No. 92 (Architectural Digest, Nov. 1998)

Sally Larson

Lambda print, 27.5”x30”

Comments

[Linde Brady]

Sally Larson scans various images from interior design magazines such as Architectural Digest and intentionally reconfigures them into historical landscape or still life scenes in order to address issues of colonization, class and popular culture. In this Lambda print, an elaborate table setting is in the foreground set against a lush, garden-filled backdrop. Elements such as the Renaissance bust of Michelangelo’s David, a row of encyclopedias and ostrich egg used as exotic props in contemporary magazine photo shoots are transfigured into objects that address specific politics of collecting, display and power—from the European curiosity cabinets of the 16th-18th centuries to ethnographic and modern museums.
Larson evaluates colonial appropriation on multiple levels. Through this visual as well as conceptual palimpsest, Larson mines the various historical narratives that emerge from the production and reception of home décor publications. By using these items to “decorate” the domestic sphere, the photographer of the scene as well as the editors and readers of the magazine are implicated in the objectification of culture. The desire and wonder provoked by these slick publications are thus linked to the earliest modes of Western imperialism and exploration.
As Larson points out, the images in these design magazines “shape our desires and set the tone for the unattainable perfection of this romanticized and self-gratifying fiction.” By dismantling the “truth” of the photographic medium through her prudent manipulation of imagery, Larson further interrogates the terrain on which these histories are seemingly preserved.

[Jessica Stoltenberg]

I thought this piece of artwork was very interesting. It brought together many different pieces of society or different cultures into one giant heap of "stuff." The thing that I enjoyed most about the piece by Sally Larson is that in the background of the chaos of all of different things in the front of the painting, the back is done with a quiet, calm mountain setting. It's like the painting is saying even though it is chaotic and busy with many different pieces of cultures, in the end everything is okay and calm.
~JAS