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Collage of five diverse artworks from the Hammer Museum Collections side by side. From left to right: 1) Contemporary painting of two embracing figures with surreal elements. 2) Post-impressionist style painting of trees with vibrant blues and greens. 3) Black and white illustration of a face with intricate patterns. 4) Japanese woodblock print style image of a figure in a checkered robe. 5) Photograph of a couple dancing, the woman in a black dress and the man in white

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Digital Archive Take It or Leave It: Institution, Image, Ideology
Art Tom Burr, Propped Perfume
Propped Perfume, by Tom Burr, 2008

Tom Burr, Artist
Propped Perfume , 2008

Medium
Plywood, paint, steel hinges, steel thumbtacks, vintage magazine ads, feather boa, steel cable
Dimensions
73 x 54 x 100 in. (185.4 x 137.2 x 254 cm)
Credit Line
Collection of Barbara and Howard Morse, New York. Installation view at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; photography by Brian Forrest

For this work, Tom Burr began with a simple geometric shape, a nod to minimalism's basic forms, and then embellished it with a number of appropriated images. His formal inquiry into the medium of sculpture is entwined with character development and questions about site-specificity. His sculptures pose, vamp, and slouch. They wear feather boas and recline with magazines, suggesting both stage sets and the functional spaces those sets approximate. Burr's humor is not a cynical response to the solemnity or "neutrality" of earlier modes of artistic production. Rather, his efforts are deployed as barometers for cultural signification and desire: to measure the effects of certain formal choices and to provide a ready platform for our own projections and mores.