art and culture are researched in the paper. The development of industries and series

production of goods determined the emergence of the cultural phenomenon of a

commercial label. A label serves to symbolic marking of a product and singling it out of

the range of functional equivalents. As a result, special air of the brand symbolic capital

is transmitted to a single product. A serial industrial product not only meets utilitarian

needs, but also accumulates a special semiotic meaning and importance. Thus, an

escalating number of industrially made goods and a brand itself can be considered as a core element of the Western culture. A branded product and a label itself have appeared in art since the beginning of the 20th century. This tendency made its way from the art of dadaists, cubists and reached its climax with the pop art. It was pop artists who made the symbolic space of brand and serial products the key problem of art. This theme remains actual and holds status quo in neo-pop and is still popular with contemporary artists. Also, pop art have finally legitimatised a new mode of interaction between an artist and a commercial brand – an artistic collaboration, which is a considerable part of a modernday Western art and culture.

Key words: cultural semiotics, commercial brand, symbolic capital, artistic collaboration.