In a review on Commercial Appeal, part of the USA Today network, Frederic Koeppel wrote “prepare for some sardonic chuckles and laughs,” in regard to an exhibition by St. Mary’s College of Maryland Professor of Art Sue Johnson. Running through Nov. 11, “Sue Johnson: Home of Future Things,” is at the Martha and Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art in Memphis, Tenn.
The exhibition features small-scale works on paper as well as floor-to-ceiling vinyl panels and decals that Johnson has designed—transforming the gallery into the interior of an ideal, modern home.
“The artist’s theme, subject and obsession are the American consumer culture and obligation to and illusion of happiness of the 1950s and ’60s, an era that she looks back to and incorporates in her work not through nostalgia … but through the lens of the morality of acquisition that has characterized the country since the post-war years and a critique of mindless optimism shored up by the accumulation of objects,” Koeppel wrote.
Read the review.