2022 ARTIST GRANT RECIPIENT: COORAIN
2022 ARTIST GRANT RECIPIENT: COORAIN
“As a stand-in for the commodity in general, I use food to ask tough questions about things I deeply love. My own food related illness makes this comforting, life giving substance a source of great pain. I live in a world of apparent delections, with delightful and extravagant foods that my great-grandparents could never have imagined, but these exist just out of reach; my body can handle few of the pleasures of the American industrial food system. What promises us the good life is exactly that which is killing us.” - Coorain
Coorain’s project submission is based on QVC, rebranded delightfully as Coorain Visual Culture (CooVC for short).
It’s an artist’s TV show and accompanying artist book. CooVC will explore where commerce and culture intersect, . Inspired by and possibly spoofing QVC and the Sears catalog, CooVC represents tried and true methods of salesmanship.
Meal Deal for Coo.V.C., 35 x 24 inches, archival inkjet print, 2022. Produced with support from Gummed Label.
Floyd Hall of Idea Capital comments, “There’s an art to great salesmanship, and it’s a craft that continues to evolve along with platforms for consumerism. Whereas brick-and-mortar stores in the 20th Century used to supply physical catalogs, today’s merchants rely on complex algorithms and social media to get in front of would-be consumers.
Coorain Visual Culture (CooVC) reminds us how we learned to consume as staple of American culture, and that the influencers of today have their origins in yesterday’s door-to-door salesmen and infomercial hosts.”
