(born 1966 in New York City)
Hermès Value Meal Big Mac (in four parts), 1995, ink on orange Hermès paper, printing, glue/adhesive tape, with copyright stamp and typographically inscribed “1995 Mc Donald’s Corporation Made in U.S.A. (13159), The design of this box is a registered trademark of Mc Donald’s Corporation”, 35 x 29.5 x 35 cm, in original Hermès cardboard box (with adhesive tape), (PS)

Provenance:
Private Collection, Germany – acquired directly from the artist

„I think with some of these fashion brands there is an erasing of culture, there is a loss of identity. It is a little like death, the death of a culture, it’s a loss of a real meaning.“ (Kvaran, Gunnar B., Interview with Tom Sachs, New York, 10 November 2005)

The subversive design of “Value Meal” attests to Sachs’s skills as a craftsman and to an imagination that overrides the Copyrights and trademark rights held by multinational corporations. Sachs translates the limited and exclusive Hermès brand into a mass product that is dispensed via McDonalds by the millions on a daily basis while its key markets are constantly expanded. The leather of a cow lends itself to the production of just one Hermès bag, whereas the cow provides meat for about 1,000 burgers. In this post-modern bricolage, Sachs questions the leitmotifs of modernism – production, consumerism, and circulation – by turning its strategies upside down.