Everyone knows Iron Mike had a tiger, but did you know they sat down on his couch underneath a Rothko eating chicken and waffle together? You did not. Was (crazy motherfucker named) Ice Cube dive bombing into the pool at his modernist L.A. home really the inspiration for David Hockney’s 1967 work, A Bigger Splash?

Currently showing at Los Angeles gallery Slow Culture, New York-based Californian artist Justin Hager’s Earth People puts the pop in pop art — pondering the imaginary parallel lives of pop culture icons, and leaving us asking: what exactly is the relationship between seedy Bill Cosby and KAWS?

Scraping the residue of popular culture into a NutriBullet packed with nostalgia and Tumblr and memes and madness, and blitzing the whole thing to oblivion, Justin Hager’s Earth People runs at the Highland Park gallery until 11 December.

@Slow_Culture

Justin Hager, Something Was The Same