HOMELAND SECURITY consists of 36 electrifying fluorescent bug zappers suspended in a grid above a public space. During the dark hours of the night the lethal devices fill the site with their blue glow and crackling sounds hinting at the paradoxes of security and beauty. A prototype version also exists for the white cube of the gallery. Originally installed in Marfa, Texas: border town and home to the Chinati & Donald Judd Foundation.
Publication by Paper Pusher &
Marfa Book Co.INSTALLATION PROTOTYPE [multiple] PROTOTYPE
«While the main version of HOMELAND SECURITY was installed as a fieldwork outdoors in the “agora” of Marfa, a “prototype” versions exists which was run inside the white cube of the gallery at Fieldwork for a couple months and also exhibited indoors at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin. When installed indoors—particularly in a storefront space as was the case at Fieldwork—there is this surreal détournement. Severely hampered in its intended purpose, the ultraviolet light of the bug zapper still attracts a plethora of insects, but they are for the most part kept out by the window. This extra barrier coated at night by bugs became an interesting metaphor for not only the game of the art world with the gallery’s white cube as “A Clean, Well-lighted Place” (Hemingway) but also the contemporary American Dream vs. reality of immigration.»
quote from Charles Stankievech from interview with Tim Johnson in
"The Readymade Was Always a Trojan Horse" Intervensions Journal, Columbia University, NYC, 2012.
MULTIPLE
5 of the bug zapper lamps originally exhibited in Marfa are now available for purchase as an Editioned Multiple: 5 + AP
Contact the Studio for more information.
HOMELAND SECURITY (It's hard to find a good lamp) - Prototype, Fieldwork: Marfa Gallery, Marfa Texas.
HOMELAND SECURITY (It's hard to find a good lamp) - Prototype, Fieldwork: Marfa Gallery, Marfa Texas.
