Broken Sets (eBay) AD6D264E-3D49-42D8-9775-27293A37C401, 2008 by Penelope Umbrico

Earlier this year we wrote about Penelope Umbrico's astonishing show titled As Is at New York's LMAKprojects. Using imagery gleaned from the internet, Penelope's work for the exhibition represents a fascinating exploration of the nature of consumption and technology, and the inevitability and implications of obsolescence. A little refresher on the show from its press release:

Broken Sets (eBay) are images of the screens cropped from pictures of broken LCD TVs Umbrico found on eBay.com, where they are sold for parts. The sellers turn on the TVs while photographing them so that potential buyers can see that the electronics behind the screens work. Umbrico became interested in the incidental abstract beauty of the screens because they are derived from the breakdown and failure of their own promising technology...

Zenith Replacement Parts are photographs, also taken from eBay, of dusty cardboard boxes containing Zenith replacement parts. What intrigued Umbrico about these images was the seller's belief in the photograph - that a picture of the box storing the part would lend more veracity to the objects inside, than to simply list the parts numbers.

The show ran from from May 13th to June 20th, 2010, but is now getting some well-deserved retrospective attention—from Art in America, no less! In the November issue of the magazine, Faye Hirsch gives As Is a glowing review, writing of the exhibition:

...Umbrico forces us to recognize our desire to see and understand, itself a kind of consumption, as something deep and essential, and equally impenetrable. We are all too willing to jettison common sense in order to indulge.

This issue is available newsstands right this very moment—if you don't subscribe to Art in America already, be sure to pick up a copy for the full review, and to re-visit Penelope's amazing show.