David Shapiro at Pierogi - he's constructed a miniature stageset for a pretend Rock Iraq benefit concert... it's an empty stage... no musicians, no stars... lots of corporate sponsorhip logos.
The room is quiet except for the loop of a roaring crowd... applauding with pleasure, satisfaction and triumph, calling for more. Really smart sendup... and this back-room sculpture in a hard-to-find Brooklyn gallery is an even more ineffectual statement than what it satirizes... which I guess is part of the point.
The gallery's website describes it best -
"It exists as a tabletop model to American ambiguity, assuaging guilt, displaying compassion, condemning failure, and inventing triumph."
Complicating the piece further is that the would-be purchaser is also a part of the joke... buying into the position of becoming what is criticized.
UPDATE: i keep reading this and wondering if it makes any sense. i understand what my idea is, but am not sure if it is coming across.
this piece is like the opposite of the andreas hofer experience, in that the more i think about it the more excellent and complicated it becomes.
backstage...
barely noticeable oil drums, army helmets, backpacks...
too good.
your point comes across well, methinks. i'm not sure i would agree with it, though, at least when it comes to buying the work. the buyer of any socially critical work is in a somewhat ambiguous position (think the recent banksymania), as he is supporting something different from what the work is (unless the work is trying to promote the art market :)). the buyer of the shapiro work participates in the art market, which is part of a system that also contains the iraq business plan. but this does not imply that one is linked to the other. you won't blame the left leg for what the right leg did...
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