Amir Soleymani British, b. 1976

SPAM: A Classic Reimagined
Before it became a metaphor for digital noise, SPAM was a can of meat.
Introduced by Hormel Foods in 1937, SPAM gained global popularity during World
War II, when its long shelf life and affordability made it a staple in military rations. By the
1950s, it had become a cultural icon—ubiquitous, instantly recognizable, and polarizing.
Its second life began in 1970, thanks to Monty Python’s legendary sketch. Set in a café
where every menu item contains SPAM, the sketch features the word being chanted
repeatedly until it drowns out all other dialogue. The scene was absurd, surreal—and
prophetic.
When early internet forums and chat rooms emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, users
borrowed the term spam to describe unwanted, disruptive messages flooding
conversations. The parallel was perfect: repetitive, irrelevant, and impossible to ignore.
The word stuck.
Today, spam is no longer just email.
It’s bots in your replies, scams in your inbox, algorithmic clickbait, fake giveaways, and
content engineered for virality rather than meaning.
In short: it’s the background noise of the digital age.
SPAM: A Classic Reimagined is both a tribute and a critique.
In this series, I reimagine the SPAM can as a visual container for the absurdities of our
current moment. Each work represents a different strain of modern digital excess—social
media saturation, crypto hype, unsolicited messages, AI-generated fluff, and the
attention economy's endless churn. These pieces are playful on the surface, but pointed
underneath. They’re funny until they’re not.
And unlike most digital art, these works are not NFTs.
They were created digitally, yes—but deliberately made physical.
Each piece is printed on CNC-cut wooden board and produced as a limited edition.
No token. No mint. No smart contract.
Because:
“Minting without meaning is just another form of spam.”
Not every image needs a blockchain.
Not every creation needs a floor price.
And not everything needs to be immortalized in code to be worth remembering.
This exhibition coincides with the release of my second book, Fools & JPEGs—a raw,
satirical look at the contradictions of the digital art world and the NFT space. It critiques
the mindless race to mint, to sell, to pump, without ever asking why we create in the first
place. It’s a challenge to artists and collectors alike:
Are we making meaning,
or just adding to the noise?
This is not a rejection of technology.
It’s a demand for intention.
It’s a reminder that art must be more than metadata.
SPAM: A Classic Reimagined is my response.
A shelf of irony. A mirror of excess.
And a celebration of what happens when digital art grows a backbone—and takes up
space in the real world.
So, no—there is no provenance.
There is no QR code.
There is no token to redeem.
There’s just a can.
A message.
And maybe, a little clarity.
With Love
Amir Soleymani - Mondoir