Uncommon’s Bootlicker serves up a surreal take on power
Uncommon has taken a rather unexpected trip to the Venice Biennale with Bootlicker, a giant 6ft lollipop shaped like a foot and presented as a satire of modern authority.
A teaser for Uncommon’s new exhibit rather luridly depicts a man licking a jelly mould of a foot. There wasn’t a lot more to go on than that, so with some trepidation, we took the bait.
Debuting as part of Personal Structures on 9 May, the work turns a familiar insult into a very literal lesson.
Bootlicker takes aim at the way power presents itself in 2026: in a feed-friendly, oddly charming form. The joke, of course, is that it is both seductive and vaguely alarming, which could apply to a lot of leaders, but I think we can guess whose foot the mould is based on.
Uncommon says the piece is about the way authority is now “packaged, filtered and fed to us” until it starts to feel normal, even desirable. That gives the work a sharper edge than its humorous confectionery form first suggests.
There is something uncomfortable about a real lollipop being used to explore the “beauty and sweetness” of political submission.
The gleefully strange nature of the spectacle is, we imagine, part of the point. Compared with Uncommon’s earlier exhibition piece PAIN, a claw machine housing an impossible-to-win designer handbag, Bootlicker feels similarly tied to the mood of the moment.
Both are playful, repulsive and hard to look away from, in the way good satire should be.
Uncommon’s stunt here is a further exploration of its bent towards exploring work outside the traditional ad medium in order to build its personal brand and get a political point across. Co-founder Nils Leonard says, “Power today doesn’t announce itself. It’s packaged, filtered and fed to us in ways that feel normal - even desirable.”
We’ll have to see how its efforts cut through at the Biennale, where it’ll certainly stand out against more sombre work. Perhaps, though, there’s another message here beyond the art: could PR creative companies be a little bit bolder with their personal brands?
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