Stream Episodes 1-8
Stream Episodes 1-8

In a dying American shopping mall haunted by ghosts of commerce and culture, three teens navigate absurd adventures while surreal guest interviews with artists, thinkers, and weirdos punctuate their journey through the ruins of late capitalism.

Très Mall combines the DIY ethos of underground comics with the visual playfulness of early MTV animation. It’s Liquid Television meets The Midnight Gospel by way of Ghost World. Both a love letter to lost youth and a critique of what replaced it, Très Mall is a weird, smart, and urgent animated series for our exhausted era.

Très Mall soundtrack on Spotify

In Très Mall, Larson stages a philosophically-driven satire within the purgatory of an infinite shopping mall, where late-capitalist consumption becomes both setting and subject. The series brings together a rotating cast of thinkers including Noam Chomsky, David Joselit, Priyamvada Gopal, McKenzie Wark, and Boris Groys, translating dense theoretical positions into an absurd, painterly animated world. Larson treats animation not as illustration, but as a philosophical medium capable of rendering ideology visible, experiential, and strange.

Presented alongside Made in Mexico: The Anti-Communist Cartoons of Dibujos Animados S.A. (1952–56), the work extends into archival research. These films, produced under the United States Information Agency, deployed modernist animation to circulate American political interests across Latin America. In collaboration with Byron Davies and Carlos Oliva Mendoza, Larson reconstructs this largely overlooked history through screenings and critical texts, tracing animation’s dual function as aesthetic experiment and instrument of persuasion.

Together, these projects position animation as a site where ideology is not simply represented but operationalized, linking Cold War propaganda to the diffuse spectacle of contemporary consumer culture.

New York, NY
Très Mall Full Series on DIS

Two animated characters standing side by side against a white background. The character on the left has purple skin, short blue hair, and a green hat with various pins, wearing a black T-shirt with colorful graphics, teal jeans, and green sneakers. The character on the right has pale skin, curly reddish-brown hair, and a clownish face with exaggerated features, wearing an orange tank top with a Bernie Sanders graphic, teal jeans, and pink shoes.
Pink neon sign that reads 'Tres Mied' on a maroon background.
A close-up photo of a man with blond hair, blue eyes, and a Light beard, wearing a dark jacket, against a light background.

https://dereklarson.net/page-cv

A cartoon blue-skinned elf with pointed ears, long green hair, and a white sleeveless shirt, wearing a green pointy hat with a yellow pencil stuck through it, displaying a sad or resigned expression.
A collage of logos from various cultural, educational, and arts organizations and institutions, including MASS MoCA, MoCA Tuca, Tranen, Vermont Studio Center, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Telfair Museums, Times Square Arts, The Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Wassaic Project, Morris Museum, Westobu Festival, ada, DIS, Purdue University, NMC, McKenzie Wark, Carlos Oliva Mendoza, Michael Hardt, and others, with a title about future space, trade, and capitalism in digital cities.
Event poster for a presentation titled 'Modernism for Export: Cold War Cartoons Made in Mexico' scheduled for 7 PM on Wednesday, February 11. Featuring speakers Derek G. Larson from FDU, David Joselit from Harvard, and McKenzie Wark from The New School. The event is curated by Jed Rapogel and focuses on an anthology film archive.

SCREENINGS

2026 (solo**)

  • Très Mall Episode 8 “Corporate Chains” : Featuring Darrell M. West, Osita Nwanevu, Music by Jim O’Rourke on Dis**

  • Derek G. Larson: Très Mall (Episodes 1-8), curated by Rachel Waldrop, Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia, Athens GA**

  • “Modernism for Export: Cold War Cartoons Made in Mexico,” Derek G. Larson (FDU) with David Joselit (Harvard) and McKenzie Wark (The New School), Curated by Jed Rapfogel, Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY**

2025 (solo**)

2024 (solo**)

  • Très Mall Episode 7 “Art’s Properties” : Featuring Boris Groys, David Joselit, Jim Jinkins, Carlos Oliva Mendoza. on Dis https://dis.art/series/tres-mall**

2023 (solo**)

2022 (solo**)

  • Très Mall Episode 6 : “Interview with Noam Chomsky,” https://dis.art/series/tres-mall on Dis **

  • MdW Assembly, Mana Contemporary, Chicago IL **

  • La Cueva, Screening & Presentation, Mexico City MX **

2021 (solo**)

  • In Good Company, Mana Contemporary, Chicago IL

  • If You Lived Here You'd Be Home By Now, Wassaic Project NY

  • Très Mall Episode 5 : “The Violence Entrepreneurs,” Très Mall on Dis**

  • Très Mall, Film @ Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer MN

2020 (solo**)

Collections

Refereed Journal Articles