Phillip Anderson
Every Object a Eulogy
Artist Statement
The tchotchke and knick-knack permeate and clutter the material world of antique stores and family cabinets. Each object is a representation of a past material culture and idea reframed through its new context in place. An object of comfort and utility can shift into an object that echoes time passed instead of contemporary appreciation or taste. The shelves of a peddler’s mall in turn become a setting for still life of past materials and objects. Through this association of past material culture to present sensibilities a shift occurs in which the objects on display become memorialized on the shelves. They highlight the viewer’s awareness not only of the items past use but the culture it comes from in relation to our own today. The display becomes a moralizing message of progress and change while also revering the past and offering it in a new context. The display of the antique mall in relation to the pedestals of a museum draw an interesting connection to one another where the only thing needed to create a still life is a frame around the objects. This work recreates this idea and heightens the connection by exaggerating the already dismal aspects of antique wares and setting.