Reading Identity within Ordinary Objects

Shunyo Morgan

The rise of consumerism in the mid-twentieth century coupled with the increasing presence of mass media allowed everyday objects to grow beyond functionality and develop an identity. Through the proliferation of an image of an object placed in a carefully constructed context, consumers have distinct associations with any given brand that is controlled by corporate interests. This identity that a corporation works so hard to establish through media presence can be harnessed by an artist through their work; this is the symbiotic relationship between Pop (and other appropriative forms of) art and mid-century consumerism. Make no mistake, while this relationship is symbiotic, it is important to highlight the critical nature of this relationship as it elevates the potency of the artist’s commentary through the work in question. In the 1990s, Barbara Ségal created Dash, amongst other works that would play upon this relationship. She isn’t the first, however, to capitalize upon this intersection of art and consumerism. The Pop Art icon Andy Warhol and Pictures Generation artist Cindy Sherman created works that are household names such as Brillo Box (1964) and Untitled Film Stills (1977-80).

Artists like Warhol strove to interrogate the nature of mass media--what they communicate and how they do it. This mission is a common, constantly evolving thread for artists and critics which is what makes appropriation and authorship important considerations in these works. Artists like Warhol, Ségal, and others have turned a critical lens on consumerism and mainstream culture through their works, though their processes, experiences, and circumstances are distinct. For example, with Dash being created in the ‘90s, one may be quick to lean into a feminist interpretation. Another way this object’s circumstance could impact its interpretation is considering where Ségal was in her life or the other objects that she was creating at this time. Ségal creates the likeness of easily recognized objects to gesture at consumer, personal history, and women’s roles in the household as well as society at large.

Ségal’s signature can be found in her methodology, the use of old-world sculpting technique. While her recent oeuvre is more known to feature luxury brands such as Coach, Louis Vuitton, and Hermès and can be found in the collections of big names such as Rihanna and Malcom Forbes, the work featured in Concentrated Power, Dash, is in conversation with other works that Ségal was making at the time, such as Bon Amie (1992) and Charlie’s Robe (1989). These works presented everyday objects that could inform a viewer’s interpretation of the work in question. These works are marble carvings of simple robes that could be found in any household which is certainly in line with Dash, the marble likeness of a budget brand detergent.

As the artists’ experiences, background, circumstances of when the work is being viewed/shown/created is an integral part of the work this is also true of the audience. For example, some dominant associations a viewer may have with Dash are: women’s roles in that it’s a product often associated with women’s domestic labor, the role of color & materials in art history (more specifically in marble works), consumer culture, mass media, or even Pop Art in general. Roland Barthes’ theory of authorship can be applied to appropriation art and used to think about the roles of the author and the audience coagulate to give works such as Dash its own identity.

In his influential 1967 essay “The Death of the Author,” Barthes argued that an object’s identity appropriated by an artist and an audience member’s perception of the resulting work forms an intersection for understanding. This intersection essentially creates space for a new situation and therefore a new set of meanings. This strategy is a signature trait of in the artist Cindy Sherman’s use of appropriation, which is especially potent in her work from the 1970s as part of what has come to be known as the “Pictures Generation.”[i] In Sherman’s iconic Untitled Film Stills series, she took iconic stills of movies and reproduced them with herself as the star—seemingly recreating the familiar. Barbara Ségal recreated the familiar through taking an iconic product and reproducing it in her vision giving us Dash in the 1990s. While Sherman plays with an obviously recognizable moment creating almost an alternative reality for that still, allowing for a more homogenous understanding of work by creating a space for the audience to come to with their associations of the movie/scene being parodied, not depart from like what Ségal does. Ségal comes close to an exact replica working within the same space as a Dash bottle, creating a jumping off point for the audience’s associations with the work. Using this (almost) exact copy of an object, Ségal leaves room for the audience to help her complete the work by bringing their associations to the table. This being said, Ségal’s presence is undeniable with the marked difference between the sculpture and actual product eliminating the typical challenge to authorship presented in appropriation art replacing it with a question of its composition.

The materials of Dash are obviously different, significantly elevated, from the actual bottle as well as the actual color of the work when compared to Dash the product. This elevation of the Dash bottle, as well as the other works by Ségal during the ‘90s, is yet another thread to pull on when trying to approach Ségal’s work for interpretation. The implicit biases and beliefs that an individual viewer brings with them to Dash, the circumstances in which this work was created, Ségal’s intentions behind this work, the technique, and many other things that embellish the inlaid marble that is Dash is what makes appropriation a necessary consideration in examining this work. Acknowledging the power just one familiar image has and how that can be manipulated by and artist and interpreted by the artist and/or the viewer is what led the curators behind Concentrated Power to create such a widespread and robust reading of this humble sculpture of a budget detergent bottle.

In order to get behind the veil of the author, one must understand the development and significance of the role. In his essay, Barthes discusses the role of the author in modernity and his or her dished capacity in the role of writing.[ii] Barthes’ discussion of the author, especially its significance in modern works, is likened to positivism and capitalist ideology that was prominent at the start of the Modern era.[iii] The emphasis on the importance of the individual as well as the concept of author as the creator, beyond narration, is quite telling of how they contribute to the development of the work. In the early in the modern conception of the author, the explanation of a work can be interpreting it as the author confiding in the reader. Writing in the context of the 1960s, Barthes claimed that the author is born with the work itself and the work eternally exists in the here and now; the work is created for no other content than the one intended.[iv]

This is a progression from where the author stood at the beginning of the Modern era of the author as simply an individual who infuses themselves into the work. In this evolution, the author’s ego is thought to stand alone at the moment of creation for the work and materialize as the work itself. Therefore, the modern author’s role in the narrative portrayed by Dash is inextricably connected to Ségal. Her use of a widely recognized image plays towards Barthes’ central idea of the death of the author by giving birth to the reader (or in this case viewer). With a such a commonplace image, most of the audience will recognize the object of mimicry but most of the audience will have different experiences, memories, and stories tied to that object that come to the surface when faced with the object. Some of the general categories in which these associations might fall in are: female figures in their lives and the roles that they have played, the female experience, commercialism and consumer culture, or even academic associations. Barthes’ assertion of the author’s death is a tenet that we must accept but with some reservations. We must think of it as the establishment of a gradient rather than a total death with Dash, as Ségal is definitely present in the work but is not totally in control of the reins when creating meaning within this work.

[i] “Pictures Generation” refers to both an exhibition & the group of artists that exhibition represented. Active in the early ‘70s through ‘80s, these artists were critical of media culture and used appropriation art to vent these criticisms. Artists associated with this movement include: Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, Louise Lawler, James Welling, Paul McMahon, and Barbara Kruger.In 2009, the Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted The Pictures Generation 1974-1984 which showcased the works of these artists. Link to the Met Exhibition

[ii] For the context of this essay, like in other considerations of appropriation art, I will treat the novel and writing as discussed by Barthes as synonymous to a work of art.

[iii] Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author,” in Image – Music – Text (New York: Hill & Wang, 1977), 143.

[iv] Roland Barthes, Ibid., 145