Instagram Riot Photos

Recently an Instagram gallery of images from the UK riots made itself known around more discerning parts of the Internet. They are, for all intents and purposes rife with tragic, engaging beauty. The photos, (shot off of an iPhone thru the Instagram app), gloriously capture the complicated and dramatic events, and aftermath, that has taken place over the last week through out the UK. Like most good photojournalism, the viewer is left torn between objective beauty and subjective empathy. Artistry, in a case like this, is a tough call to make. There is beauty in brutal truth and there is brutality in truthful beauty. But the power of said beauty is difficult to determine out of context and the effects of which are impossible to predict.

This got me thinking . . .

Recently a new ad from Levis Go Forth campaign was pulled from UK media outlets due to its visual message of rebellion, social upheaval and general unrest (not surprisingly amongst youth). The advertisement is directed by Ryan McGinley, and features, as many of his work does, youthful subjects in various states of reckless abandon.

While on the surface, and specifically at a time like now, dropping the ad from the UK seems like a "smart" (read: safe) move on Levis part, (one that can be viewed as “sensitivity” to a seemingly “foreign” matter), but it can also be interpreted as Levis simply saving face. And that lends and air of the inauthentic to a brand announcing, or rather demanding it’s legion of adopters to "Go Forth and make a world of your liking". How that message, as in any form of art, (be it painting or advert) is received and processed is within the mind and eye of the beholder. But they would benefit by allowing the market to decide how to parse things and firmly stand behind the message they so proudly flaunt when their mettle isn't being tested.

By Levis removing the ad, it shows a lack of the one attribute they’ve so clearly etched into their current marketing DNA: a backbone.

Instagram Riot Photos