Exhibition... September 13, 2007 Consumption Junction
Consumption Junction
Consumption Junction explores the point where mass consumerism and the environment meet. Addressing a range of topics from excessive spending, pollution, and urban infrastructure to alternative transportation, suburban sprawl, and recycling, participants blur lines between art and civic action.
Amy Chan, Guy Debord, Design Management AS, Dan Graham, Komar & Melamid, Learning Group, Nicola López, Scott Massey, Miss Rockaway Armada, Ester Partegás, Tim Rietenbach, 5.5 Designers
Columbus College of Art & Design, OH
September 13–December 8, 2007
Made possible with grants from Greater Columbus Arts Council and Ohio Arts Council with support from Columbus College of Art & Design
There is currently an extraordinary surge of interest in the state of the environment as we become increasingly aware of the cultural and ecological consequences caused by acts of over-consumption. A number of green organizations, labels, and certifications have contributed to more environmentally conscious ways of living and pushed these issues to a public forefront. But egregious waste, over-indulgence and mass consumerism continue to define contemporary society. Environmental activism is expressed in the things we buy and how we live, demonstrating our support for a better world through collective consumption of organically certified and socially accepted green products, actions and services. Alas, it is still consumption.
So how do we live an effective, environmentally sound life? In Consumption Junction participants seek to make us think more about these issues and other topics related to the general impact humans make on the earth. Through insightful cultural criticisms and whimsical, imaginative alternatives set somewhere between reality and fiction, the artists, writers, designers, thinkers, filmmakers and performers in the exhibition share a sensitivity to this worldwide environmental movement and ecological crisis. We are encouraged to contemplate these issues a little more deeply at a juncture where excessive consumption and the environment meet.
Ester Partegas, Experience Life, 2007, from the series We the People, inkjet ultrachrome archival print, 44 x 50 inches; courtesy of the artist and Foxy Production, New York
Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, 1973; downloaded from UbuWeb and transferred to DVD, 88 minutes
Dan Graham, Death by Chocolate: West Edmonton Shopping Mall, (1986-2005), 2005; video, 8 minutes, color, sound; courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York
Nicola Lopez, White Noise, 2006; ink, graphite on paper, 44.5 x 44.5 inches; courtesy of Caren Golden Fine Art, New York
The Miss Rockaway Armada, 2006; photograph by Santiago Mostyn; slide installation and photographs; courtesy of the artists
Consumption Junction, published by Bureau for Open Culture, 2007; designed by Nate Padavick; 52 pages; 8.25 x 5 inches
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Exhibition... October 14, 2010 The New Administration of a Fine Arts Education
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Publication... September 13, 2007 Consumption Junction
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