If This Then What

source: nytimes
Anissa Mack’s abiding interest in Americana has taken many immersive, socially minded forms. In what is probably her best-known project, “The Last Full Weekend Each September,” she produced entries for every single category of a crafting contest at a county fair in Durham, Conn. Her latest works, however, seem made for a different kind of fair: an international art fair, with its own list of approved categories for visual expression. This shift is depressing, even if it’s intended as a comment on the absence of soul and authenticity in the art-fair system (and in some places, you’re not sure that it is.)

Shiny helium balloons, shaped like dolphins, fill the main gallery in a Warholian/Koonsian spectacle with a gratuitous sea-world soundtrack. Corn dogs and jack-o’-lanterns cast in resin dangle from minimal aluminum hoops. And two text pieces silk-screened on mirrored plexiglass make a transparently Naumanesque attempt at wordplay, riffing on the carnival snack of fried soda with less-than-profound results.

Also on view is a short video: An appropriated television news segment, it is about a man who squandered his life savings playing the carnival game “Tubs of Fun” in hope of winning a video-game console. Ms. Mack hasn’t done enough with this sad little parable, but it stands out from the other works as proof of a human interest in the fair — any fair — as a competitive, risky and quintessentially American environment.
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source: picaorg
Anissa Mack received her BA in Studio Art from Wesleyan University and an MFA from Tyler School of Art. She also attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and participated in the PS1 National Studio Program. Her work has been featured solo exhibitions in New York, Atlanta, and Portland, Oregon. She has also created commissioned public projects and performances for the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum (California), WaveHill Gardens (Bronx, New York), The Public Art Fund (New York), and the Queens Museum (New York). She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Mack is represented by Laurel Gitlen in New York.