April 29–May 19, 2012
Bea Schlingelhoff
The Left Is Too Right
Opening: April 28, 6 pm
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The Left Is Too Right
I don’t know how much a person needs to own to live. No idea. I don’t even know if necessity is the weapon against consumerism and exploitative mechanisms.
Recently, I saw a series of photos from 1974 in a german magazine, that showed all pieces of clothing, that a woman owned, at the time the photos were taken. I have no clue if this woman’s amount of clothing represents a prestigiuos average for 1974 or not. Altogether she owned 72 pieces, including underpants and shoes.
Probably this work was just an attempt to include everyday objects into the production of history, maybe it was meant to criticize (female?) consumerism in 1974. The amount of clothing objects to me seem little on the photos, but large as a number. I didn’t count how many I own, but my guess is, that it is more. Probably significantly more. Quantity. I am not guilt-tripping on quantity but I also have a hard time finding an argument for it.
Pleasure maybe. The romanticization of slavery, reproducing church and family in a purchasable format, horror not pleasure after all, lots of it.
Branding maybe. Free-range grazing, free-range shopping. Maybe a fantasy about how commodities are livestock, that we own, shepherds of our consumer goods, building a stage for our product-life, where knowledge is accredited to the subject of desire. The brand accredits knowledge to us and we accredit it to the brand. A grid. The Left looks too Right. A collaboration with the enemy in times of warfare.
Warfare between the (by now qualitatively emancipated) products that can only be sold and bought through a symbolic or imaginative surplus. A surplus lacking any gothic presence of an uncontrollable sphere. State Property, a subsidary of Rocawear.
Branding re/produces the values of ALL state and market institutions ENTIRELY, that claim cultural responsibility and distribution. The über-teacher. The ultimate didactic experience: my sneaker is my church, my sweater my police, my sunglasses my teacher, my burger my estate, my drink my emotion. My sneaker is your church, my sweater your police, my drink your emotion-and so on and so forth. Don’t chose. We decide by lot what brand to buy. Choice is predictable. The collaborator. ChoiceXCapital.
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