The Depths of Shallowness, 2008.

The Depths of Shallowness  is an appropriation that critiques conceptual artists. A thinly veiled self-parody, it is my homage to Warhol's statement: "If you want to know all about Andy Worhol, just look at the surface of my paintings… there I am. There's nothing behind it."

This "Artist Statement" is meant to be read with an enthusiastic, yet pretentious artist's inflection:

Artist Statement:

"When pondering how one could add depth to the iconic "100 Campbell's Soup Cans" piece, I thought: why not go inside the can? I could make the Campbell's soup can into a pinhole camera, take it to the grocery store, and take a photo of the rows of cans! It was uncanny! Enacting this process does many things: firstly, by making a pinhole camera from a cylindrical object, the image becomes distorted, creating depth!  Secondly, by singling out one can we remove it from the autonomy of the lineup, but that notion soon gets turned on it's head when thirdly, after its transformation, the "liberated" can is now face to face with his brothers, being used as a tool to autonomize them further! Is there no escape? It begs the question: Can we truly be free from the commodification process, as consumers in a materialistic society? Fourthly, to further embody the concept of humans as commodity, I tediously hand-printed all 100 prints in the darkroom myself. The repetition slowly felt akin to meditation, a distinctly human faculty that exalts us above machines! After the prints were lined up on the wall, were they perfectly identical? Certainly not. Being a mere human, there was bound to be some margin of error. Look closely and you'll see little differences. Look closely into… The Depths of Shallowness."

Scroll to view project process & documentation. A very limited quantity of the original photographic pinhole prints are available here.