My good friend Mark Hamlin, or “Ham” as he has come to be affectionately called by his closest chums, recently started a new blog on Tumblr called Celebrity Ready-Made. It’s a great concept (in fact I’m a tad jealous) that basically exploits the names of celebrities by associating them with simple found objects (mostly presented in the form of appropriated images). For example, one image he has called “Johnny” is of a pile of cash, another is of a New York back alley titled “Muhammad”, and yet another is an image of a rubber ball named “Lucille”.
For the most part, Ham has attempted to maintain a traditional ‘Pop Art’ feel to the images, while ensuring that both current and classical celebrities are represented. As an added feature, the reader can also click on each image’s title to link to that particular celebrity’s Wikipedia article (this feature can be especially useful if the celebrity being commented on isn’t immediately apparent).
If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend checking out the website here: http://celebrityreadymade.tumblr.com
Though he is very much British, I met Ham when I was still living in Germany. He studied art at the University of Frankfurt, and actually shared a couple of classes with my ex-boyfriend (that’s how I ultimately met Ham; they had a study group together). Ham, however, has since moved back to England where he currently pursues a career as a conceptual artist with a special focus on using ready-made objects. And, thanks to the conveniences of the Internet, we continue to maintain contact with one another with some relative frequency.
