Abdi Farah
Region: MFA Annual
My work reinterprets the accoutrements surrounding highschool
football in New Orleans. The pomp and circumstance
encircling the field opens a larger discussion about affiliation,
and our collective reckoning with arbitrary markers of identity,
be it race or nationality, or whether we were born into a family
of Saints fans or followers of Jesus. I create simulations of the
objects of commemoration and celebration on the field: DIY
T-shirts celebrating one’s son on the team, or the handsewn
marching-band banners or dance-team uniforms. I embellish
or remove aspects of their original construction in order to
highlight the embedded virtuosic use of composition, color,
and design present in these “craft” objects. These works
expose the overlap between local and homemade crafts and
the hallowed masterworks of abstract expressionism,
minimalism, and pop art. The overlooked formal and conceptual
sophistication of these objects, often made by those who do not
consider themselves artists, interrogates how we somewhat
arbitrarily imbue certain art objects, and people by extension,
with more meaning and value while conversely depriving others
of the same.