Pojects 36 : Eika Rothenbeg : The Museum of Moden At, New Yok, July 11-August 25, 1992 Autho Rothenbeg, Eika Date 1992 Publishe The Museum of Moden At Exhibition URL www.moma.og/calenda/exhibitions/373? high_contast=tue The Museum of Moden At's exhibition histoy fom ou founding in 1929 to the pesent is available online. It includes exhibition catalogues, pimay documents, installation views, and an index of paticipating atists. MoMA 2016 The Museum of Moden At
m eika othenbeg The Museum of Moden At New Yok July 11 August 25, 1992
You have the extaodinay taste, intelligence and Sense of humo...
LIFT
We believe: That ou poducts and sevices must enich people's lives and enhance thei elationships. That ceativity and quality in ou concepts, poducts and sevices ae essential to ou success... y That distinguished financial pefomance is a must, not as an end in itself, but t as a means to accomplish ou boade mission. (Fom Hallmak Cads, Inc. pess kit) Evey yea, Ameicans send some 7.3 billion geeting cads. We spend about five billion dollas on them. Thee ae cads to mak moe than one hunded pofessional, familial, and othe pesonal occasions, fo sale at ove 20,000 etail outlets. Donald J. Hall, Chaiman of Hallmak Cads, Inc., the industy leade, maintains that "Buying a geeting cad is a vey difficult decision fo most people It not a only eflects them and thei pesonality and thei elationship with t the othe peson, but it has to eflect that othe peson. I think choos- c ing a cad is one of those chances a peson has to eflect the kind of taste they want to show to some one else in a most unique kind of pesonal way" 1988, p. 60). (Sky, Novembe In fact, this "unique kind of pesonal way" in which people each out to othes is the calcu lated esult of the combined effots of designes, copywites, and maket eseaches who ally to pinpoint that special tun of phase that will expess what is often so difficult to say. Such cal culations povide a point of depa tue fo the satie in Eika Rothenbeg's House of Cads, an installation of appoximately ninety painted satiical cads that pobe into the pivate and public vices of contempoay Ameican life. Rothenbeg's intentionally manipulative cads ae the ude F twins of geneic geeting cads. Opening them is lifting the lid off a > Pandoa's box of embaassing situations and unspoken pejudices, f which most of us would pefe to ignoe. Instead of offeing con- c gatulations fo a Niece's Confimation o fo Nuses' Day, they k undescoe child abuse, o the soy state of health cae; they t addess public education and welfae, seial mude, and couption F in politics, and they take an amused peek at the at wold. ( Following the standad geeting-cad fomat, the font of a Rothenbeg cad eithe announces an occasion o intoduces a puz- p zle. But wheeas the inside flaps of stoe-bought cads may offe a t sentimental banality o a witty, hamless punch line, Rothenbeg's s messages delive something moe like a punch in the stomach. Each I, visito walks into the exhibition with a set of expeiences, beliefs, l< and aesthetic pefeences, and since most of the cads addess t someone in the second peson, the viewe is epeatedly compelled to compae his o he opinions with the wide ange of viewpoints expessed in the cads. Rothenbeg's tone anges fom the mock-banal to the po- foundly moving. Some cads ae diect: "Thanks Boss!... Fo you affimative actions!" Othes ae violent: "Instant Ameican Potest Kit," which comes complete with a miniatue Ameican flag and a i match; o cuel: "Get well soon... o I'll kill you!" illustated with ^ a hand about to pull a plug, suggesting the stigma placed by ou M c s c c ii t p v f a c ii
society upon people with polonged illnesses. Some cads ae cun ning: "A message fom you ex-love... ae you sue you want to un fo pesident?"; and othes use humo to examine abuse. In a cad that eads "You know what I've been wondeing since I aped you?... Ae you always such a lousy love?" Rothenbeg indicates that ape is not only a ciminal violation, but also an expession of misogyny. The speake in this cad intepets the victim's lack of coopeation as deficient sexuality. Cads that take on child abuse, cime, joblessness, homelessness, and abotion exploe the tansfomation of pivate misfotunes into public metaphos. Victims (and offendes) find themselves in the columns of the Meto section o the Business section of news papes; if the abuse o the victim is well known, they might even make the pape's font page. Pevese celebity futhe exploits victims by depiving them of pivate mouning. Rothenbeg taces much misey to cynical legislation and oppotunistic policy. Cads addessing the fothcoming elections challenge political oppo tunism, and othes expose the invasive and patonizing demeano of ou foeign policy, which too often destoys the integity and W MVBE you SHOULD RUN FOR pesident! cultual heitage of thid-wold counties in the guise of pogess. In one cad, a peplexed Afican family in taditional gab stands in font of a sububan house with a picket fence. The pictue is com pleted by a (white) newspape delivey boy on his bike. The text pomises: "If you wok had and uphold good moal values... someday you county will be as happy as ous!" Rothenbeg's babs point at the myth of sububan euphoia, faming idealized visions of Ameican life to eveal them as little moe than diched slogans. The cads ae painted in gouache on pape with few, simpli fied foms, little shadowing, and flat, high-key colo. Thei posaic appeaance mimics the schematic style of advetising illustation Rothenbeg leaned in he eight yeas as an at diecto in a New Yok advetising agency. Thee she also masteed such advetising fomats as page layouts, billboads, postes, and television comme cial stoyboads featuing upbeat, "happy" people. An intimate knowledge of advetising tactics and a fascination with the adve tise's skill in manipulating us despite all we know infom Rothenbeg's ealy atistic caee. Moally Supeio Poducts (1980-82), a seies of dawings in which she fist employed the fo mats of pint advetising and stoyboads, pokes fun pimaily at the political left. The seemingly complacent chaactes offe testimonials to packaged goods that pomise instant, miaculous solutions to society's ills. "Cold Powe" is "The only detegent that suppots uni lateal disamament." "Pogesso" is "The sauce that fights acism." Ideology is tuned into commodity in these woks, which lampoon both advetising's implicit pledge to change ou lives with consume goods and ou willingness to go along with such pie-in-the-sky notions. Rothenbeg does not citicize the "do-goodes" fo want ing to change the wold. Rathe, she teases those of us who believe naively that we can eliminate suffeing if we buy poducts whose manufactues pomise to donate some of thei pofits to chaity. Rothenbeg cites Pop at as the most diect influence on he wok: "As a child gowing up in New Yok, that was the at you saw. It got so much media attention. I took it as a citique of society, but it
: #X o I'll VJclft kill you. Well v, 'So%nV_JL_y was so quickly coopted and eaten up by soci ety that a whole geneation of atists who ae my age, and knew about this at gowing up began to desie a new way to citicize society." But the stylistic esemblance of the boxes and cans of household poducts featued in Moally Supeio Poducts to Wahol's Campbell's Soup Cans and Billo Boxes camouflages some fundamental diffeences in appoach. Wahol's ealy blow-ups of newspape advetisements and comics ae cool, detached, meciless, dained of colo and vol ume. Rothenbeg's at, by contast, is use-fiendly, accessible, con nected. Wahol wanted to be seduced by his subjects. Beyond the self-iony implied in many of his woks, he ultimately identified with the winnes, with celebities. When the woks evoke agony, it is the glamoous agony of Jackie Kennedy, Mailyn Monoe, and Elizabeth Taylo. In Most Wanted Men (1964), his seies of silksceened blow-ups of dangeous ciminals, he endowed his lowlife subjects with the aua of stadom. Rothenbeg, on the othe hand, identifies with the schlemiels of the wold. In seveal woks, she associates the desie fo celebity with a cetain despeation. Feedom of Expession National Monument (1984), a public poject placed in downtown Manhattan, was an ovesized ed megaphone into which passesby could shout thei opinions, complaints, and feelings. The Celebity Simulato (1988) was an installation compis ing a podium with a battey of micophones and a camea tansmit ting the image of the speake onto a television monito. Viewes could come up to the podium and watch themselves speak on TV. Eveyone can be Dan Quayle fo fifteen minutes. The beginning of Rothenbeg's atistic caee coincided oughly with the inceased visibility in New Yok in the ealy 1980s of at dealing with social and political themes. While some of the atists woking in this mode had been active in the 1970s and ealie (Faith Ringgold, Les Levine, and Hans Haacke, fo example), othes wee just emeging. Afte a geneation dominated by cool, abstact at, these atists chose to move onto a moe diect activist couse, exhibiting thei woks in thematic goup shows and public pojects oganized by such goups as Collaboative Pojects Inc. (Colab) and Goup Mateial. Rothenbeg, who paticipated in seveal of these goup pojects, shaed a desie to "democatize" the pesentation of at. She said, "I'd like at to be as poweful and tansfomative as books and movies. To do that you have to make wok about the wold. Because at hasn't been about life it's been about at it's lost that powe to touch people, to make people think, to question thei assumptions." The desie to place at in the context of contem poay life, making it accessible to audiences othe than galley visitos, inspied Rothenbeg and othes to employ a wide ange of fomats, displaying woks in atists' books, newspape insets, and shop windows, as well as on billboads and steet postes. It is not supising that many atists of this geneation focused on the media as a souce of aesthetic vocabulay and subject mat te, and at the same time as a taget fo citicism. Some of those who exhibited with Goup Mateial, including Jenny Holze, Babaa Kuge, Hans Haacke, and Richad Pince, developed styles that involved lifting images fom thei oiginal media and popula-,
cultue contexts. Rothenbeg has shaed neithe the pactice of sub vesive appopiation no the postmodenist concens of authoship. Wheeas the cisp, "high-tech" look that typifies much post modenist wok esults fom elevating venacula souces to its own level befoe dissecting them with its theoetical knives, Rothenbeg's style emains insistently "low tech," etaining a flatfooted appeaance and home-spun lines, both of which enhance its ugent diect appeal. In that espect, he wok elates to that of Babaa Kuge, anothe atist who addesses he audience in the confontational second peson, exposing social ills, paticulaly misogyny. Kuge, like Rothenbeg, has a stong gaphic sensibility, having woked as a magazine photo edito and designe befoe becoming an atist; he adaptation of the advetising fomat consists of stips of didactic text supeimposed ove blown-up, geneic black-and-white photogaphs. The meaning of he wok hoves between the geneality of the image and the combativeness of the text. He pesentation is gandiose and imposing, in contast with Rothenbeg's infomal, familia style. "You" is always someone else; in Rothenbeg's wok, if "you" is not eally you, it is pobably someone you know, you boss, you neighbo. The etheeal quality of Kuge's blown-up half-tone epoductions and he lofty "sound bites" contast with the immedi ate physicality and the colloquial language in Rothenbeg's wok. Fo moe than a decade, Eika Rothenbeg has used advetising as the souce of stategic thinking and manipulation, aspiing to sub vet consumeist cultue though an accumulation of small, discete gestues. She assaults the systems that pepetuate social afflictions in Ameica, yet he sympathy towad human foibles saves the wok fom being peachy. Rothenbeg's delibeate aesthetic pose ejects "impotant," high minded, detached at in favo of at that uses the venacula, the spoof, the satie. He wok's accessibility and appa ent simplicity veil an inticate set of atistic choices, including lan guage and gestue as well as composition and colo, that combine to eveal the pevalent vision of the Ameican deam to be as fagile as a house of cads. Edna Russak Goldstaub Cuatoial Assistant Depatment of Photogaphy Eika Rothenbeg was bon in New Yok in 1950 and is now living in Los Angeles. He wok is cuently being shown in Documenta IX, Kassel, Gemany, and she exhibits egulaly at P.P.O.W. (New Yok), Rosamund Felsen Galley (Los Angeles), and Zolla/Liebeman Galley (Chicago). He public pojects include a billboad fo At Against AIDS (1989) and a pemanent installation fo the Los Angeles County Tansit Commission (1991). The pojects seies is made possible by geneous gants fom the Lannan Foundation, The Bohen Foundation, and The Contempoay Ats Council of The Museum of Moden At. Fo cad and constuction ideas, the atist would like to thank T. Cuse, Efoim Kalsman, Mailyn Levy, Babaa Pollack, Donna Stein, and Matha Wilson. Atwok by Eika Rothenbeg Copyight 1992 The Museum of Moden At, New Yok
fit c ^ ^ c MoMA yhc Museum of Moden At Lib<ay