Bobby Brown at MoCA North Miami, 2011
Tatiana Vahan’s work explores the boundaries between art and commerce. In her new installation, Bobbi Brown at MOCA North Miami (2011) Vahan has researched MOCA’s permanent collection, QVC television, and department store displays to create an immersive sculptural and sound installation. The work raises questions about the cultural codes that distinguish fashion, beauty, and art industries. By incorporating select works from MOCA’s collection, retail display objects, and other miscellaneous items, Vahan creates a sculptural landscape of items that reference commercial merchandizing combined with contemporary art. The objects used in the installation become sculptures, and, with audio edited from QVC sales shows, there is a slippage of meaning and context.
– Ruba Katrib, Associate curator at MOCA, North Miami