Idol Structures – Sculptures and Photographs by Matt Siber - Softcover

Siber, Matt; Raskin, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0985096012 ISBN 13: 9780985096014

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2016

Synopsis

Idol Structures accompanies an exhibition at the DePaul Art Museum of recent photographs and sculptures by Chicago-based artist Matt Siber, whose work explores the systems of corporate and mass-media communication that permeate the urban landscape. Instead of focusing on the information itself, Siber emphasizes the physical infrastructure of these systems. Photographs of the narrow edges of signs, sculptures of billboard ads hanging so loosely that their text is obscured in the folds, and other unique treatments of promotional materials distort and subvert the intended messages. The artist's deconstruction of such commercial efforts reveals an element of communication meant to remain invisible and subservient to image, text, and graphics. By highlighting the everyday objects used to persuade and influence, Siber's art undermines these communication systems' ability to do precisely what they were intended to do.

About this title

About the Author

Matt Siber is a photographer and sculptor who works and resides in Chicago. Gregory J. Harris is assistant curator at the DePaul Art Museum in Chicago. David Raskin is the Mohn Family Professor of Contemporary Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0985096012
• ISBN 13: 9780985096014
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 50