I made these cardboard cut outs a year ago and never had the balls to display them in a public setting. A couple of friends, Tiff & Ariel, saw them and wanted me to bring them out for the event of the ARP! release party, to which they are the editors, and also because of the proximity to the RNC. It was their ballsiness that got me to finally try out showing this performance/installation styled work that is initially based in a crude joke. The lesson to be learned here has to do with the idea that the anonymity offered through a group effort or a collective allows one, to a certain degree, a little more freedom from accountability and thus ability to joke about or talk about things that one might often find too difficult to mention on their own.
Is this funny?
It is and it isn't. The laughter that one experience is confused.
Do we laugh at this because it is incongruous and absurdity amuses? Is it a mean-spirited sort of laughter that points at the suffering of others as something able to be mocked? Is it a laughter that has been suppressed that one releases because they understand that it is okay to laugh at something that is difficult and sad?
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