Colby Stephens
The view through the window at Sierra Arts
Endless Money Forms the Sinews of War. This print references El Lissitzky's print "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge"
Honey and Oil. Proverbs 5:3. In response to the Federal Reserve's manipulation of the Federal Funds Rate.
Pay No Attention (The Chairman's Confession) Digital video in reconstructed cinema marquee. "My people have worn green glasses for so long that most of them think it really is an emerald city."
Pay No Attention (Chairman's Confession) - video. Only in the U.S. Congress - prints.
Pay No Attention (The Chairman's Confession)
Pay No Attention (Chairman's Confession) - hardware detail.
Henry Ford paraphrased: If the people understood their system of currency, there would be revolution by morning.
2013 is the 100 year anniversary of the Federal Reserve. It is also roughly the 100 year anniversary of the Soviet Revolution - another failed experiment in economic control.
Normalcy, Not Nostrums. 2012
The Normalcy, Not Nostrums exhibition is a critique of the core of American economic policy: The Federal Reserve. The exhibition's centerpiece, A Gown For Lady Liberty, is made of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, wherein each letter "A" has been changed to a scarlet red. As such, it suggests the adulteration of American liberties at the hand of central banking. The exhibition addresses other related subjects as well. The video piece, Pay No Attention (The Chairman's Confession), references Frank L. Baum's Wizard of OZ to critique issues surrounding the Federal Reserve's use of fiat money. In the video, the Chairman repeats the phrase "My people have been here for so long that most of them think it really is an emerald city." The sculpture Zero Percent Interest, a glass jar filled with honey and oil that references Proverbs 5:3, prods at the problems of the Federal Reserve's methods of manipulating the Federal Funds Rate. The woodblock prints are compositions taken from Russian and Soviet posters. The content has been recontextualized with contemporary American economic issues. The prints are layered with complexity as the original content of the prints informs the contemporary. The original compositions are faintly painted on the wall behind the prints.