The Office Show
In the short story “Your God is Finished” Greg Hollingshead writes “My grandfather’s work was done with a pick, a saw, a shovel. He cut ice and wood, and he dug graves and septic tanks”. Hollingshead writes of the same character “It was his conviction that a man did not know a thing until he had done or experienced it for himself. To my grandfather the words working at a desk, unless they referred to a carpenter, had no meaning.”
Like Hollingshead’s short story I hope my work invites consideration of a complex dialectic, not merely work done by hands contrasted with work done by the brain but the related themes of urban vs. rural, new vs. old, trades vs. white collar, real vs. virtual etc. My work for The Office Show explores the changing nature of work and, by its location in an actual office space, the changing work place. Like much of my sculpture and installation work, this piece continues my examination of tools as magical fetish objects and ultimately celebrates our makeshift solutions to the problems of art and life.
Blair Brennan
March 2009