A poster that featured Kamala Harris in Eagles gear with a caption that read, “Kamala, official candidate of the Philadelphia Eagles,” was spotted at a Philadelphia bus stop and later proven to be forged last week.
The artist who took credit for the piece, Philadelphia native Winston Tseng, released a statement on Monday claiming the poster was supposed to be a satirical piece and never meant to be put up in a public space. He denied any knowledge of how it ended up there.
“The absurd poster of Kamala Harris wearing an Eagles helmet is my artwork, but I don’t know how it ended up at bus stops in Philadelphia,” Tseng wrote.
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Tseng claims that the piece was not meant to be promotional for the Harris campaign when he designed it. Instead, it was meant to satirize the concept of celebrity or sports entities giving endorsements of political candidates as a whole.
“My work uses brands and advertising to communicate societal issues. On one level, the poster is a parody of the ads we see along I-95 promoting the ‘official beer’ or the ‘official accounting firm of the Philadelphia Eagles.’ But the title of this work is ‘Political Endorsement,’ and that’s the issue at hand,” Tseng said. “Why the f— do we care who Hulk Hogan or some corporation endorses? Yet here we are, and I think the strong reaction we’ve seen to this satirical endorsement is a reflection of our times.”
The posters were initially spotted during the first two days of September on 16th and Spring Garden streets, 18th Street and JFK Boulevard, and 34th and Walnut streets in Philadelphia. The poster pictured below at 16th and Spring Garden streets was later removed last Monday afternoon.
However, the posters also had a URL printed underneath the caption, which directed to an Eagles voting website that shows past Pennsylvania and New Jersey primary election voting deadlines from the spring. It also provided links for first-time voters, polling locations, and guidelines on voting registration and requesting a ballot.
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Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally at the Enmarket Arena August 29, 2024 in Savannah, Georgia. Harris has campaigned in southeast Georgia for the past two days. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Tseng has also previously posted photos of his designed posters in which he appropriated a company’s official brand at Philadelphia bus stops, including a Ben & Jerry’s-themed poster of President Biden eating an ice cream cone, with the caption “Rocky Road to Democracy.”
Tseng has also posted a photo of one of his posters that featured former president Trump, in which he appropriated the Pepto Bismol brand. That poster showed Trump against a white background with the text: “Nausea, heartburn, insurrection,