Ralph Lauren, along with every WASP-engendered, suburban-circumscribed good-taste notion of the good life, gets it in the eye in Carlton Scott Sturgill’s finely crafted and very funny show, Afterlifestyle, at the Art Academy of Cincinnati's Pearlman Gallery, 1212 Jackson St.
in Over-the-Rhine, now through Dec.12. The Ralph Lauren lifestyle, so commercially viable, seems to Sturgill akin to a quiet death by boredom. Sturgill’s versions of Ralph Lauren magazine ads show the models with closed eyes – already they have succumbed. He is perhaps the first artist ever to employ paint chips for satiric ends and, in another neat turn, he recycles Ralph Lauren shirts into handsome funereal flower arrangements. Death, anyone? Get gallery details and find nearby bars and restaurants here.
