Rosemary Goes to the Mall - shopping as art

[tott]

In the Spring of 2006, Rosemary had the brilliant idea of creating a giant sculpture made out of shopping bags from the Mall of America. Congratulating herself on her genius, she went to the Mall and started asking stores for bags, but they wouldn’t give them to her without buying something. Thus began one of the most misguided adventures of her young life, as she slowly worked her way around the Mall, making purchases at every retail store but two (she lied to get the Eddie Bauer bag, and got weirded out at Daniel’s Leather). In the end, she made purchases at over 300 stores, returning (most of) those purchases bag-less on the following visit.

Rosemary Williams is a video and installation artist who has always hated shopping, and nearly had an anxiety attack at the Mall of America the first time she went there when she moved to Minnesota from New York City. Now her kids make up little songs about the Mall, and ask her whenever she gets home from work what presents she brought for them today.

http://www.rosemarygoestothemall.com/

I love hearing her perspective on things in the podcast! It's so different...

 

[ChrissyM]

I look forward to listening to more of her podcasts... I love her cynicism

Her use of the words "crap" and "repulsive" is great

Listening to her point of view about shopping is definitely refreshing

 

[tott]

^ it is, but her use of "gravitate towards" annoys me, because she says it all the time...

 

[ChrissyM]

I'll have to listen for that--though i doubt I'll be able to miss it--when I get a chance to listen to the rest of podcasts...

 

[ChrissyM]

giving this a little bump because I downloaded her podcasts from itunes (free) and her website and have put them on my ipod..

i listen to these on the commute back and forth from work and it makes the time go by faster...

I encourage others to listen to these as well... I think there are a lot of great observations about consumer society and it's more interesting than always listening to the same 5 songs on the radio

 

[softgrey]

this is a picture of the final installation...
i have to say i find it rather underwhelming......

The Wall of Mall, installation view, dumbo arts center, 2006 —————————————————————

 

[ChrissyM]

i agree..
when i saw the final product it was like...
you had SO MANY BAGS and that's all you could come up with!?!?!

i think the fact that the bags seemed to be stuffed with some things is totally unecessary..
she could have even cut the bags so that bothe sides were visible and done a something on a really large scale..

 

[cupkate]

Underwelming is right. There is so much potential in this idea. Installation was my subfocus in college and I think any of my professors would have given that end product a C.

 

[two months off]

Agree, I was expecting something else, specially after all the trouble she went to to get the bags.

 

[bluebutter]

I agree with you guys...the installation is rather disappointing.

 

[strawberry daiquiri]

looks so half-hearted...

 

[softgrey]

art is so different now these days...
i bet for her the whole documentation of the process was more of the 'art' than the final installation...

more and more this is the kind of art projects i am seeing...
not entirely sure how i feel about that.....
but in a digital world...the rules certainly are subject to change aren't they...?



still...by making the installation almost an after-thought, it gives the entire endeavor less grativas...

...

 

[strawberry daiquiri]

^ yeah... it's like she wanted to let the bags do all the talking... but bags aren't very eloquent.

 

[ChrissyM]

i also think that by putting the bags back to back she makes it look like there aren't as many bags..
which minimizes the scope of her project imo..

maybe it's more impressive in person..
but i sort of doubt it..