Crying with Silent LIps
2021. Free hand sculpted glass, acrylic, fabric, latex, enamels, polystyrene .150cm H x 260cm W x 260cm D.
Photo: Mike Van Cleven
“The objective profile of the United States, then, may be traced throughout Disneyland, even down to the morphology of individuals and the crowd. All its values are exalted here, in miniature and comic-strip form. Embalmed and pacified. Whence the possibility of an ideological analysis of Disneyland []: digest of the American way of life, panegyric to American values, idealized transposition of a contradictory reality. To be sure. But this conceals something else, and that "ideological" blanket exactly serves to cover over a third-order simulation: Disneyland is there to conceal the fact that it is the "real" country, all of "real" America, which is Disneyland (just as prisons are there to conceal the fact that it is the social in its entirety, in its banal omnipresence, which is carceral). Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation. It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology), but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle.”
- Jean Baudrillard
The idea of what is truth or fantasy is becoming increasingly subjective. The singular experience of individuals dictates their own understanding of what is inherent truth and reality or what is mythical, fantastic, or absurd. This in-between space of dueling realities is what I find interesting, and it is the base concept behind the layering of symbolism, images, and narratives in the work I create. It is the question to ask, what is provocative or offensive? The art work referencing real life events and situations or the real life events and situations themselves.
Crying with Silent Lips is inspired by the Fountain of Apollo at the Palace of Versailles. The title comes from to the poem The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus which is mounted on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.