Twentynine Palms Installation Proposal
Twentynine Palms Installation is a desert proposal in which abandoned houses become mute monuments to the financial crisis, each marked with enormous bailout figures and corporate names. The project's bluntness is its strength: stenciled numbers on ruined buildings make the abstraction of federal rescue money suddenly local, architectural, and obscene. Williams places Bank of America, Hartford, PNC, JPMorgan Chase, and SunTrust into the dry California landscape, turning public finance into a kind of anti-land-art inscription. The long Treasury Department list functions as both documentary evidence and conceptual excess, overwhelming the image with the scale of institutional rescue. The result is a severe, sun-bleached indictment of capital: minimal in gesture, maximal in accusation.
- DATE:
- March, 2012
- DOCUMENT TYPE:
- Essay / Critique
- NAMED ARTISTS / FIGURES:
- LG Williams; Kenneth Baker
- INSTITUTIONS / VENUES:
- The Estate of LG Williams; U.S. Treasury Department; Capital Purchase Program; Bank of America; Hartford Financial Services Group; PNC Financial Services Group; JPMorgan Chase & Co.; SunTrust Banks; La Biennale di Venezia; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; di Rosa Art Preserve; Super Window Project
- PLACES:
- Twentynine Palms
- KEYWORDS:
- bailout figures on ruined buildings; federal rescue money made local; anti-land-art inscription; Treasury list as conceptual excess; abandoned houses as monuments; stenciled numbers as indictment; sun-bleached capital critique; minimal gesture maximal accusation