“Not the Real Thing” was part of my solo show “the meaning of things.”
Not the Real Thing
This construct is about casting multiple vessels from a mold of an original. The bottle is shown unfinished -- drying under plastic, a sight very familiar to ceramic artists. What’s really driving this piece is I wanted to have the Coke bottle — the most iconic vessel of the twentieth century— in my show.
I borrowed the “not phrase” and the manuscript style from Magritte’s painting, The Treachery of Images.
I remember being introduced to The Treachery of Images in college: Here’s a pipe and it says “This is not a pipe" What’s going on? It’s not a pipe. It’s an image of a pipe. Art is illusion.
When I re-connected with this painting, I had no idea it was going to offer up so much: the format: object on rectangle; the schoolmarm quality of it; the use of language; but mainly: the permission to let my work be a riddle or a thought problem.