Oscar yi Hou

In this new limited edition print, Oscar yi Hou reimagines Bruce Springsteen's iconic Born in the U.S.A. album cover, infusing it with queer sensuality.

Our first collaboration with Oscar, Coolieisms, aka: Born In The USA (Go And Kill The Yellow Man), is a translation of the original oil painting from his ongoing Coolieisms series. The series title references a 19th-century slur historically used to degrade exploited Chinese railroad labourers. Through this body of work, Oscar explores East Asian queer experiences in America, blending American pop culture, queer masculinities, kink iconography, and references to both ancient and contemporary Asian art and culture.

In his take on the cover, Oscar replaces the all-American man with a figure dressed in leather fetish gear. Across the stripes of the flag, lyrics from Bruce Springsteen's original song – "go and kill the yellow man" – are layered, referencing US imperialism and its violent history in Asia.

The edition is rich with symbolic detail, from the figure's small gold hoop – mirroring the artist's piercing – to a glitter-embellished navy handkerchief, nodding to the queer practice of 'flagging' which originated in 1970s gay male and BDSM communities as a code to communicate your sexual preferences. To embellish these details, printers at Make-Ready applied a dynamic silkscreen high-gloss varnish to specific areas and used a dazzling glitter coating to highlight the stars of the US flag on the navy handkerchief.