What I Got - Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Let's rap about Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (AAMR).


The Philadelphia store takes its namesake from German cultural critic Walter Benjamin's essay title. If you happen to be forced to take art criticism as a minor (like me), you'll know that Benjamin is concern with how mass reproduction could affect the "aura" of the art.

For example, is seeing a picture of the Mona Lisa the same as seeing the real McCoy in the Lourve? Do you still get the same experience? Does copying art change its "artfulness?"

So this was what I got, which I gathered, someone else out there already has.

They probably have the same press kits that I have...

... which contained the same CD of their catalogs or the same press releases or the same artists portfolio of Alex Lukas or Thom Lessner, whose shirt that I'll get into in a minute.


The only thing that was individualized was this lovely card addressed to me though someone did point out to me that the letters of GyroWorldWide (the marketing geniuses behind AAMR) logo is an anagram for ORGY. Sure I could have come up with ROY G. but that wouldn't be funny.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. The shirt.


This is it.

Some of you might be wondering what's the deal with the Rod Stewart tranny? Well, ignoramus, prepare to be schooled. This is an amalgamation of Patrick Nagel and Diamond Dave. It's Lessner's tribute to the 80's. Sure, I might get puzzled stares from the public eye and some might wrongly attribute the person to Axel Rose or a fat [insert any hair metal musician] but that doesn't take away the specialness of the shirt.


What I found weird was the tags of the shirt. You have the AAMR tag sewn onto an American Apparel shirt with the tag still attached... it doesn't seem to mesh. One of them needs to go.

In conclusion, I love the shirt design. Lessner makes pretty cool shit. And you can see from the rest of AAMR's lineup, that the artistic creativity is being pushed to new boundaries. I mean, have you not seen this and not want to punch a hole into space and time and just retrieve the shirt for your ownself?

Not only is AAMR prudent in who they get to design the shirts, they're also professional in terms of getting their name out. The press kit that I got from them tells me that they know what they're doing, it tells you that they're cool to do business with.

And in a time where t-shirt sites are a dime and a dozen, Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is one of the few sites that manages to retain its "aura."