in sales after footage surfaced of non-Indigenous staff at a major art centre painting on the canvas of an award-winning Indigenous artist.

A video published by The Australian over Easter depicted an art centre worker at Tjala Arts, in South Australia’s far north, appearing to make decisions and painting on Yariltji Young’s painting of the Tjukurpa — the spiritual and sacred law that governs culture.

The centre is part of APY Art Centre Collective (APY ACC), which, in a statement on its website, has “strenuously” denied “the over-arching narrative that APY ACC art and any artists are compromised”.

“To the contrary. We believe our professional studios meet highest standards of integrity and professionalism,” the statement reads in part.

Cecilia Alfonso, manager of Northern Territory-based Aboriginal-owned arts centre Warlukurlangu Artists, said there had been a significant drop in sales since the allegations relating to Tjala Arts surfaced.

“Our sales were immediately negatively impacted by this story breaking,” Ms Alfonso said. 

She said in the weekends preceding Easter, the art centre had sold between $10,000 and $30,000 worth of art.

“The weekend after the story broke, we sold $500,” Ms Alfonso said. 

“And sales haven’t improved.”

She said sales traditionally dropped over the Easter weekend but not to the extent experienced this year.

Artists’ livelihoods under pressure

Ms Alfonso said Warlukurlangu Artists, which was established in Yuendumu in 1985, was a signatory to the Desart Art collective based in Alice Springs, which was not involved with APY ACC.

She said Warlukurlangu Artists provided meaningful employment for more than 800 artists across the NT’s Western Desert region.

“People rely on that extra income to buy food and whitegoods and to be able to travel,” she said.

“[The extra income] has a dramatic effect on people’s quality of life.”

Ms Alfonso said she was concerned about the repercussions on the industry and for the art centre she ran.

“Art centres were established to work ethically,” she said.

“And that is part of our marketing.

“If you buy through an art centre you can be guaranteed that the artist who is on the canvas is the person that painted that painting.”

She said she believed the video published provided evidence of interference.

Ripple effect

Art galleries specialising in Indigenous art, and which are not associated with APY ACC, echoed Ms Alfonso’s concerns about provenance and the flow-on effect on the industry.

Euan Hills, who has owned the Hobart gallery Art Mob for two decades, said there was an immediate impact on sales.

“The video that I’ve seen and listened to is a damning indictment,” he said.

Mr Hills said a recent exhibition featuring works by Steven Jupurrurla Nelson went out to more than 6,000 people on their mailing database.

“Today, we had one sale from a local couple and that is not what I’d expect to have from an exhibition of that category.”

Mr Hills said he held concerns for artists’ livelihoods.

“It also worries me about the questions that have been raised about art in general, as far as Indigenous art goes, about provenance.”

‘Collateral damage’

Sydney-based Nichola Dare, who runs the gallery Aboriginal Contemporary, which is not connected to the APY ACC, said the conversations about ethics in Indigenous art had “ramped up” in recent weeks.

She said consumers were asking if the Indigenous artists she was exhibiting had painted the paintings.

“So there’s this question of doubt that’s gone into their mind,” Ms Dare said.

Ms Dare said the “ripple effect” of the allegations were far reaching.

“It’s having a real economic and financial impact to the communities and the sector.”

Ms Dare said April was always a slow month for her gallery but the allegations came at a time when cost of living pressures were already affecting consumers.

“To then overlay [cost of living] with a issue around provenance, authenticity and ethics within the industry is a double hit,” she said. 

Ms Dare said the public made an assumption the artworks they were buying had been painted by the artist.

“That’s a totally fair and reasonable assumption,” she said.

“So for that to come into question will be a problem for the whole for the industry.”

APY ACC rejects allegations

In the statement on its website, the APY ACC said the allegations of artistic interference were offensive.

“True industry experts understand the line between assistance at artists’ direction and interference with the artistic process and know that APY ACC has never crossed this line,” it reads.

“It is grossly offensive to the many hundreds of proud Anangu who work with APY ACC to suggest otherwise, or that they would tolerate their Tjukurpa being interfered with.”

Philip Watkins, chief executive officer of Desart, the peak arts body for 35 Central Australian Aboriginal art centres, said he was aware of the allegations but would not be making a public statement.

KU Arts, the South Australian equivalent of Desart, declined an interview but released a statement on its website outlining the group’s “serious concerns” about the reports.

KU Arts has pledged to support any Anangu artists who have been affected by the allegations.

“Duality is the idea that there are two realms within (the) spirit world,” says Delita Martin, “one that is seen and one that is unseen.” This coupling is a grounding force for the artist as she practices an alchemy of spirit and aesthetics, coaxing dynamic figures from a mélange of patterns, materials, and symbols.

Through a vivid body of work titled Conjure, Martin explores what it means to be self-empowered as a Black woman and embrace “the veilscape,” a spirit world in which the unseen, freedom from racism and sexism, transformation, and ancestral connection prevail. The artist refers to this space as an “intangible reality” and returns to it again and again as she overlays her relief-printed portraits with charcoal, acrylic, gold leaf, and threaded details.

“Resting Place” (2020), charcoal, acrylic, decorative papers, hand stitching

While this conceptual layer remains throughout all of Martin’s works, her vast use of symbols shifts with each portrait. She might feature a bird mid-flight, as in “Flying (Feather Skirt),” for example, to convey an unrestricted spirit, or a full flock bound to a subject’s shoulders as in “Feathers” to communicate the experience of being tethered to another. Recurring in different forms on garments or backdrops, circles are similarly evocative as they reference the connection between the divine feminine and the moon. Color, too, is emblematic. She shares:

Although I do not subscribe to any particular theory on color, I very much believe that color causes a reaction and can connect with the human spirit. For my own purposes, colors like red and orange carry a fiery energy, and blues are very calming and actually connect more closely to the spirit world in my work than any other color. I tend to favor blues the most in my work. Yellows and golds are what I consider outdoor colors that reference the earth, colors that are closely related to the waking world. Greens I connect with nature and growth. Purples/burgundy I associate with mystery and time.

Washes of acrylic or fragments of colorful patterns blur the distinction between body and surroundings, emphasizing the co-existence of the physical and spiritual worlds and reminding the viewer that part of the self always remains invisible and hidden behind the veil.

Martin, who is based in Huffman, Texas, and represented by Galerie Myrtis, will have new portraits on view this month at Tiwani Contemporary in London and is teaching a printmaking course in Salzburg this July. Find more of Conjure and other works on her site and Instagram.

Left: “Woman Sitting (Golden Stool)” (2020), relief printing, charcoal, acrylic, decorative papers, hand stitching. Right: “Claiming What Has Risen” (2020), relief printing, charcoal, fabric, decorative papers, hand stitching, acrylic

“Feathers” (2020), charcoal, acrylic, relief printing, decorative papers, liquid silver leaf, hand stitching

“Flying (Feather Skirt)” (2020), relief printing, charcoal, acrylic, fabric, decorative papers, hand stitching

Left: “Offerings” (2020), relief printing, charcoal, decorative papers, hand stitching, acrylic, liquid gold leaf. Right: “Mirrors and Sky” (2020), relief printing, charcoal, acrylic, decorative papers, hand stitching

“The Moon Now Rises” (2020), relief printing, charcoal, acrylic, decorative papers, hand stitching

Martin at work in her studio in Huffman, Texas

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Invoking the Divine Feminine, Delita Martin’s Mixed-Media Portraits Embrace Self-Empowerment appeared first on Colossal.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) – The Memphis Zoo is partnering with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to create a new exhibit.

Starting Wednesday, the zoo will display “Artists and Animals” between the entrance and exit of the China exhibit.

The art will feature animals that currently call the Memphis Zoo home.

The art, made by patients at St. Jude, is apart of art therapy, designed to help patients suffering from cancer or other life-threatening illnesses to inspire hope and their spirit.

”We’re really excited about working with St. Jude on this initiative,” Memphis Zoo Chief Marketing Officer Nick Harmeier said. “It’s something we’re really, really passionate about and of course anytime we can bring children and art together, and animals at the same time, it’s just a really unique opportunity for us to place these artworks throughout our zoo.”

The display will stay up for the foreseeable future, allowing visitors to view and appreciate the work the patients put in to the art work.

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Thursday, May 4, 2023

Media Contact:
Elizabeth Gosney | CAS Marketing and Communications Manager | 405-744-7497 | egosney@okstate.edu

A semester’s worth of work was put on display in Stillwater’s Chris Salmon Plaza on
May 1, with the unveiling of Oklahoma State University graphic design students’ mural
“Building Sunshine.” 

The mural — which highlights the life and work of former Stillwater mayor Christine
Salmon — was designed by OSU freshman Carlee Roddy. Roddy worked with her fellow Visual
Thinking Image and Surface 2D classmates to execute the design. 

“It would have been a lot more boring without my classmates to help me both in the
beginning when it came to brainstorming ideas and during the last days of painting,”
said Roddy, who hails from Collinsville, Oklahoma.  

During the unveiling presided over by current Stillwater mayor Will Joyce, Roddy explained
elements of her abstract design that were meant to represent Salmon’s architectural
and interior design career, as well as her accessibility advocacy work.  

“I struggled with how to depict Chris’ passion for supporting communities with disabilities,
but I’m really happy with the way it turned out,” Roddy said, specifically pointing
out shapes on the right side of the mural that represent a deconstructed wheelchair.
“I want people to look at the mural and get to know Chris through it. Not just that
she was a mayor, but her bright personality that she poured into her work and eventually
into Stillwater as a whole.” 

Kate Kinder, a Department of Art, Graphic Design and Art History teaching assistant professor, began the mural project with her classes after being
approached by the Prairie Arts Center and the City of Stillwater. Kinder’s students submitted 54 designs for consideration,
which were narrowed down through rounds of voting by the students, Prairie Arts Center
staff and City of Stillwater employees.  

“I was surprised with how many different approaches to the project there were,” Kinder
said. “We have a lot of students with different backgrounds, so it was inspiring to
see them inject their own perspectives into the work.”  

The final design was drawn out onto four large pieces of parachute cloth and completed
with weather-proof outdoor paint. The morning of the mural unveiling, the pieces were
adhered to the brick wall on the corner of Ninth Avenue and Main Street where it will
remain on view to the public semi-permanently. 

“I have the utmost confidence that even if the audience can’t understand each little
detail of the work, they will enjoy it for its color and specificity to Stillwater,”
Kinder said. “I hope Stillwater can appreciate the hard work my students put into
the design and execution, as well as the unique dedication and skill it takes to create
something like this. 

“With abstract art, the secret is not to be intimidated by not knowing what it means,
and allowing yourself to enjoy it for what you see in it. Art is meant to be interpreted,
so that means there’s no real wrong reading of it.” 

Across the country, more couples are seeking out film photographers to shoot their weddings.

Photography is often touted as one of the most accessible and democratic mediums, making it a prime choice for those with little institutional support or access to funding. A new book edited by Luce Lebart and Marie Robert and published by Thames & Hudson explores the work of more than 300 women, many of whom were underrecognized during their lifetimes, and all of whose practices centered around the camera.

Recently translated from French by Ruth Taylor and Bethany Wright, the hefty A World History of Women Photographers is a corrective encyclopedia highlighting those with outsized impacts on the medium. The 504-page book pairs hundreds of images with text by an international roster of 160 women writers, granting similar space to each photographer and unearthing a chronically undervalued group. “With this collection of artists, it is not so much a matter of producing a counter-narrative or of deconstructing histories that already exist but of completing them. We have no desire to burn idols or topple statues, only to erect new ones, and to create a narrative that is richer and more fair,” the editors write in the introduction. “In other words, there is an urgent need to write another history, and to write it differently.”

Pamela Singh, Tantric Self-Portrait in Jaipur #18, c. 2000–2001. Image © Pamela Singh, courtesy of the artist and sepiaEYE, New York

Included in the chronologically organized text that spans from 1850 to today are luminaries like Carrie Mae Weems and Zanelle Muholi (previously), in addition to those who have only recently come into public view. The Argentine photographer Josefina Oliver (b. 1875) was largely unknown until her great-niece unearthed her archives in 2006, for example, and that same year, Karimeh Abbud (b. 1863), the first woman to establish a studio in Palestine in the early 20th century, was recognized for her distinct portraiture style in the first major exhibition of her work. “This ‘world tour’ enables us to re-evaluate some women who were celebrated and acknowledged in their own time, to remember others now unjustly forgotten, and to discover others whose work was never exhibited or discussed during their lifetime,” the editors say.

A World History of Women Photographers, created as part of the Rencontres d’Arles and Kering’s Women in Motion project, is currently available on Bookshop. (via Hyperallergic)

Anna Atkins, Alaria esculenta, from Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, 1849–1850. Image © The New York Public Library 

Sandra Eleta, Putulungo and Alma, Portobelo couple, 1977. Image © Sandra Eleta. Courtesy Galerie Rouge, Paris

Sigriður Zoëga, Women on the Banks of the Lake, 1915. Image © The National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavik

Isabel Muñoz, Untitled, from the series ‘Bam,’ 2005. Image © Isabel Muñoz

Rita Ostrovska, My husband Alik with our son Sasha, Bila Tserkva, Ukraine, 1988. Image © Rita Ostrovska

Victoria Ivleva, Dosimetrist Yuri Kobsar climbs radioactive debris inside the fourth reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, 1991. Image © Victoria Ivleva

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article ‘A World History of Women Photographers’ Unearths Hundreds of Images that Enrich the Canon appeared first on Colossal.

“The Line of Beauty” focuses on dualities in the dazzling work of the legendary designer, but it is coy about the controversies.

I admit: I never entirely drank the Karl Lagerfeld Kool-Aid. I was not one of those critics (and there were some) who would clutch their breast, shriek “genius!” and swoon after every show.

I often felt that for every extraordinary piece the designer created for Chanel or Fendi — by the time I started in fashion, his career at Chloé was at an end — there would be another clunker of a dress or a suit: unflattering, frumpy, kind of awkward. I found the set-building he did for his Chanel shows in the latter years (the supermarkets, rocket ships, and icebergs in the Grand Palais) not just a smart social media move (which it was) but too often an egregious display of a bottomless budget and sleight of hand to distract from what was on the runway. Sure, that tweed sweatsuit made that model look like a Real Housewife — but everyone was looking at the double-C branded pasta on the faux megamart shelf instead!

Once I got spoken to by the Chanel press office for not fully “understanding” Lagerfeld’s vision. But as I wrote in the designer’s obituary (he died in 2019), while he unquestionably changed the business of the industry — its marketing, its branding, its very structure — thanks to his ability to take on a heritage house like Chanel and reinvent it with the detritus of its own codes, I didn’t think he really changed wardrobes. He didn’t give the world a new silhouette, or an expression of identity, the way Coco Chanel herself did, with the bouclé suit, or Christian Dior, with the New Look, or Saint Laurent, with Le Smoking, the tuxedo suit for women.

All of which is to say that when I heard the Metropolitan Museum of Art would be dedicating its 2023 Costume Institute to Lagerfeld, I had a mixed reaction. On one hand it made sense: in a 65-year career, which included 26 years at Chanel, 54 at Fendi, 25 at Chloé (in two separate stints), and 35 at his own brand (for years he juggled multiple jobs at the same time), plus stints at Patou and Balmain (phew), the man loomed like a colossus over the modern fashion landscape. On the other hand, the show raised a lot of questions.

The bar is very high for one-person exhibitions — usually defined by names that changed the vocabulary of dress. There have only been 10 of them at the Met in the last 50 years, including Balenciaga, Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen and most recently, Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons. Generally, the Costume Institute has focused on thematic displays, like last year’s show on American fashion, or 2019’s “Camp.” And even beyond the questions of Lagerfeld’s actual products, there were the issues of his public statements, a number of which were fatphobic, Islamophobic, racist, and sexist, deriding everyone from Angela Merkel, the former Chancellor of Germany, to the singer Adele.

Should he really be put on a museum pedestal, his art (if that is what it was) separated from his self?

An answer of sorts can now be found in “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” which opens May 5 in the museum’s Tisch Galleries. It is a tightly edited, highly enjoyable, ultimately convincing argument from the Costume Institute’s curator in charge, Andrew Bolton, that when you strip away the controversies and the mythology, what you are left with is a pure expression of a great technical imagination combined with an omnivorous cultural curiosity. The advantage of 65 years of work that produced over 10,000 pieces of clothing (at least that’s the number Bolton said he perused for the show) is that in distilling them down to just over 200 garments, Bolton is free to focus on the most evocative pieces. And they are almost all, indeed, dazzling.

But the exhibition also fails entirely, and deliberately, to address the complications of the man. Bolton admits as much in the introduction to the exhibition’s catalog: “We did not want to emphasize ‘Lagerfeld the man,’” he writes, but rather “Lagerfeld the designer”; to find the connective tissue in a 65-year career that could often seem profligate in the extreme: flitting here, there and everywhere; reluctant to commit. In an interview this week, the curator elaborated on his stance, saying he wanted to leave the judgments on character to historians and biographers. And yet Lagerfeld the man is also the ghost in the machine of the show: impossible to ignore.

Indeed, the concept around which the exhibition itself is built — a narrative of dualities — implies the paradox at the heart of the Lagerfeld story: He was a man who loved, and made, beautiful things while sometimes blithely giving voice to ugliness.

If not officially a retrospective — Lagerfeld famously hated them, saying no one wanted to “look at a bunch of old dresses” — the show is more like an essay in clothes, based on an organizing principle derived from the 18th-century artist and writer William Hogarth’s 1753 book “The Analysis of Beauty,” with the author’s beloved Serpentine curve, or “line of beauty,” which signified liveliness and variety, juxtaposed against the straight line, which Lagerfeld also prized, as the dueling forces in his aesthetic. (“The Line of Beauty” is also, as it happens, a 2004 Booker Prize-winning novel by the British writer Alan Hollinghurst about gay life, class and politics in Thatcherite Britain, but though Bolton acknowledged that he loved the book, he said it had nothing to do with the exhibition.)

From there the lines and dualities proliferate in nine different groupings: the masculine/feminine lines giving way to the romantic/military influences, which give way to the rococo/classical, which in turn lead to the historical/futuristic and so on and on. There are so many lines they can be hard to follow; Bolton has a tendency to over-egg his theses, perhaps to justify fashion’s place in the museum. In the end you can ignore them all, and enjoy the show purely as a visual feast.

The line conceit proves most useful in providing a template for the show’s designer, the architect Tadao Ando (who was once commissioned to create a house for Lagerfeld that was never built). The space is composed of multiple galleries that undulate and curve around on themselves with little openings through which other galleries can be glimpsed — to allow peeks forward into the future, or back to the past. The effect is slightly disorienting in a good way, making it easy to lose oneself in the fields of Lagerfeldiana.

And what fields they are. Two little tweed Chanel lunching suits seem to vaporize into mist at the hems. An egg-shaped Fendi coat is composed of thousands of tiny brightly colored mink mosaic tiles, like a pointillist painting; another, strafed by overlapping shades made of layers of scrunched-up tulle that only look like fur. Lagerfeld could see possibilities in material that seemed otherwise inconceivable; he minted sequins out of concrete, and wood.

There are Chloé dresses in Sonia Delaunay-esque prints and trompe l’oeil Grecian drapes. A Chanel frock coat is cut away not at the front but at the back, to expose frothing iridescent tiers. There are almost no logos in sight (a fun game is: guess which look goes with which brand; all four of his main employers were show sponsors), just as there is little of the kitschy play with brand iconography that helped make Chanel a part of pop culture — the double C boxing gloves, and bikinis — and that has been widely imitated at other brands. But there are cumulus clouds of feathers and blossoming rosettes made of lace and gleaming sequin armor that romp across centuries and salons.

Through it all, one shape appears again and again: the jacket pinched just a bit at the spine, so the shoulder blades roll up and back, raising the arm hole just so, with the line curving down over the waist. Bolton calls this the “Schlemmer shape,” after an Oskar Schlemmer painting, “Bauhaus Stairway” from 1932 (the period between the wars in Germany having been one of Lagerfeld’s gravitational poles).

Ditto the sketches that were Lagerfeld’s primary means of communication, and are displayed with garments as their origin story. The designer would hand these drawings, which were conceived in the round (he thought not just from the front, but from the back) to the heads of his ateliers, to be “read” like their own private language. Just how that worked is enlivened by a group of absorbing videos created by the documentary filmmaker Loïc Prigent that are interviews with those premières d’atelier — the people who translated the designer’s sketches — about their work with Lagerfeld. They exude humanity, affection and pride.

As it happens, the videos are shown in the exhibition’s first gallery. You reach them after an entrance antechamber with another video, this one a close-up of Lagerfeld’s hands sketching a dress, along one wall; at the end of the room, like a punctuation mark, is a reconstruction of Lagerfeld’s Chanel desk, piled high with books and papers (each element chosen by Bolton to represent the breadth of Lagerfeld’s various obsessions, from Aubrey Beardsley to Diet Coke). Next to the desk is a pair of the designer’s black shoes, sitting empty on the floor. This opening video and desk mirror the exhibition’s close: another video of Lagerfeld’s hands, sketching — this time not dresses, but himself. Catty-corner to that visual are a set of vitrines displaying the designer’s signature accessories: the fingerless black leather gloves, black shades and fan, that were the artifacts of the character he constructed for himself. Or “caricature,” as he called it.

Just before that, however, is a small ellipse of a room lined with 80 iPhones plus one at the center, all loaded with the same video of Lagerfeld laughing, as well as some of his most famous quotes: “I have one instinct that is stronger than all others: the survival instinct”; “I always say what I think, and sometimes even what I don’t.” None of the bad ones, of course, though the latter statement seems particularly telling.

It’s a lost opportunity. Because by choosing to sandwich the clothes between representations of the man, the show actually suggests you can’t separate that man, in all his messy, uncomfortable reality, from the alchemy of his art — and you shouldn’t. That mess and discomfort is part of the mix; it’s part of the legacy, as it is for many of our most formative figures. If the Met can’t encourage that public conversation, what institution can?

Lagerfeld once said, in a quote that is inscribed over the entrance to the show, “Fashion does not belong in a museum.” This exhibition makes a glorious case that the clothes he made really do. But so, too, do the complications, and the tension.

---

Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty

May 5 through July 16, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan; 212-535-7710; metmuseum.org.

FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif., May 4, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Hyundai Motor America and its African American marketing agency of record, Culture Brands, launched their new multicultural campaign featuring the all-electric vehicle models, IONIQ 5 and IONIQ 6. The latest addition to the popular OKAY Hyundai series, the new campaign, titled “Choose Yours”, spotlights the vehicles’ emotional design, versatility and individualized electrified experiences.

Designed to strengthen the connection between Hyundai and the African American community through the embedding of cultural references and nuances in the creative messaging, the OKAY Hyundai marketing theme was first launched in Fall 2021. Bringing the same approach, “Choose Yours”, which cleverly references the viral “pick the paper” TikTok challenge, taps a real couple to experience the convenience, accessibility and joy of electrification.

Hyundai “Choose Yours” African American Interactive Ad 

“Thriving in a technology-fueled world makes personal, emotional, and authentic storytelling an even more important tool for connecting with customers in a real way,” said Angela Zepeda, CMO, Hyundai Motor America. “Spotlighting Hyundai’s smart mobility vision delivers a differentiated experience through electrification, the ‘Choose Yours’ campaign highlights how the IONIQ 5 and IONIQ 6 are a seamless fit into our couples date night and lifestyle.”

“While we continue our exploration to innovate and exceed customer expectations in a fast-growing EV market, we want to build a culture where we connect with people on their own terms and in relevant ways,” said Erik Thomas, director of experiential marketing, Hyundai Motor America. “In our latest extension of the Okay Hyundai theme, our goal is for the viewer to see Hyundai as progressive, sophisticated and streamlined, just like our real-life couple.”

The “Choose Yours” campaign was developed by Culture Brands under the leadership of Eunique Jones Gibson, founder and chief creative officer. Both spots demonstrate the versatility of Hyundai’s electric vehicles and give viewers an opportunity to experience the lifestyle that each vehicle unlocks. For the spot, the agency partnered with six-time Cannes Lions award-winning director, Rohan Blair-Mangat, who is known for his rich storytelling and emotive visuals.

“We chose to work with a real couple to punctuate how the IONIQ vehicles authentically compliment the beauty in our customers’ varied lifestyles.” said Eunique Jones Gibson. “These spots show how the vehicles seamlessly fit into a modern-day love story in a sustainable and adaptable way, which is an investment as long-standing as true love.”

The 2023 IONIQ 5 and IONIQ 6 campaign includes video, digital and influencer executions, and will use a variety of media platforms to amplify the messaging and vehicle features such as its quality craftsmanship, electrification and innovative technology. There are 15-, 30-, and 60- second versions of the spot available for broadcast and digital channels.

Culture Brands
Culture Brands is an independent, minority and female-owned agency that exists to authentically celebrate, reflect and represent African Americans in media. Founded in 2017, by 15-year advertising veteran Eunique Jones Gibson, we create culturally relevant and affirming campaigns and content that inspire African American audiences by ensuring they feel seen, heard and valued. At Culture Brands, we are constantly engaged in a two-way conversation with the African American community through our owned and operated media platforms and consumer brands such as the award-winning Because of Them We Can®, Because of Them We Can Box (Just For Kids), #CultureTags® and Dream Village®. Culture Brands is headquartered right outside of the nation’s capital in Hyattsville, MD. www.culturebrands.co 

Hyundai Motor America

Hyundai Motor America focuses on ‘Progress for Humanity’ and smart mobility solutions. Hyundai offers U.S. consumers a technology-rich lineup of cars, SUVs, and electrified vehicles. Our 830 dealers sold more than 724,000 vehicles in the U.S. in 2022, and nearly half were built at Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama. For more information, visit www.HyundaiNews.com.

Hyundai Motor America on Twitter | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | TikTok

Campaign Credits
Client: Hyundai Motor America
Brand: Hyundai IONIQ 5 and 6
Agency: Culture Brands 
Chief Creative Officer: Eunique Jones Gibson
Art Director: Natalie McGarvey
Associate Creative Director: Rome Green
Associate Creative Director: Gustavo Uriarte
Account Director: Britt Wright
Production Company: Eleanor Films
Executive Producer: Jessica Toscano
Digital Videos Director: Rohan Blair-Mangat
Postproduction: Post Union Editorial
Editor: Einar Thorsteinsson
Managing Director: Luis Gonzalez

SOURCE Hyundai Motor America