With Purpose: Texas Chainsaw Massacre by Rob Jones

 

The beauty of an illustration is in its purpose, and the purpose is often clearly defined by its location—an illustrated book cover tells the story in order to sell the book, an illustration for an article aids in the understanding of the text. For the illustrated movie poster, its purpose is to sell a movie. For the alternative movie poster, it is not selling anything beyond the poster itself and when one passes my eyeballs, I tend to wonder:

• Is this poster for fans of the film?
• Is this poster for fans of the artist?
• Is this poster for collectors?
• What is the perspective of the poster?
• Does it acknowledge the fans or play like it’s a new release?

I ask in search of connection. Each question a path to finding where I fit in the world the art is creating. As only an admirer and collector and not a practitioner of illustration, I have no experience to claim that these questions need answers. But as a member of the audience, I feel I can sense when they haven’t been addressed.

In August 2024, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City held a screening of Tobe Hooper’s classic film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in honor of the film’s 50th anniversary. To coincide with the event, collectibles publishers Coda and Mutant had been brought on board to curate a series of posters. The roster of artists Rob Jones, Sonny & Biddy, Matt Ryan Tobin, and Bráulio Amado all created inspired takes on the film, but it was Jones’ poster that showed me something unexpected.

Jones centers his brilliant poster on the film’s place in history. The image at the base of the poster is a photograph of an original Leatherface mask from the collection housed at Austin’s Ransom Center. The mask is a physical object that has now evolved beyond its original purpose—its first as a screen worn prop to sell a character to the audience, and now its second life as a Hollywood relic.

 

 

With this mask Jones is acknowledging the purpose of the poster—to celebrate The Texas Chainsaw Massacre playing in an esteemed institute of the arts. Jones uses an actual museum piece to celebrate the film itself becoming a museum piece. This poster breaks the fourth wall and reaches across time, 50 years to be exact, raking through the history and the fandom, both academic and genre-specific, that has sprung from Hooper’s film.

The poster does not frame The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as simply a cult horror movie nor does it reach for any of its gory images, but instead places the film in with the classics, a film to be studied.

Jones presents The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a unique piece of art worthy of study, research, and presentation.