Tony Tasset satirizes contemporary American culture while never losing sight of how much he loves it himself. Like 20th century artists Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol, Tasset creates works—furniture paintings, signage, monuments—that seem so common that they hardly warrant another look. Yet it is exactly these simple things that inevitably influence the way we see the world.
Tasset’s Arrow Sculpture points to American obsession with rankings, like the “10 Best Lists” that are sprinkled across the media landscape at the end of every year. As an artist in an enormously hierarchical, competitive art world, Tasset knows all too well that “one day you're in, next day you're out,” to paraphrase Heidi Klum of Project Runway. Tasset gently lampoons these lists and the peril of uni-dimensional measure to sum up and account for the complexities of the humans who create and consume products. Tasset, ever the consummate midWesterner, blunts his sly critique by using a Crayola crayon palette for his arrow paintings and sculptures, delivering his medicine with a bit of sweet. While his Arrow Sculpture seems simple, it acts like a mirror, reflecting back to the viewer their own predilections and prejudices.
Tony Tasset satirizes contemporary American culture while never losing sight of how much he loves it himself. Like 20th century artists Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol, Tasset creates works—furniture paintings, signage, monuments—that seem so common that they hardly warrant another look. Yet it is exactly these simple things that inevitably influence the way we see the world.
Tasset’s Arrow Sculpture points to American obsession with rankings, like the “10 Best Lists” that are sprinkled across the media landscape at the end of every year. As an artist in an enormously hierarchical, competitive art world, Tasset knows all too well that “one day you're in, next day you're out,” to paraphrase Heidi Klum of Project Runway. Tasset gently lampoons these lists and the peril of uni-dimensional measure to sum up and account for the complexities of the humans who create and consume products. Tasset, ever the consummate midWesterner, blunts his sly critique by using a Crayola crayon palette for his arrow paintings and sculptures, delivering his medicine with a bit of sweet. While his Arrow Sculpture seems simple, it acts like a mirror, reflecting back to the viewer their own predilections and prejudices.
Tony Tasset satirizes contemporary American culture while never losing sight of how much he loves it himself. Like 20th century artists Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol, Tasset creates works—furniture paintings, signage, monuments—that seem so common that they hardly warrant another look. Yet it is exactly these simple things that inevitably influence the way we see the world.
Tasset’s Arrow Sculpture points to American obsession with rankings, like the “10 Best Lists” that are sprinkled across the media landscape at the end of every year. As an artist in an enormously hierarchical, competitive art world, Tasset knows all too well that “one day you're in, next day you're out,” to paraphrase Heidi Klum of Project Runway. Tasset gently lampoons these lists and the peril of uni-dimensional measure to sum up and account for the complexities of the humans who create and consume products. Tasset, ever the consummate midWesterner, blunts his sly critique by using a Crayola crayon palette for his arrow paintings and sculptures, delivering his medicine with a bit of sweet. While his Arrow Sculpture seems simple, it acts like a mirror, reflecting back to the viewer their own predilections and prejudices.
