Transcript

Ushering in Banality, 1988. In 1988, I made a body of work called Banality. And I realized that in this body of work, I was trying to communicate that the only readymade I ever cared about was the viewer. And prior, when I was paying so much attention to different objects, maintaining their integrity of birth, or every perfection or imperfection in the object, I was just trying to show respect to the viewer. So a piece like Ushering in Banality is trying to communicate to the viewer that no matter what their background is, no matter what you like or no matter what any of your experiences are, you are perfect and you’re perfect in your own being. You can’t have a different history than the history that you have. And everything’s about this moment forward. It’s a practice of complete acceptance, and Ushering in Banality is the calling card of this whole body of work. I always look at it as a little autobiographical. If you look at the base, it’s in the shape of a footprint, and the young boy in the back pushing the pig—I always thought of as a self-portrait. I also always felt that it didn’t matter what people thought; I'm ushering in banality and I knew that I was kind of doing my calling in bringing forth this work.