Couch Construction

March 2012

Kansas City, Missouri

Couch Constructions: March 2nd- April 19th, 2012, Herron Galleries at IUPUI, Indianapolis, IN.

“Through one medium – couches retrieved curbside in Indianapolis – this show reconceives our shared solid waste stream as a source of alternative building materials, engages the lives of the most economically disadvantaged citizens of our planet and city, and joins concerns for the human body and the making of furniture.” -Wes Janz, Curator of Couch Constructions.

Couch Potato is a conceptual exploration of emotional and cultural ideas of function, place, work and leisure, through the use of a curb-sided couch found in Indianapolis. The couch becomes the artist’s home during his temporary stay over the course of the opening weekend of the exhibition. By replicating his everyday experience with his own couch, the artist turns ordinary routines such as reading, working, surfing the web, eating, and sleeping into extraordinary occurrences by taking them out of the domestic setting and into a public space. Then the couch was designated as the gallery docent “desk”.

It has become perfectly acceptable to place a couch on the curb, the artist documents and responds to the personal relationships family, friends and strangers have with their couches during the time they’re in their homes and after they’ve been discarded on the curb.