Opinion
Kaari Upson Blends Absurdist Theater and Real-Estate Porn
THE DAILY PIC: In her video at the New Museum, Kaari Upson tours houses so we don't have to.
Blake Gopnik
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THE DAILY PIC (#1809): Imagine if Samuel Beckett teamed up with StreetEasy to prepare the perfect absurdist real estate spot? That’s pretty much what we get in Kaari Upson’s In Search of the Perfect Double, a high point in her current solo at the New Museum in New York.
Upson’s video, which runs more than half an hour, shows her checking out a series of almost-identical tract homes in Las Vegas, all built by the same developer at almost the same time in the late ’70s. She slides along kitchen counters on her back, climbs into fireplaces and rubs her head against the popcorn finish on a ceiling, playing the demon househunter of every real-estate agent’s nightmares
Upson’s piece is brilliantly quirky but also a bit terrifying, as it asks us to consider the almost-the-same-ness that our culture imposes. (Image courtesy the artist, Massimo De Carlo and Sprüth Magers)
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