The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) has opened a new exhibition titled "Genuine Fake Premium Economy," featuring works by artists Jenna Bliss, Buck Ellison, and Jasmine Gregory. Curated by Nicole Leong, the show critiques the culture of capitalism within the art world, using appropriation and mimicry to highlight contradictions and hypocrisies. The artists, all born in the mid-1980s in the United States, came of age professionally after the 2008 financial crisis, and their works incorporate advertising imagery, reality television, luxury brand aesthetics, and private wealth management vocabulary. Bliss's video works include a scripted reality TV episode set in an art fair booth before the crash, while Ellison has invented a fictional private bank called Orlo & Co., and Gregory reproduces Patek Philippe advertisements with the watches erased.
This exhibition matters because it offers a sharp generational critique of the art world's entanglement with capitalism, particularly in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Leong notes that the show is not a diagnosis of the art world's sickness but points out systemic issues such as unfair pay for artists and staff, gallery closures due to rent hikes, and the excesses of pre-2008 wealth. By using mimicry rather than overt rage, the artists create a colder, more effective commentary on the contradictions of wealth, artifice, and imitation in contemporary art and society.