Lewis Owen 18th of February 2021

I have started reading about Postmodernism and Jean Baudrillard’s conclusion that the border
between art and reality has utterly vanished as both have collapsed into the universal
simulacrum. The simulacrum is arrived at with the distinction between representation and
reality – between signs and what they refer to in the real world – breaks down. Baudrillard
believed that the representational image-sign goes through four successive historic phases.
1. It is a reflection of a basic reality
2. It masks and perverts a basic reality
3. It marks the absence of a basic reality
4. It bears no relation to any reality whatever – it is its own pure simulacrum
Reality becomes redundant and we have reached hyper-reality in which images breed
incestuously with each other without reference to reality or meaning.
How is it possible to arrive at the nullification of reality, even “in theory”?
This is how it is explained in the pages of Introducing Postmodernism. Well, I have spotted
simulacrum in my own toiletries. Baylis & Harding sold face wash gel in what looks like an
artist’s paint tube. Now the object becomes pure simulacrum, transferring the connotations of
painting en plein air, creating art, to a working the dirt off of our faces. Face wash is a myth
in itself as soap doesn’t know your arse from your elbow. Soap doesn’t discriminate or
distinguish our faces from our bodies. I digress.

Appignanesi, R. and Garratt, C., 2003. Introducing Postmodernism. Icon Books, pp.34, 35,
54, 55.
Lewis Owen 18th of February 2021

Baylis & Harding have subverted the meaning of washing your face. They heighten the
mundane experience of basic hygiene to an artisanal skill. Your face is no longer a face; it is
a canvas. The brand has risen to the significance we give our faces. But they have achieved
this is such a subtle way. They side-step the obvious by abstaining from colour. Their style is
traditional with serif fonts and faithful to paint tube designs. The text points the attention to a
boutique hotel in the Cotswolds. It is not easy to consciously acknowledge the resemblance to
the paint tube. Only the feeling of the freedom and creative opportunity that resonates from it.

This product was actually bought for me as a gift by a family member. Maybe knowing I am
an artist prompted the decision to pick it from the rest. It certainly got me thinking about how
we do live in an invasive hyper-reality that creates a confusion around common signs, images
and objects. The paint tube is very convenient evidence that art and reality have merged, and
our understanding of images is being manipulated to mean what it needs to mean, not what it
does. The sign value must be greater than its use value, because we do not buy facewash in
such small amounts. It is sold as part of a gift set, which twists the notion of the product. It
excludes all other toiletries by this distinction. The scarce amount you receive makes it seem
exclusive and precious.
This is marketing. It makes their business money, by turning the cost of packaging into
tactics. Selling smaller amounts at higher prices. Advertising a boutique hotel, creating a web
of meaning that forms the idea of the brand.
Perhaps the paint tube makes us feel like we are masking our impurities when we use the face
wash, as if we are painting our face. The upward trend of using face filters in selfies and
cosmetics suggests a yearning to do so. It has to be said that this object is loaded with
creative meaning.
Marcel Duchamp displayed “readymade” non-art objects as art, like a porcelain urinal signed
R. Mutt in 1917. He dissociated the objects from context, use and meaning. This ‘anti-art’ is a
big part of the postmodern art and the world, at the beginnings of the Dada movement. A
century later and this idea has mutated and permeated our everyday living.

Appignanesi, R. and Garratt, C., 2003. Introducing Postmodernism. Icon Books, pp.34, 35,
54, 55.
Lewis Owen 18th of February 2021

I wish to remain humble so I shall ask for a bar of Pears soap next Christmas.

Appignanesi, R. and Garratt, C., 2003. Introducing Postmodernism. Icon Books, pp.34, 35,
54, 55.