The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA) is thrilled to present Jason Manley’s sociological exhibition called Shrinking Room. The exhibit is a monumental wood sculpture that merges architectural form with text to address wealth inequality.
While exploring this distinct spatial dynamic, Manley connected the psychological impact of this tight corner space to a statistical pie chart produced by the UCSC sociology department. Their pie chart shows that 80% of Americans share only 7% of the total financial wealth in the U.S., proportions that Manley set out to construct into a sculptural form.
Shrinking Room incorporates 25 quotes by activists, philosophers, artists and writers spanning various points in history to the present. The quotes assert opposition to greed, class, inequality and oligarchical societies. Through various additive and subtractive woodworking methods, the quotations were carved and formed to produce lattice-screens. The sculpture itself was created with used pallet boards, transforming them with digital design and computer controlled fabrication. The raw, weathered wood is contrasted by the machine-cut fonts and hints at economic tensions between labor and technology, and divisions between production and capital.
Jason Manley’s exhibit opens at the UMOCA on August 25, with the opening reception between 7 – 9 pm. The exhibit runs from August 25 to October 21.
