“Tom Sachs.” Flash Art International 37:237 (July-September 2004): 115
Tom Sachs: “Connecticut”
Sperone Westwater
May 6 – June 5 2004
Reviewed by Melissa Pearl Friedling
In this exhibition of things connected to Tom Sachs’ own Westport, Connecticut upbringing, Connecticut is to modest consumption what Abu Ghraib prison is to humanitarianism. Sachs demonstrates that corporate capitalism is as conspicuous as it is hypocritical in a series of burned wood works. The centerpiece in the grouping is a reproduction of a McDonald’s stock certificate circa 1980. The image of two smiling, white, uniformed employees (oblivious to the state’s racist welfare to work program) cheerfully serving up their fast food has been “branded” (pun intended) into the wood. Surrounded by ornamental portraits of figures including Flavor Flav and Malcolm X burned into wood salvaged from police barricades, the pyrography series achieves its message through juxtaposition.
Sculptural works more reminiscent of Sachs’ earlier efforts include a freestanding door that is gratuitously secured with multiple hand-forged locks and calls attention to mass-media-perpetuated fears that have compelled wealthy suburbanites to transform their homes into locked down bunkers replete with arsenals large enough to protect their outsized commodities. To wit, Sachs offers a working replica of a super-sized Sub-Zero refrigerator as well as a gun cabinet containing enough functional hand-made weapons to inscribe the lyrics to every song on the Clash’s 1979 album, “London Calling.”
The homage to the artist’s home state (as well as his own past work) extends to square black asphalt “paintings” that reference Joseph Albers’ own famous homage to the shape as well as to his years on faculty at Yale. This New Haven, Connecticut institution is given another nod in the form of a giant plywood Presidential Seal. As the alma mater of the last three American Presidents, this “Connecticut” allusion extends perhaps a bit too far towards conspiracy theory and away from its use as a metaphor for all that is troubling and wrong with the myth of consumerism.