Pope.L Black Domestic a.k.a. Cow Commercial 1994

  • Not on view

In Black Domestic a.k.a. Cow Commercial, Pope.L roams the streets, tunnels, and buildings of midtown Manhattan dressed in a pastel suit and carrying a black-and-white plastic cow. Performing as a sidewalk oracle, he makes religious and philosophical declarations that border on the absurd. At one point, he installs a miniature American flag in the anus of the cow—the animal is conspicuously marked as “SOLD”—then sticks an empty wine bottle labeled “RACE” into its mouth. Partly a spoof on the popular 1990s advertising campaign “Got Milk?,” Black Domestic parodies racial stereotypes that turn identities into consumable commodities.

Gallery label from October 21, 2019–February 1, 2020
Medium
Video (color, sound; 2:49 min.); cotton button down shirt; plastic cow figurine and brown leather belt
Credit
Acquired in part through the generosity of Jill and Peter Kraus, Anne and Joel S. Ehrenkranz, The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, The Jill and Peter Kraus Media and Performance Acquisition Fund, and Jill and Peter Kraus in honor of Michael Lynne
Object number
81.2019.1-4
Copyright
© 2022 Pope.L. Courtesy of the artist.
Department
Media and Performance

Research in progress; information about this work may be incomplete.

Installation views

We have identified these works in the following photos from our exhibition history.

How we identified these works

In 2018–19, MoMA collaborated with Google Arts & Culture Lab on a project using machine learning to identify artworks in installation photos. That project has concluded, and works are now being identified by MoMA staff.

If you notice an error, please contact us at [email protected].

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research-and-learning/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].