Productivity, 1989
For an exhibition called "Conceptual Installations" at the State Museum of Illinois, in Chicago, I created an installation focusing on the ephemeral quality of labor as materialized in sweat. I installed French doors at the entrance to a gallery room, and built shelves inside, piled with t-shirts that I had asked various people to wear while working. I also distilled a bottle of sweat scent, that I made available in a perfume atomizer. This piece was picked up by the syndicated "believe it or not" cartoon and reproduced worldwide, lampooning what artists were doing these days, when actually the piece was a more earnest attempt to render sensory and palpable the materiality of labor.