Ken Lum, You Don’t Love Me 1994. Lent by the Tate Americas Foundation, courtesy of the North American Acquisitions Committee and Eleanor and Frances Shen 2025. © Ken Lum; Courtesy of the Artist and Magenta Plains, New York.
8 rooms in Media Networks
See how three artists use photography to explore and critique advertising, billboards and mass media
‘Billboards capture and encapsulate ideology, the social, economic and political climate at any given time. They retain their appeal for social engineering.’ – Santu Mofokeng
In this display, three artists working in photography explore the techniques of advertising and billboards, responding to the over-saturation of mass media in society. Inspired by eye-catching graphic composition, exaggerated staging and stereotypical imagery, they use these approaches to make their own critiques of contemporary society.
Each of the artists make these critiques in different ways, and in different contexts. Santu Mofokeng constructs his photographs of Black townships in post-apartheid South Africa, emphasising how the lifestyle promised in billboards can offer a stark, even cruel contrast to daily life. Edward Ruscha instead adopts and subverts the language of Hollywood film posters that depict grand landscapes typically associated with cowboy westerns.
Ken Lum’s work You Don’t Love Me 1994 gives the title to this display, emphasising the manipulative nature of advertising techniques so prevalent in visual culture. In this work, Lum combines photography with text, often depicting characters grappling with societal pressures, as he observed in 1990s Vancouver.
Edward Ruscha, It’s Payback Time (Country Cityscapes series) 2001
In his Country Cityscapes series, Ruscha covers photographs of North American landscapes with blocks of blanked-out text, playing on a common advertising technique. At first glance, the series might remind us of landscapes from a tourism campaign. The titles, however, are borrowed from cowboy films or westerns. Using catchphrases (such as Be Careful...You Hear Me? and Its Payback Time), the titles become threats directed at the audience, blanked out to disrupt the serenity of the landscape.
Gallery label, February 2026
1/12
artworks in You Don't Love Me
Edward Ruscha, Be Careful... You Hear Me? (Country Cityscapes series) 2001
In his Country Cityscapes series, Ruscha covers photographs of North American landscapes with blocks of blanked-out text, playing on a common advertising technique. At first glance, the series might remind us of landscapes from a tourism campaign. The titles, however, are borrowed from cowboy films or westerns. Using catchphrases (such as Be Careful...You Hear Me? and Its Payback Time), the titles become threats directed at the audience, blanked out to disrupt the serenity of the landscape.
Gallery label, February 2026
2/12
artworks in You Don't Love Me
Santu Mofokeng, A Roadside Sign in Tshwane, Marabastad / Hammanskraal c.2008, printed 2011
With his Billboards series, Mofokeng traces how the changing social and political climate is reflected in advertisements in various Black townships throughout South Africa. Mofokeng captures how consumerist advertisements and state-sponsored messages relentlessly promise a better life. These advertisements contrast with scenes of people going about their everyday lives in post-apartheid society. He explains: ‘Previously words such as “freedom” and “democracy” could land you in jail but today they will land you in a shopping mall.’
Gallery label, February 2026
3/12
artworks in You Don't Love Me
Edward Ruscha, Your A Dead Man (Country Cityscapes series) 2001
In his Country Cityscapes series, Ruscha covers photographs of North American landscapes with blocks of blanked-out text, playing on a common advertising technique. At first glance, the series might remind us of landscapes from a tourism campaign. The titles, however, are borrowed from cowboy films or westerns. Using catchphrases (such as Be Careful...You Hear Me? and Its Payback Time), the titles become threats directed at the audience, blanked out to disrupt the serenity of the landscape.
Gallery label, February 2026
5/12
artworks in You Don't Love Me
Edward Ruscha, You Will Eat Hot Lead (Country Cityscapes series) 2001
The titles of the works in this series are not visible in the images, but appear to have been blanked out, obscuring the landscape behind. These titles are aggressive cowboy catch-phrases from the Western movie genre. Ruscha suggests how cultural stereotypes affect the way we see the North American landscape. These clichés are often generated in mass-media producing cities, such as Los Angeles.
Gallery label, July 2019
6/12
artworks in You Don't Love Me
Santu Mofokeng, Street Scene - Rockville c.2004, printed 2011
With his Billboards series, Mofokeng traces how the changing social and political climate is reflected in advertisements in various Black townships throughout South Africa. Mofokeng captures how consumerist advertisements and state-sponsored messages relentlessly promise a better life. These advertisements contrast with scenes of people going about their everyday lives in post-apartheid society. He explains: ‘Previously words such as “freedom” and “democracy” could land you in jail but today they will land you in a shopping mall.’
Gallery label, February 2026
8/12
artworks in You Don't Love Me
Santu Mofokeng, Robben Island as You’ve Never Seen It Before c.2002, printed 2011
With his Billboards series, Mofokeng traces how the changing social and political climate is reflected in advertisements in various Black townships throughout South Africa. Mofokeng captures how consumerist advertisements and state-sponsored messages relentlessly promise a better life. These advertisements contrast with scenes of people going about their everyday lives in post-apartheid society. He explains: ‘Previously words such as “freedom” and “democracy” could land you in jail but today they will land you in a shopping mall.’
Gallery label, February 2026
9/12
artworks in You Don't Love Me
Ken Lum, You Don’t Love Me 1994
This work is part of Lum's Portrait-Repeated Text series which mirrors the techniques and visual language of public billboards, and are often also displayed on billboards or outdoors. Rather than selling something, the images and accompanying texts encourage a sense of empathy with the highly relatable characters depicted. Lum was concerned with the socio-economic pressures faced by working-class people in 1990s Vancouver. He says: 'I'm interested in moments and what is real, the little daily eruptions that seem to run counter to the way things "ought" to be'.
Gallery label, December 2025
10/12
artworks in You Don't Love Me
Edward Ruscha, Noose Around Your Neck (Country Cityscapes series) 2001
In his Country Cityscapes series, Ruscha covers photographs of North American landscapes with blocks of blanked-out text, playing on a common advertising technique. At first glance, the series might remind us of landscapes from a tourism campaign. The titles, however, are borrowed from cowboy films or westerns. Using catchphrases (such as Be Careful...You Hear Me? and Its Payback Time), the titles become threats directed at the audience, blanked out to disrupt the serenity of the landscape.
Gallery label, February 2026
11/12
artworks in You Don't Love Me
Edward Ruscha, Do As Told or Suffer (Country Cityscapes series) 2001
The titles of the works in this series are not visible in the images, but appear to have been blanked out, obscuring the landscape behind. These titles are aggressive cowboy catch-phrases from the Western movie genre. Ruscha suggests how cultural stereotypes affect the way we see the North American landscape. These clichés are often generated in mass-media producing cities, such as Los Angeles.
Gallery label, July 2019
12/12
artworks in You Don't Love Me
Art in this room
Edward Ruscha
It’s Payback Time (Country Cityscapes series)
2001
Edward Ruscha
Be Careful... You Hear Me? (Country Cityscapes series)
2001
Santu Mofokeng
A Roadside Sign in Tshwane, Marabastad / Hammanskraal
c.2008, printed 2011
Sorry, no image available
Santu Mofokeng
Potchefstroom Road, Soweto
2009, printed 2011
Edward Ruscha
Your A Dead Man (Country Cityscapes series)
2001
Edward Ruscha
You Will Eat Hot Lead (Country Cityscapes series)
2001
You've viewed 6/12 artworks
You've viewed 12/12 artworks