Stream Episodes 1-7

Très Mall soundtrack now on Spotify

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.

In Très Mall, Derek G. Larson creates a surreal and philosophically charged satire set within an endless shopping mall, an allegory for consumption and mediated existence in late capitalism. The ongoing animated series features guest voices including Noam Chomsky, David Joselit, Priyamvada Gopal, McKenzie Wark and Boris Groys, situating its characters within conversations on aesthetics, media, and political theory. Through painterly digital animation and absurdist humor, Très Mall examines how systems of validation, ideology, and spectacle circulate through contemporary culture.

Presented alongside Made in Mexico: The Anti-Communist Cartoons of Dibujos Animados S.A. (1952–56), Larson’s research-based project reveals a little-known chapter of Cold War cultural diplomacy. Produced in Mexico under the auspices of the U.S. Information Agency, these animated shorts combined modernist design with anti-Communist messaging to advance American political interests across Latin America. In collaboration with Byron Davies and Carlos Oliva Mendoza, Larson reexamines these works through archival materials, newly digitized excerpts, and critical essays, exposing animation’s dual role as both aesthetic experiment and ideological instrument. Together, the two projects trace animation’s entanglement with power, from Cold War persuasion to the soft coercion of consumer culture, suggesting that cartoons in all their forms continue to mirror the conditions of political life.

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.
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**)

  • upcoming Feb. 5th Derek G. Larson: Très Mall (Episodes 1-8), curated by Rachel Waldrop, Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia, Athens GA **

  • upcoming Wednesday Feb. 11th at 7pm “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**)

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Refereed Journal Articles