NANCY LUPO, The Third Badger
installation view, main space, 1857, Oslo / September 2015

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NANCY LUPO, The Third Badger
installation view, main space, 1857, Oslo / September 2015

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Train, 2015
Three 55-gallon Rubbermaid Brute containers, two 32-gallon Wisconsin Badgers Rubbermaid Brute Containers, two 32-gallon Huskee containers, two 32-gallon Rubbermaid Brute containers (vented), toilet paper, real cherries, fake cherries, chocolate soccer balls, quail eggs, Baby Bel cheese, red plastic liners, and Rubbermaid Brute trainable dolly system, 94 × 765 × 78 cm

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Train, 2015
Three 55-gallon Rubbermaid Brute containers, two 32-gallon Wisconsin Badgers Rubbermaid Brute Containers, two 32-gallon Huskee containers, two 32-gallon Rubbermaid Brute containers (vented), toilet paper, real cherries, fake cherries, chocolate soccer balls, quail eggs, Baby Bel cheese, red plastic liners, and Rubbermaid Brute trainable dolly system, 94 × 765 × 78 cm

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Train, 2015
Three 55-gallon Rubbermaid Brute containers, two 32-gallon Wisconsin Badgers Rubbermaid Brute Containers, two 32-gallon Huskee containers, two 32-gallon Rubbermaid Brute containers (vented), toilet paper, real cherries, fake cherries, chocolate soccer balls, quail eggs, Baby Bel cheese, red plastic liners, and Rubbermaid Brute trainable dolly system, 94 × 765 × 78 cm

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Train, 2015
Three 55-gallon Rubbermaid Brute containers, two 32-gallon Wisconsin Badgers Rubbermaid Brute Containers, two 32-gallon Huskee containers, two 32-gallon Rubbermaid Brute containers (vented), toilet paper, real cherries, fake cherries, chocolate soccer balls, quail eggs, Baby Bel cheese, red plastic liners, and Rubbermaid Brute trainable dolly system, 94 × 765 × 78 cm

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NANCY LUPO, The Third Badger
installation view, main space, 1857, Oslo / September 2015

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NANCY LUPO, The Third Badger
installation view, main space, 1857, Oslo / September 2015

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both: Lake, 2015
55-gallon Rubbermaid Brute container, two 20-gallon Rubbermaid Brute “Greens Keepers”, earth ball, floating keychain, ball chain, tap water and cabbage

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Steamer Trunk, 2015
Two 32-gallon UNC Rubbermaid Brute containers, two 32-gallon Rubbermaid Brute recycling containers, Brute Tandem Dolly, wooden pole, two The Woofer dog coats and audio recording, 96 × 152 × 52 cm

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Grain Silo, 2015
Two 20-gallon Rubbermaid Brute “FEED-SEED” containers, licorice root, steel wheat pennies and gum, 57 × 98 × 57 cm

all images courtesy of the artist and 1857, Oslo

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Meanwhile in Oslo, the artist-run space 1857 is presenting the first solo exhibition of NANCY LUPO in Europe, no less!

If you are not familiar with the work of LUPO, the American artist is best known for creating sculptures and objects with Rubbermaid Brute containers, real and fake food and familiar elements like toilet paper, pennies or towels among others. Her pieces which look at first sight like functional objects or furniture components, are most of the time part of larger sculptural installations in which human figures aren’t present, even if a constant sense of the human body is entwined with the domestic materials. I have added below the entire press release provided by 1857 which seems to be relevant for the exhibition:

 

In America, Rubbermaid® BRUTE® containers are ubiquitous, meaning that they can be found all over the place, in malls, hospitals, parks, and prisons. For this reason they are also hard to see. Factually speaking, this is the opposite of a hallucination. A hallucination is where you see things that are not there, in this case however, you omit from vision things that are there.

Through The Woofer™, a dog coat with stereo speakers built into it, we are presented with the following image:

You enter a room.  You have never been there before, but the scene is somehow familiar. There appears to be a table where the table should be, a steamer trunk where you would expect it, a grain silo, the pool, etc.  When you try to look closer though, you can’t.  Everything is blurry or wet, like you are drunk or like you are lost somewhere in the New Mexican desert. It appears that there is a lake in the distance.

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Mary Ellen and her husband Tom are in town and we are all sharing a meal together. Over chicken and penne Mary Ellen tells me about the problems she’s having with badgers. At night they are getting into the trash.  They have figured out how to lift up the lid and then leave a trail of chicken bones and kitty litter in the driveway. She called Animal Control to see if they could set traps but they told her there was nothing they could do. She decides to fill the containers with water. When the badger opens the lid he falls into the water and drowns. Mary Ellen said she got rid of more than a dozen badgers before her neighbors called Animal Control on her.

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As you approach the lake, it evaporates.

I picture this dissolution as the embalming of a deity, the making of a mummy, only in reverse.

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➝ The Third Badger by NANCY LUPO is on view until October 10, 2015 at 1857 in Oslo