The stanchion as its own fading star

The stanchion signifies the secular sacred. It is a barrier beyond which the common cannot pass. Thanks to Hans Haacke, it also refers to whoever is in charge of subverting the common good. SuttonBeresCuller pumped it up to drag it down. Theirs is bronzed and ludicrously heavy. What it guards droops on the wall behind it, an empty frame sagging like a leaky parade float.

To bronze an object is to cherish it, a baby’s shoe, a fishing lure, a first blanket. What SuttonBeresCuller cherish is the absurdity of elitism, the attempt to sever ties that bind and assert the ones the separate: this Leonardo, not the one on its right; this arthritic old king, not that blooming young peasant. 

Part of their exhibit at Lawrimore Project, through Dec. 19. My review here.