In my new work I explore the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of contemporary American culture, its delicate historical mythology and power structure. I am concerned with the overlooked, the unspoken, the infamous and forgotten. That which most would rather leave alone I find the most interest in, not because of a morbid fascination, but because I believe that history of any kind has two readings, that of the profane and that of the secret, that of the exoteric and of the esoteric. But both drive the wheels of history with equal force. Even a cursory reading of any American history book reveals that something is not quite right with the picture given. What we get are whole chapters missing, peoples forgotten, ideologies decentered or suppressed. The picture given is at best incomplete and at worst an actual lie.
Mythologizing of events and personalities is one of the necessary components of the American psyche, whose raison d’être rests upon the collective histories of countless cultures because its own young history cannot account for or provide a culture with a set of archetypal moral values. It is this concern with “newness” and progress at the expense of history, which results in a culture devoid of any real roots. As such, this culture must find its heroes and villains in the here and now and therefore its mythology changes on a generational basis from one artificial point to another. These primary ethical concerns are almost always centered in the stages where each generation was coming of age, which is to say that the innocence of a romanticized childhood supplies us with the necessary moral authority. Be they westerns, sitcoms, sports or most recently comic books, these childhood concerns project themselves onto the American culture where they get transmuted into the dos and don’ts of everyday life.
In my view, American culture has entered a de facto middle stage, where its own mythological structure is not completely developed and as such it has to find viable substitutes. It is too old for the blank slate excitement that came along with the settling of the frontier, where such mythology was not yet necessary to drive it forward, but not yet old enough for certain factors to exist as a stand in for moral values. What happens when such a culture comes into a state of perpetual self-reflection only to realize its own cosmological shortcomings and position within the greater international community? It is easy for individuals and ideologies to step into such a power vacuum and shape the course of history by manipulating culture via mythologized superstructures. Such superstructures are themselves two fold. The first deals with a distinctly romanticized past, which serves as a model for a utopian future. The second deals primarily with the “other” and is therefore destructive in nature.
Through a direct confrontation with American culture in its highest and lowest forms, I hope to at least marginally understand it. As a conduit to such understanding I choose to work with discarded materials. In my exploration of the American psyche, I have to go through its trash to familiarize myself with it. The use of materials that have been intended for the landfill, charges them with the needed energy that would have otherwise been missing had the materials been in a new pristine condition. On a personal level, my use of construction materials harkens back to my line of work as a carpenter and house painter. The alteration of these materials seems to subvert them into (rather than create) art objects and renders them aesthetically formal, contrasting their previous utilitarian value.
One of the results of this alteration is a heavy, almost burdensome appearance, scarred by time and heavy use, a stark opposite and negation of the current zeitgeist, with its focus on the new, technological and ephemeral. These objects assert their presence by jutting out of the wall rather than aligning themselves with it.
Mythologizing of events and personalities is one of the necessary components of the American psyche, whose raison d’être rests upon the collective histories of countless cultures because its own young history cannot account for or provide a culture with a set of archetypal moral values. It is this concern with “newness” and progress at the expense of history, which results in a culture devoid of any real roots. As such, this culture must find its heroes and villains in the here and now and therefore its mythology changes on a generational basis from one artificial point to another. These primary ethical concerns are almost always centered in the stages where each generation was coming of age, which is to say that the innocence of a romanticized childhood supplies us with the necessary moral authority. Be they westerns, sitcoms, sports or most recently comic books, these childhood concerns project themselves onto the American culture where they get transmuted into the dos and don’ts of everyday life.
In my view, American culture has entered a de facto middle stage, where its own mythological structure is not completely developed and as such it has to find viable substitutes. It is too old for the blank slate excitement that came along with the settling of the frontier, where such mythology was not yet necessary to drive it forward, but not yet old enough for certain factors to exist as a stand in for moral values. What happens when such a culture comes into a state of perpetual self-reflection only to realize its own cosmological shortcomings and position within the greater international community? It is easy for individuals and ideologies to step into such a power vacuum and shape the course of history by manipulating culture via mythologized superstructures. Such superstructures are themselves two fold. The first deals with a distinctly romanticized past, which serves as a model for a utopian future. The second deals primarily with the “other” and is therefore destructive in nature.
Through a direct confrontation with American culture in its highest and lowest forms, I hope to at least marginally understand it. As a conduit to such understanding I choose to work with discarded materials. In my exploration of the American psyche, I have to go through its trash to familiarize myself with it. The use of materials that have been intended for the landfill, charges them with the needed energy that would have otherwise been missing had the materials been in a new pristine condition. On a personal level, my use of construction materials harkens back to my line of work as a carpenter and house painter. The alteration of these materials seems to subvert them into (rather than create) art objects and renders them aesthetically formal, contrasting their previous utilitarian value.
One of the results of this alteration is a heavy, almost burdensome appearance, scarred by time and heavy use, a stark opposite and negation of the current zeitgeist, with its focus on the new, technological and ephemeral. These objects assert their presence by jutting out of the wall rather than aligning themselves with it.
