In the current election cycle, we are seeing a myriad of campaign signs, with loud colors and clever catch phrases trying to convince us of a candidate’s merit. Come November, these signs will be taken down, thrown away, and only the winners remembered. Artist Nina Katchadourian is out to change that. In her current street art display Monument to the Unelected, she gives proper—albeit comical—acknowledgement to all 56 presidential runners-up.
Hanging in the Washington Post’s office windows are humorous placards toting slogans like “Adams, Bush ’28” and “Henry Clay, Theodore Frelinghuysen: The Team.” Among them are more modern, sobering signs like, “Bush/Quayle,” “Gore/Lieberman,” and, of course, “McCain/Palin.” Each is designed with an eye towards modern campaign visuals, making passersby stop, recheck their Google Calendars, and make sure they are still in the right year.
In a public talk this past Monday hosted at the Washington Post headquarters, the artist discussed not only Monument to the Unelected, but also presented a variety of her other past “public art” projects. And boy, does it get a lot funkier than runner-up campaign signs.
While in the Trinidadian rainforest in the early 2000s, Nina Katchadourian mistook a bird call for a car alarm. When she returned to New York, she was commissioned by a sculpture center to rig up various cars with bird calls for car alarms and display them outdoors. They were a huge hit, and people began to continually harass the cars to hear the various alarms. Katchadourian said she gets her inspiration “from confusing experiences, from appreciating the moments when you have no idea what’s going on, and then turning that into a piece.”
In a simpler project, Katchadourian once sculpted and attached a false branch to a tree in a public park. The leaves on it were perpetual fall colors, and were displayed throughout the year, humorously contrasting their surroundings in summer and winter. Her current project is to develop a “welcome” sign for a small town in northern Maine on the Canadian border. Her drafts include a statue that includes every single state-affiliated symbol (the state bird, cat, flower, soda, etc.).
Katchadourian loves ambiguity and humor, which is exactly what you get in Monument to the Unelected, on display until Nov. 9. Just in time for the elections, this collection allows for a reflection on all of history’s what-ifs.And while she claims the piece does not take sides, but leaves it up to individual interpretation, one cannot help but see how well a Romney/Ryan sign would add to the montage.
