According to the statement issued, the origin story was: Single Moms feeling, if not “disabled,” at least having “problems getting by” and so with a few phone calls got the band together making “plans to produce and possibly trade certain self manufactured commodities.” Set against stories of princes who choose to live as paupers, it takes on a altruistic hint of mission from god to raise enough money to save their orphan souls from eviction.
Interesting because it premises everything that came before as not commodities, that these new works under the group’s name were “beautiful home goods,” whereas whatever came before, under their individual selves, were neither. These plucky entrepreneurs, saw opportunity by entering, only now, into free markets as freeing them, meaning their not-commodity-objects could continue being so because these were for sale instead. That they weren’t selling out. Or, that they were selling out so as not to have to sell out.
An interesting trick to free yourself from the demands of cultural production for those of market production, reminiscent of S.O.A.P.Y.’s magick trick. Though an interestingly impossible distinction between luxury goods and art. See too, Ooga Booga and Paradise Garage's Sweatshop among countless others.
Interesting because they look less like “beautiful home goods” and more like piles of contemporary art tropes. Interestingly even less so than the worded lamps, singing paintings, among other objects for which these artists are known. Interestingly being shown in a gallery setting. Interesting because like so much art today attaching little doodads to retail display systems it is hard to distinguish between desire for commodity and the desire for art.
See too : “S.O.A.P.Y. III” at What Pipeline
