Bullies

Smithsonian via FB:

Revenge can be a dish served cold or simply screen-printed on Tyvek. In “Bullies,” in the collections of our Cooper Hewitt, artist Virgil Marti, got back at his childhood bullies by adding their faces to this vibrant, floral wallpaper.

Marti sourced pictures of boys who had bullied him from his junior high school yearbook. Designed in 1992, the artwork is embellished with traditional wallpaper motifs and saturated with a garish color palette. The design exploits the tension between "good taste" and "bad taste"—one of the hallmarks of a camp aesthetic. It was initially installed in the boiler room of a former elementary school in Philadelphia and then, in the restroom at the Fabric Workshop and Museum, where Marti is a master printer.

Art critic Holland Cotter described "Bullies" as “every shy, gay 98-pound weakling’s idea of sweet revenge.”