PLACE

Written by Will Justice

De-consume is an installation art piece by Felicity Fenton. The title, De-consume, is the kind that could reasonably pass as a product of modern marketing. Though ‘de consume’ does not necessarily carry a substantial amount of meaning in actual French, the title does appear to successfully pass as a plausible French influenced boutique name. Here, it appears ‘French’ by way of a tenuous connection to high fashion, thus, the name functions similarly to that of Juicy Couture. However, from the perspective of English, De-consume could pass as a sensible portmanteau capable of serving as a verb, something akin or similar to the word “deconstruct.” Here, it appears pretty easy to imagine that De-consume could implement what “deconstruct” does to “construct.” This is interesting because de-consume would then logically exist as a verb that would mean to neutralize or undo consumption from its opposite.

However you feel about the title and its potential connotations, we definitely get the feeling quite early on that De-consume is a piece that will likely have something to do with consumption. At first glance these immediate suspicions more or less confirm that we are dealing with at least the formal veneer of the kind of commercial consumption that takes place within retail environments all over the world. Installed, there are three sectioned variations of white shelves that appear to serve the functional purpose of displaying objects in a way that suggests if not outright imposes the idea that they are products potentially for sale. Furthermore, the shelves seem to house products for sale within, what appears to be, a clearly demarcated “retail zone” that evidently now exists within the gallery of Place itself. 

The signifiers are numerous. De-consume, printed on the wall, establishes something of a formal retail presence as if it were to function as the name of this boutique rather than as a mere title of an art piece. There are minimalist clean white shelves suitable if not entirely befitting of the decorum we have come to expect from the high-fashion retail floor as this may exist in modern retail cultures. These shelves support objects or products which are mostly contained in standardized jars. The containers adorn the company logo of De-consume as well as a title or brief description pointing to the contents of each jar. Thus there is ample signification to suggest that the work has either created a commercial space or it has at least succeeded in referencing many of the formal qualities associated with retail floor spaces and / or medium to high end boutiques. 

Retail places, as we know, have many recognizable tendencies which by now are obvious to most people, unfortunately. This is most likely due to their ubiquity. The logo and brand name of such organizations are often highly iterated and widely distributed through various means such as media, products, signage, bags, business cards, price tags, commercials, websites, etc. In fact, I can’t think of a distributable format that does not function well on behalf of an ambitious global retail enterprise seeking to disseminate its brand. Interestingly, based on the kind of objects procured within the jars at De-consume, it appears that Felicity Fenton has already given this a substantial amount of thought. 

For example, ‘rabbit poop’ appears to be the kind of substance that would not typically serve as the flagship spokes-device for most institutions of high retail fashion. In individual large glass jars that may remind one of those associated with the storage of bulk foods, there can also be found ‘raw hide,’ ‘junk mail,’ ‘chicken poop,’ ‘styrofoam,’ ‘used sponges’ (which actually appear to be much more usable still), ‘garden compost,’ ‘broken electrical cords’ (which I’m going to assume are actually broken), ‘sand,’ ‘plastic cups’ (which happen to be ripped and crunched), ‘broken flip-flop,’ ‘eggshells,’ ‘fast food trash,’ ‘flower stems,’ ‘dog hair,’ ‘safety tape,’ ‘charcoal,’ ‘plastic bags,’ ‘hay,’ ‘pebbles,’ ‘burnt potholder,’ ‘hazelnut shells,’ ‘expired frozen food,’ ‘ceder wood chips’ (misspelled), ‘used pattern paper,’ ‘receipts,’ ‘pine cones,’ ‘used tape,’ ‘glacial sand,’ ‘empty medicine bottle,’ ‘egg carton,’ ‘human hair,’ ‘lint,’ ‘cow hooves,’ ‘scratched cds,’ ‘plastic bottles,’ ‘oyster shells,’ ‘rag,’ ‘old makeup,’ ‘pine chips,’ ‘used tissue,’ ‘goat poop,’ ‘concrete,’ ‘rose petals,’ ‘paper packaging,’ ‘twigs,’ ‘plastic lids,’ ‘cottonwood,’ ‘old underwear,’ ‘plastic container,’ and ‘kombucha fungus.’

These are only the large jars on display, which, for the most part, contain exclusively solid objects or substances; however, even this early on we can already begin to identify several recurring themes. They’re certainly items that are not typically reserved for this type of presentation. There are largely objects or substances that could be described as ‘trash,’ ‘waste,’ and in some cases, numerous varietals of actual excrement or feces. Here, we are talking about the solid waste of several animals - animal poop, which, by the way, is actually a highly traded commodity all over the world, and sometimes even extremely sought after in several regions depending on the animal, and the quality of the poop. However, in general, such items on display seem more likely to appear in a landfill or a compost pile rather than in a retail storefront of any kind let alone a high end boutique. Clearly there is much humor that can be found in this joke - the theatrical incongruence that exists between the items and their unexpected method of presentation. Is this all?

No. There are nude suits. This has been all too done before both by artists and tongue-in-cheek retailers (by the way, the product that undoes itself - great illustration of what commodity fetishism is all about. It makes me wish that the framework was entirely within this realm of focus). Back to the nude suits. They appear to break with a solid theme of objects having little to no value, but then again, so do the coconut fiber bricks and blankets. Not only are those things still usable, I sincerely believe that any competent retailer would have no trouble actually selling those goods for the right price. People might even pay for a compact disc that features artfully arranged ‘guttural’ sounds. Let’s face it, the human waste of sound surely must be interesting and perhaps useful to some type of audience. Who’s to say that this isn’t in some way better than Lady Gaga anyway? Perhaps the most salient point of this project is this - whether they come from the mall or whether they come from the landfill, all objects really are some type of trash when you get down to it. Having said this, perhaps Fenton’s piece suggests that maybe we should attempt to consume our own waste as this would make for a more efficient use of resources. If, however, it does not suggest this to us then it might be poking fun at the objects themselves as unworthy goods, totally not fit enough for our dollars in contrast to the real-life retail trash on display, that is, in real-life retail stores. In the end, I’m not sure. 

Here, some type of examination of an artist’s statement might help us as this usually serves as a fairly reliable method of understanding an artist’s intentions with a work, for it is (sometimes only) through this document that we are able to identify some of the artist’s ideas and goals as those pertain specifically to the work in question. To quote the artist’s statement directly:

“De-consume exhibits some of what remains (mostly) unscathed by commodification here on earth:  dirt, dust, trash, animal feces, moss, leaves, hair, putrid and organic aromas, and guttural sounds usually ignored by most ears…”

Unscathed… …I suppose, until now… ? Here, it seems that the artist certainly was successful in rectifying this situation by way of successfully ‘scathing’ the previously ‘unscathed,’ and directly via some type of commodification, though the implication here is that doing so would be bad. Frowny face.

The rest of the artist’s statement unfortunately feels like a brief manifesto of the obvious with the inclusion of a particularly long and surprisingly plain extraction from Jean Baudrillard. Though Fenton does not appear to commit to anything beyond satirizing the rhetoric of commerce, it appears implied due to the nature of her title and her apparent strong feelings against hegemonic forms of retail consumption. 

The question then remains - is this piece effective at getting people to “de-consume?” (whatever that means) does the storefront itself “de-consume?” I don’t think so. I think it actually asks people to consume more. The viewer is still directed into the consumptive modality. I was personally interested in how much Fenton was attempting to charge for her wares. I couldn’t get a price for the life of me. Seriously. Would the piece seem more or less successful if people actually bought some of the items? It seems that actually allowing the audience to purchase the items would drive the point home even further. Also, there was no customer service representative. I was confused. I was led to believe that this was a retail shop and that items were for sale. I was thus lurking to consume something and then, by the time I got to the artist’s statement I was told that this was all merely an ‘exhibit’ that was attempting to actually destroy consumption. I thought - really? Which is it? Can I purchase the store? Because I will pretend to be an art merchant if that’s what it takes.