News/Research

Billboard Features Jill Miller's Ariel Stinks

31 Jan, 2023

Billboard Features Jill Miller's Ariel Stinks

Jill Miller is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Department of Art Practice and New Media. She is a visual artist who works across a wide range of media, from digital media to public art, and many hybrids. She uses humor as a strategy for opening up meaningful conversations about difficult subjects.

Using humor as a way to start conversations is exactly what she did when she discovered that controversial singer Ariel Pink had used an old, unpublished photo of her from the early 2000s on the cover of his 2006 album Ariel Pink’s Thrash & Burn. Miller turned unauthorized appropriation into appropriation-ade. She is now selling a 50-piece NFT collection, and the collection’s cover art features “Ariel” scrawled across Miller’s forehead in all-cap red letters and the word “Stinks” snaking down the left side of her face.

Instead of suing Pink, Miller decided to create art instead stating, "I didn’t want to play into his ‘oh, I’m canceled’ pity party". Billboard reached out to Pink who confirmed that the two have never met and claims his label's director was responsible for choosing the artwork.

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