Pin the Tail
Found objects, collage and waste material from previous works
Variable sizes
Point of Contact, Syracuse University, NY
2016
This exhibition is a site-specific installation based on four photographs I found at a garage sale in New York City in October 2014. The photographs, which depict a group of children playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey, are the catalyst for the installation. Based on the context, texture, and color of the photographs, they appear to be from the 1960s or ‘70s.
Soon after discovering the photographs, I found a series of objects that were directly related, symbolically or in form, to the scenes they depict.
In a 99 Cent Store I found the same game that appears in the photographs, as well as synthetic hair extensions in the form of a ponytail. From there I also started to find the other objects that make up the installation.
Finding the same objects that appeared in the photographs created a change in the temporality of the images, a change that modified the apparent linearity of time.
The ideas and concepts that make up this exhibition started to arise through the discovery of these objects and the potential formal and semantic relationships between them.
As in previous pieces, I am interested in working with icons related to youth (games, stories, clothing, etc.) that implicitly reveal norms related to the construction of gender, identity, and class. Here I am interested in analyzing and deconstructing the normative character and functionality of the game Pin the Tail on the Donkey.
As is the case with children’s stories and songs, children’s games have subtle or overt normative functions. Through games, children indirectly learn certain rules of behavior, socialize, and acquire specific roles that will later be reproduced in the adult world.
I want to call into question these objects, images, and icons by practicing new discourses in which these things are not dependent upon the system that produced them.
[ view map of the exhibition ]
[ read text for the exhibition ]
