ABOUT

I started The Cola Corporation during the first Trump term as a response to the flamboyant stupidity that increasingly characterized U.S. politics and popular culture. I didn’t have a formal plan, or even a fixed political perspective. Prior to 2016, I hadn’t voted for anything other than the NBA All-Star Game. However, I had been fascinated by clothing and its sociological implications since sixth grade, when a classmate mocked me for wearing the same G.I. Joe T-shirt two days in a row.

With Cola, I wanted to address the blatant contradictions between the myths that America tells about itself and the realities of policing, imperialism, surveillance, “patriotism,” censorship, and the machinery of public life.

Graphic apparel provided the ideal vehicle. T-shirts, hoodies, and ball caps are public, portable, and difficult to keep contained. From the beginning, the clothing itself has mattered as clothing. Weight, hand feel, fit, construction, and fabric are not secondary to my visual designs. They are part of the argument.

The Cola Corporation has expanded to include printed matter, writing, installation, documentation, and physical artifacts. The project also lives inside the contradictions it exposes. I use commerce, branding, and spectacle to critique a society built on commerce, branding, and spectacle. That tension is not incidental. It is part of the work.

There has been institutional backlash. The Los Angeles Police Foundation sent a cease-and-desist letter, which resulted in Cola’s lawyer sending the now-infamous “LOL, no” response. U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized a shipment at O’Hare, and those designs became the Confiscated Collection. Five major social-media platforms have revoked advertising access. Two leading Chicago cultural institutions agreed to feature specific pieces, then reversed course after reviewing the full Cola portfolio.

Those incidents don’t constitute the whole story, but they provide clear cases. They show what happens when an object leaves the studio, enters public life, and pushes against something real.

Provocation is a public service.

—Joe Cola