American Rococo

‘gadget burdened’ or ‘luxury encumbered’ is the condition of a society or individual that has advanced and specialized to a point where an excess of highly specialized tools and goods result in disadvantaging–creating a trajectory towards some form of collapse.

In American Rococo, if I am to move, I must assemble an entourage of servants to bear my many daily luxuries–these have been incorporated into my wig—Thus encumbered by supporting goods and attendants I trekked through Colorado’s Owl Creek Pass in the White River National Forest, paraded on the streets of Aspen CO visiting boutiques such as Louie Vutton and Christian Dior, and relaxed in the spa and hot-tubs at the Snowmass Ski Resort Recreation Center.

Physically American Rococo features a telescoping ‘wig’ that can rise in excess of 6ft above the wearer’s head constructed of brocade and velvets of purple hue. Tresses of script reaching to fifteen feet in length trail from the main body of this wig—these tresses depict hand written words sewn as a sculptural cursive that hang and twist into illegible curls. Abundance, opulent, licentious, decadence etc are literally spelled out but can only be ‘read’ by way of color, material, form, and my actions and conditions as this gesture of privilege is expressed.

Licentious, one of over a hundred words in script that that make up the American Rococo wig and tresses, these describe and accompany power and economic privilege

The mass of abstracted textual tresses link the wig to ‘garmented’ appliances, gadgets, and technological augmentations– automatic coffee pot, DVD Player, laptop computers, smart phone, sonicare toothbrush, radio controlled vehicles etc. Each of these dressed in frilly ‘outfits’ that coordinate with the wig and textual tresses.

Other Iterations of American Rococo include, American Rococo: White Sands, in which I wandered the white dunes of southern New Mexico & American Rococo: Daddy War Bucks, in which I walked the New Jersey shore from Long Branch (Site of the Movie home of Annie’s Daddy War Bucks) to Asbury Park seeking opportunities to assert American dreams of wealth and power via a theater of sometimes cruel absurdity .

setting off into the White Sands Dunes
In American Rococo: White Sands, I was without entourage–What i would need I would carry–no gadgets, a lantern, shelter, cooking pot, water–i found it best to walk at night under the moon and make camp during the 100 plus degree days

Reference is made to the ruffles and layered fabrics that make up the costume of the central figure in Fragonard’s painting ‘The Swing’—attire that has come to represent the indulgent class decadence of Rococo era European aristocracy and the immorality of ‘Marie Antoinette like privilege’ a condition I propose is matched and bettered in our own cultures expanding wealth gap but also is present in the product array of the average citizen—I attempt to provoke a critical consideration of our own American luxury where even many deemed impoverished likely have access to clean running water, shelter inclusive of air-conditioning and possibly a 100 channels of television at times linked to a cell phone… how do our ideas of wealth and hardship sit in relation to historical and global economic expectation and dreaming

Gadgets devices and conveniences deemed essential for daily living dressed in custom tailord garb visually coordinated with the Rococo wig extended from the wigs tresses–these were carried like a bridal train by an entourage of students and day laborers who together supported my walking tour .

The Original documentary photographs shot by Anne Massoni I later combined and altered with obvious digital manipulations suggesting reinterpretation, marring, and the construction of fiction.