Thursday, April 26, 2007

A Documentary - The Existential Relevance Of One 13.5 Ounce Bag Of Cheetos


This print was a departure but also an extension of the abstract randomly generated work I was producing. After fabricating a fair number of the aforementioned prints, I began thinking more about the documentary nature of these works. To me, they had a very existential feel - the prints were merely the representations of a series of mundane events, and only referred back to their own processes and history. However, the same series of events could have been represented infinitely many ways. While we strive for objectivity in documentation, it is ultimately steeped in a subjective point of view, simply as a result of perspective, the limits of language, and our unavoidably separate consciousnesses. This may seem like excessive philosophical drivel over Cheetos, and it likely is, but I became fascinated with the mundane, completely benign elements of everyday life, and the subjectivity with which we approach them with. Consequently, I set out to create another random print, but to document something utterly pointless, elevating it to something gravely important through the absurd action of art-making. I bought a 13.5 ounce bag of Cheetos, and methodically removed each morsel, one by one, and traced it on a piece of paper. I then rated its cheesiness on a scale from 1 to 4, which is reflected by the colors in the print; the deeper the orange, the greater the cheesiness. 20x26", edition of 8.