the screen printed envelope holding both the accordion and accompanying book |
"Since the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States, I have been creating photograms. The text that repeats throughout these images, 202-456-1111, is the White House phone number, which began the current administration Disconnected.
I'm not sure if photograms is the exact term for these works. A friend called them chemigrams, but after looking it up, I learned that chemigrams are made in full light.
These are made quickly, like a protest sign, and in the dark. They are made with arms and standing on legs that have a rare congenital condition, arthrogryposis, the same one that NY Times reporter Serge F. Kovaleski—who 45 mocked on November 25, 2015—lives with.
The repetition of resistance requires very close scrutiny. The lives of the targets of this administration are infinite, complex, and irreducible. When we become students of these lives, as well as our own, the multitude of details we discover implores us to become fully formed and in formation with each other."
This is dynamite stuff, and combined with Rosler's pointed text, both the accordion and the book leave no doubt as to where this artists' outrage is directed.
10 pages, double-sided, 10"(h) by 8"(w), when opened 6ft 8".
the accordion with envelope |
the accordion |
Martha Rosler's text takes up the whole reverse of the accordion |