Josephine Meckseper
Ubi Pedes Ibi. Patria.
(Where the feet are, there is the fatherland)
2006
Shoes, display carousel
153 x 83cm |
Reminiscent of Haim Steinbach’s appropriated objects, Josephine Meckseper’s assemblages recode the familiar through associative interpretation. In Shoes, Meckseper presents the tacky display of a discount store as a slack readymade; its shoddy products simply stand in for themselves as uncanny totems of commodity failure. It’s only through relational affiliation that Meckseper’s remnant footwear takes horrifying form, echoing connotations of poverty, economic migration, the Marcos’s dictatorship, and Holocaust images of piled shoes. Gathering dust beneath blazing orange sale signs, Meckseper marks down wholesale cultural barbarity to bargain basement affordability. |
