Does global Capitalism suck? Most assuredly, according to Josh Kline, whose show swan dives into Trump-era agitprop. Though in today’s art world irony and sincerity often run a three-legged race toward indeterminate meaning, Kline’s views on social inequality seem pretty clear.
Among the offerings is an easy chair made of clear-plastic cushion covers stuffed with shredded financial forms. In a tableau of 3-D–printed sculptures, shopping charts groan under the weight of empty bottles, while people loaded into recycling bags (modeled on actual laid-off employees) await the curb, where disposable lives meet the trash heap of history. The show’s summa takes shape as a PSA-style video featuring men and women who cheerfully testify to what they could be doing (helping others! curing cancer!) if only they didn’t have to worry so much about paying the rent. Its tagline concludes: “Universal Basic Income: It’s about time.”
The pitfalls of such work are that it preaches to the choir and is usually bought by apex predators who’d rather embrace political art than really change a society in which they’re doing quite well. Still, you can’t blame Kline for trying—or fault his argument.