Amerikana Status

By Gabbriel Ichak, Assistant Curator and Editor Katherine "Neco" Kafruni

Explore Gabbriel Ichak's satirical reimagining of the American dream through vivid photo-collage and oil paintings. Drawing inspiration from mid-century advertising and family imagery, Ichak brings these familiar and cheerful iconography into jarring environments that reveal the deeper truths behind these images. For more information, please contact the branch at 305-625-6424 or noelp@mdpls.org. All Ages.

In Amerikana Status, artist Gabbriel Ichak satirically reimagines the American dream through vivid photo-collage and oil paintings. Drawing inspiration from mid-century advertising and family imagery, Ichak extracts cheerful vacationers and smiling icons of the 1950s and ‘60s and transposes them in surreal, jarring environments marked by sorrow and hatred.

These bright, almost kitschy compositions spark interest. Behind the cheerful surface, each piece confronts viewers to consider deeper truths – how national ideals of identity, success and morality often rely on contradiction and illusion. Each work in this exhibit exposes a tension between nostalgia and reality, comfort and critique.

Inspired by the notion that “disinformation is most effective in a narrow context,” Ichak removes figures from their original settings and repositions them in fractured, dreamlike scenes. In doing this, he exposes how images can mislead people, and aesthetics can rewrite history.

Ichak’s work encourages reflection. He asks, “What do we celebrate?” “What do we overlook?” “And what, exactly, is missing from the frame?”

About the Artist:

Gabbriel Ichak is an innovative artist and designer known for blending bold visual techniques with socially conscious themes. His oil-on-photo collages explore American ideals, environmental crises and cultural mythology through a satirical lens. Ichak’s art bridges the past and future, challenging viewers to reconsider either narrative.

Ichak's career spans decades of creative leadership, including his role as Creative Art Director at Bergdorf Goodman (1987–1990) and the founder of Gabbriel Ichak Design Studio in 1993. He gained early acclaim with his six-month exhibition of AMERICANA, showcased at both the former American Craft Museum (now Museum of Arts and Design) in New York and the Chrysler Building.

His commissioned works, such as Coca-Cola’s Recycled Bottle Cap accessories (1993–1995) and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's Recycle! It's the Law bags (1996), received international recognition. He has also been featured in more than 50 publications, including TIME and Vogue Magazine and the New York Daily News.

Educated at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, Parsons School of Design and the Art Students League of New York, Ichak continues to produce works that inspire, provoke and push boundaries. 

Upcoming events