Max Zorn at Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! acquired Max Zorn’s packing-tape portraits for its international museum collections. A Marilyn Monroe portrait appears in Ripley’s own illustrated annual: the French 2016 edition records the acquisition directly from Zorn, alongside a photograph of the artwork.
Monroe is a fitting subject for this material. Her familiar face takes shape through hand-cut layers of packing tape, with light revealing the differences between them. The image belongs to popular culture; the physical artwork is made from a material usually discarded with a cardboard box.
Commissions and museum displays
The photographs and contemporary accounts connect Max’s work with Ripley’s museums in Hollywood, London and Orlando. The large Monroe portrait shown below was displayed at Ripley’s Hollywood in Los Angeles. Max also described this artwork as a Ripley’s commission in his own account.
A report adapted from Ripley’s profile records several purchases in 2013 and identifies London as the destination of a tape artwork featured in its video. An account published in 2015 also records commissions for Ripley’s Orlando. These photographs and accounts document Ripley’s presentations of Max’s work during the 2010s.
In print and on film
Ripley’s introduced the work to its readers through the profile This Artist’s Packing Tape Art Is Stunning and a video showing the process. Its illustrated annual provides a lasting record of the Monroe acquisition. Together, these publications and museum displays brought Max’s original tape art to an audience well beyond the street lamps where he first installed it.
Explore the full exhibition history, including Max’s museum projects, or see how he makes original tape art.
Sources and archive
- Ripley’s illustrated annual, French 2016 edition, printed page 9: the Monroe acquisition and photograph.
- Minilua, adapted from Ripley’s, 28 May 2020: the 2013 purchases and the London display.
- All Tapes Depot, 22 August 2015: commissions for Ripley’s Orlando.
Max Zorn’s illuminated packing tape portrait of Marilyn Monroe, commissioned by Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, displayed in the Hollywood Odditorium, Los Angeles.