1983-84 - 2023
‘1983-84’ is a sculpture inspired by the architectural details of two houses constructed in 1983 and 1984, respectively. These are forms chosen for a proposed quality of aesthetics in being able to communicate a stylistic tendency particular to the year they were built, with the assumption that a stylistic quality has a relationship with the economic conditions within which it was constructed. Which would presumably be influenced by changes to fiscal policies carried out to govern those conditions.
Polyethylene & steel
170 h. cm
To address the inflation crisis that had been raging for almost a decade, a fiscal policy carried out in 1983 lay in the de- indexation of wages. Which meant that wages would no longer be pinned to inflation indices. The following year, price controls were removed. Which meant that the retail sector was free to determine the prices of goods without governmental price regulations. Presumably, those had originally been in place as a measure to suppress inflation.
These two changes to fiscal policy evoke a certain tension when it comes to a contradiction in their aims in relation to the inflation crises. This tension is reflected in the sculptural form of ‘1983-84’ in evoking a certain engineering complexity when combining forms at an angle where balance is maintained – almost despite itself. Its aesthetic, however, is not derived from the financial sector but from the productive sector of the economy in its use of industrial plastics (polyethylene) and galvanized steel. The combination of which would bring to mind the national fishing industry.
Such a sculptural composition also evokes a certain ambiguity in terms of its seeming functionality. Like objects that exist at a strange crossroads between utility and decoration, they bring to mind an association with designer furniture. The very stylish kind in which its use is not entirely clear. Like a chair that seems too uncomfortable to sit on. Or in the case of ‘1983-84,’ a form one is not sure whether it is a lamp, coatrack, or a sculpture.
