Sam Durant — Mirror Travels in Neoliberalism — Praz-Delavallade Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: February 19 → March 26, 2011

The work of Sam Durant investigates utopia and its failure in relation to protest and countercultures movements in America political history. In his sculptures, installations, and drawings, Sam Durant connects and overlaps several references to the popular, artistics and political history from the 60’s and 70’s.

Durant re-presents iconic symbols from popular music, art, white student protest, and Black Power, reflecting an intensely utopian yet nihilistic moment, when a counterculture both succeeded and failed at changing the world.

In this exhibition at Praz-Delavallade, Sam Durant develops a previous serie of mirrors composed of graffiti slogans. While the former mirrors were using social protests, these are rather founded on individualistic nihilistic statements. These group of works links and extends the territory offered by the sculpture, but above all, are meant to implicate the viewer in the field of political struggle with the idea of encouraging participation and engagement.