Exhibitions

Today’s highly refined marketing machine appeals to our personal hopes, wants, needs, and dreams to effectively entice us to the point of purchase. Advertisers have found such success by making many of the same promises offered by religion. Love, happiness, acceptance, and comfort are now offered by corporate America and made available in a pill, wrapped in plastic, or with free shipping. Religious organizations have quickly taken cues from marketers and now spew their everlasting-life-guarantees over airwaves and across billboards.

In the installation, Overstock [jáce gáce, Portland OR, April 2008], Chris Held unites the messages of product marketing and religious practice by creating a monolithic shrine to the modern commodity. Masses of stacked goods ascend skyward towards a peak. At the crest, a single microwave sits in place of the Buddha or Christ, adorned by glowing halos of colorful plastic containers. At the base, T.V. dinners rest like rainbow colored offerings around the perimeter. By borrowing iconography from retail displays and spiritual altars, Held engages viewers in a familiar way with a subversive message.

Behind the scenes, Overstock is powered by credit cards and box-store return policies. By taking advantage of offerings such as 0%APR on purchases to obtain goods he’s intent on returning, Held preys on a system of consumer seduction. The keys to mega-corporate success are: buy in bulk, maximize profit, and pass crumbs of savings and convenience onto buyers. These ‘benefits’ are essentially a crack in an otherwise stone-faced façade, open like a wound that’s supporting its own critique.