How I’d Sink American Vogue
Patrick 26/09/07, 11:55
Picture this: Anna Wintour has resigned. The sheer effort of keeping an immaculate bob and an unfeasibly large pair of sunglasses in place 24 hours a day has finally taken its toll. In a move that has shocked the fashion industry, American Vogue has appointed as her successor graphic-designer-turned-artist Scott King. For his first issue in charge, King decides that Vogue should have an anti-war theme. Oh, and it should also be free…
How I’d Sink American Vogue is a project that King first developed for a show at New York gallery, PS1, last year. A less likely substitute for La Wintour it is hard to imagine, but with a background at i-D and Sleazenation, King knows a bit about the workings of the style press.
His 12 artworks featuring fictional proposals for Vogue covers ruthlessly lampoon the fatuous froth of the glossy. Take January, The Angry Issue: its main feature – 769 Things That Make Scarlett Johansson Angry At Injustice. Inside, we are promised advice on “how to dress angry”, a report on “whatever happened to New Orleans” and “how Bono saved Africa”.
Carrying on the list obsession is the May issue with 635 Poor People Upside Down, plus Karl Lagerfeld on cancer and the lost diaries of Oswald Mosely.
Things really pick up in July when King proposes to publish an ad-free issue, which would run to all of 14 pages, but would at least come with a free “anti-capitalist paper clip” to “Jam The Corporate Machine!”
But the crowning glory has to be the November issue when King completes his descent into Colonel Kurtz-style madness to produce the final nail in the coffin: a bright yellow cover featuring nothing but a budgie, chillingly declaring that “I Am God!”
Well, it could happen…
All images courtesy Herald St gallery, London.






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