Phoebe Washburn
Zach Feuer, New York, USA
'Tickle the Shitstem' (2008), installation view
As the global economy heads towards meltdown and the American government contemplates a daunting repair job, Phoebe Washburn’s large-scale installations have acquired super-added relevance. Following her memorable installation at the Whitney Biennial, Washburn’s current exhibition at Zach Feuer presents another self-contained ecosystem, one that brings to mind nightmares both ecological and economic.
Sardonic and strange, Washburn’s machines operate according to a deliberately obscured logic. The gallery abounds in sporadic bursts of neon colour; pipes, plywood boards and fish tanks full of murky liquid are hauled into the most unlikely of production lines.
Tickle the Shitstem (2008) emphasizes the capitalist rationale that underlies Washburn’s relentless machines in the sale of goods ‘produced’ by the installation. These goods range from pencils and T-shirts to bottles of undrinkable liquid (accompanied by the tart warning, ‘Liquid in ORT bottles not to be ingested’). There are also neon-tinted sea urchins - pale and delicate, the occasional aesthetic byproduct of the capitalist machine.
These goods are sold from a stand that is prominently placed in the front gallery, and provide a visible purpose and narrative to the otherwise mysterious machine. The gallery attendant manning the stand also lends an incongruous human presence; Washburn’s machine exerts its fascination through the improbable course of its seemingly self-regulated production.
But Washburn’s machine is also deeply personal, albeit in the most emblematic of ways. If the unconscious is a factory, then Washburn’s factory touches upon the workings of the unconscious. Equal parts fantasy and nightmare, pulsating with drive and desire, the machine is also distinctly idiosyncratic. The irregular logic of the installation’s individual components - a washing machine here, a collection of golf balls there - is what lends the work its sense of deep unease.
The sheer unlikeliness of Washburn’s installations, which are full of both humor and unspecified menace, give them their own distinct life. They are not unlike a parade of Frankenstein’s monsters: lovingly constructed products of a singular mind, which nonetheless succeed in reflecting the most alarming elements of our social life.
Katie Kitamura
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