Superimposing contemporary graffiti tags onto Soviet architecture postcards, Jones' photomontages invoke a perpetual form of resistance to government superstructures
Through a mashup of mid-century state-sanctioned brutalist architecture and contemporary undercover graffiti tags, artist photographer Gabriel Jones remixes Soviet postcards of the 20th century into photomontages with an updated message. Top-down meets grassroots and sublime and subliminal clash in these kitschy collages: sometimes cynical, sometimes cheeky, sometimes profound. Each structure gains a slogan such as "Honk if you don't exist"; "Make Orwell fiction again"; "Microsoft is a crazy thing to name your company"; and "Communist jokes are only funny if everyone gets them." Such decontextualization provides a humorous effect, but also brings a sort of recognizability to the new image on the postcard. This dynamic shows humanity's innate resilience to imposed superstructures—be it only in our minds or among our communities—which in turn lends itself to a mirror by which to view the superstructures imposed by contemporary politicians.
