Books
Gleefully Voyeuristic, Sara Cwynar Invites Us to Spy on the Workings of Consumerism
Amidst the frenzy of accelerated consumption and existential doom, Glass Life provides a lucid meditation on how and why we consume.
consumer culture
Books
Lifestyle Over Life: Stephen Wright’s Vision of America
Wright’s darkly comic novel burrows into our hollow cravings, and finds more hollowness.
Art
Milena Büsch's Large Paintings Parody Consumer Culture
These deceptively decorative works critique the conventions and implied values of the classic bourgeois interior.
Art
An Illustrated Guide to Guy Debord's 'The Society of the Spectacle'
The spectacle can be found on every screen that you look at. It is the advertisements plastered on the subway and the pop-up ads that appear in your browser.
Books
From Lucky Magazine to Lyrical Sonnets
CHICAGO — Simone de Beauvoir once said, "Buying is a profound pleasure." To shop, to consume, to purchase a new look even if it's temporary — an air of satisfaction accompanies that moment of credit card swiping, or handing over that stack of Ben Franklins.
Art
Fake Real: The Journey West Travel Office
Artists Stephanie Rothenberg and Dan S. Wang's Beijing-based Journey West Travel Office is both performance and installation, a blend of “fake real” that explores tourism, mass culture and "the aesthetics of America's parking lots."