Vinyl text installation and mono prints stacked on MDF plinth
The text stands at roughly the same height as my mother and the font selected – buoyant, playful, and yet still assertive was intended as a contrast to the futura used in previous works. For me, this contrast is an attempt to articulate the differences between my mother’s voice and my own. This separation articulates an absence and implies a distinct yet entirely fluid sense of hierarchy.
The stack of prints was intended as a giveaway. The artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres whose work often explored intimacy and absence and the inherent tension between these states of being utilized the giveaway in order to undermine the notion of sanctified cultural/academic spaces. The artist giveaway is a sincere articulation of prints democratic potential that allows the viewer “to recontextualize the work through their own personal environments and interpretations.” (Roberts, 2009), but here I am also using it as a playful way to articulate the implied action at the heart of this exchange.
All smiles now – a phrase that in my family is most often used to note a shift in someone’s mood usually upon receipt of an unearned treat or gift. Here, the audience is the recipient - marking this out as a participatory encounter - one that relies on the viewer to activate the proposition at the heart of our exchange.