ARTISTIC RESEARCH

'The Cultural Commodities Archive' [Installation, online archive, and digital prints. 2019.]

As part of a research project The Gended Planet: The Political Aesthetics of Women's Bodies in Western Neoliberal Visual Culture, The Cultural Commodities Archive explores the question: What is a cultural commodity?

Noam Chomsky (2013) explains how capitalism operates undermining markets by creating uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices. Guattari and Deleuze (2009) also suggest that we are moved by the desire to possess, consume, and accumulate. As a white Hispanic woman who has experienced and been part of the advertising industry for eight years, I collected and selected images aiming to understand potential patterns that represent the politics of women’s bodies in Western neoliberal visual culture.

Three main points articulate the structure of a pattern used as the strategy by capitalism: The history of art as a source of inspiration for art directors and photographers. The appropriation of these aesthetics implicitly contents the politics of oppressive social female stereotypes that are reproduced through visuals. Last, neocolonial forms are exported as part of the post-digital culture and globalized economy creating new oppressive identities for women, worldwide. 

I invite you to navigate and explore old and new politics still trading with race, gender, ethnicity, and class; pollinating the global market through networks using visual culture and digital media.

Exhibitions:

(2018). The Cultural Commodities Archive. [Installation, online archive, digital prints, projection. 2019]. Exhibited at SWITCH Exhibition. Galleri KiT, Trondheim, Norway, March 3 - March 10.

(2019). The Cultural Commodities Archive. [Installation, online archive, digital prints, projection. 2019]. Exhibited at Sorry for the Inconvenience (International Women's Day). Galleri KiT, Trondheim, Norway, October 11 - October 21.

Published article:

Balzi, L. (2021). La violencia de género como estética en la cultura visual de Europa y América desde el siglo XVI al XXI=Gender violence as aesthetics in European and American visual culture from the 16th to the 21st century. Cuestiones De género: De La Igualdad Y La Diferencia, (16), 12–30. https://doi.org/10.18002/cg.v0i16.6728