Collectors’ Favorites is an episode of local cable program from the mid-1990s in which ordinary people were invited to present their personal collections—a concept that in many ways anticipates current reality TV shows and internet videos. When it comes her turn to “perform,” Bornstein displays mundane and disposable—but elaborately archived or framed—consumer objects such as coffee lids, plastic straws, candy wrappers, and product labels. Through the medium of public broadcasting, then, she makes visual the frequently overlooked but massive cultural penetration of advertising, and its proliferation of “throwaway culture” via images. Further, Bornstein suggests that within a massive and mercurial social network that often places value arbitrarily, any worthless mass-market products can be turned into coveted objects via absurd relations and vice versa.
Jennifer Bornstein’s works range from performance, conceptual photography, film, drawing, and etchings to curatorial practice. By foregrounding the self-constructed nature of narrative and subjectivity, Bornstein’s practice is a constant rethinking of relations, both social and historical—but not so much in terms of negation and rupture, but rather connection, mutuality, and reintegration.
In the work titled The Glossies (1980), an affinity for photography manifested itself before McCollum actually began to use photography as a medium...
Starting with Bruce Nauman’s iconic artwork, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign) , Mungo Thomson’s neon sign is one of a series that replaces Nauman’s quixotic mini-manifesto with aphorisms from ‘recovery’ culture, especially those made popular by alcoholics anonymous...
Nicolas Paris studied architecture and worked as an elementary school teacher before he decided to become an artist...
In the work titled The Glossies (1980), an affinity for photography manifested itself before McCollum actually began to use photography as a medium...
In Thomson’s Untitled (TIME) , every front cover of TIME magazine is sequentially projected to scale at thirty frames per second...
With a habit of reading eight to ten books at the same time, Chong paints his two-foot tall novel covers through referencing an extensive reading list (accessible on Facebook) he has kept since 2006...
In Studies of Chinese New Villages II Gan Chin Lee’s realism appears in the format of a fieldwork notebook; capturing present-day surroundings while unpacking their historical memory...
30 Proposals of Flag explores the relationships between signs, meanings, aesthetics, and nations...
In Studies of Chinese New Villages II Gan Chin Lee’s realism appears in the format of a fieldwork notebook; capturing present-day surroundings while unpacking their historical memory...
This work refers to the “Dream Machines”, an experimental object invented by the painter and writer Brion Gysin and the scientist Ian Sommerville, and which is composed of a light bulb with light passing through slits in a rotating cylinder...
Bowers’ Radical Hospitality (2015) is a sculptural contradiction: its red and blue neon letters proclaim the words of the title, signaling openness and generosity, while the barbed wires that encircle the words give another message entirely...
The acronym “CFL” stands for an existing light standard (Compact Fluorescent Light) as well as a standard nutrient (Cognitive Fooding Laboratory)...
The voids in Baldessari’s painted photographs are simultaneously positive and negative spaces, both additive and subtractive...
Simpson’s sculptural practice connects architecture, clothing, furniture and the body to explore the functional and sociological roles and the influence of the design and architecture of various cultures and periods in history...
The video Swimming in rivers of Glue is composed of various images of nature, exploring the themes of exploration of space and its colonization...