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Untitled, Thrift 2006 (0635)
by Brian Ulrich

ARTIST STATEMENT

COPIA
Plenty, a plentiful supply: now chiefly in L. phrase copia verborum abundance of words, a copious vocabulary. Cf. COPY n. 1c.
I.     a. Plenty, abundance, a copious quantity.
       b. Fullness, plentitude. Obs.
       c. esp. of language: Copiousness, abundance, fullness, richness.
          copy of words : = L. copia verborum. Obs.
II. A transcript of reproduction of an original.

In 2001, citizens were encouraged to take to the malls to boost the U.S. economy through shopping, thereby equating consumerism with patriotism. The Copia project, a direct response to that advice, is a long-term photographic examination of the peculiarities and complexities of the consumer-dominated culture in which we live. Through large-scale photographs taken within both the big-box retail stores and the thrift shops that house our recycled goods, Copia explores not only the everyday activities of shopping, but also the economic, cultural, social and political implications of commercialism; as well as the roles we play in self-destruction and over-consumption, and as targets of marketing and advertising. By scrutinizing these rituals and their environments, I hope that viewers will evaluate the increasing complexities of the modern world and their own role within it.

Copia is composed of several chapters, currently Retail, Thrift and Backrooms. These further document notions of social class, excess and corporate ideologies. By combining photographs taken candidly with a medium-format film camera outfitted with a waist-level viewfinder, and studied compositions taken with a large-format camera in thrift shops, I can capture lost excitement and overwhelmed, subsumed moments. The large-scale prints allow the viewer to stop and notice with a distanced perspective familiar places and things. Over time, these images take on new meaning, ones anthropological and historical of an affluent society at the dawn of the 21st century. What we buy and what we use up becomes the evidence of our experience of this time.

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Untitled, Thrift 2006 (0635)

by Brian Ulrich

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All of our prints have a minimum border of .25 inches to allow for framing. We do not alter the aspect ratio, crop or resize the artists' originals—quoted dimensions are for the size of paper containing the image, not the printed image itself. For exact image sizes and more helpful info, view our framing guides: