It wasn’t until the 1920s that consumerism reached its peak in the United States, due to the thirst of the private sector to increase production and local manufacturing, coupled with government incentives and easy access to credit. One hundred years later, we are drowned in debt, suffocated by millions of images, and loaded with goods that we don’t really need but somehow still impulsively buy.
Gina Beavers has been making art that encapsulates how we consume things, fantasies and other people’s lives. How we portray ourselves via social media and how everyone is creating a more desirable world through carefully composed and doctored images. Ranging from “food porn” to “makeup tutorials,” the internet and particularly social media networks like Instagram have become an evergreen source of inspiration, amusement and reflection for Beavers, whose first solo museum show in the US is at MoMA PS1. “The Life that I Deserve,” on view until September 2, presents a survey of the past seven years of her work. The video captures a conversation in her studio in Newark, NJ, covering these topics and their relationship to the cultural phenomena that is the impetus behind Beaver’s luscious paintings.
