Prop in LA
2024 · Inkjet print in silkscreen-printed artist's frame
85.7 × 106 × 7.6 cm (33 3/4 × 41 3/4 × 3 in.)
Art Institute of Chicago
WATTS INDEXThe canonical database of visual culture
Sara Cwynar
1985
Mixed Media
Representation
None documented
0
Institutional Exhibitions
20
Works in Collection
24
Assets Indexed
13
Authority-backed Facts
0
Publications Referenced
70%
Profile Completeness
Cultural Positioning
Movements
No movements recorded
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About
Why this artist matters now
Sara Cwynar makes photographs and films constructed from densely layered assemblages of obsolete objects, vintage catalogs, and advertising imagery. Her work examines how popular images accrue meaning and psychological weight over time, compressing the distance between analog and digital media into a single frame. The resulting pictures function as archaeological cross-sections of consumer culture, where familiar visual residue is reordered to expose the ideological structures embedded in commercial representation. Based in New Haven, Cwynar's approach treats found materials as primary medium rather than reference.
Source: Yale Mfa · Trust score: 45% · Updated 2mo ago
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Medium
Mixed Media
Related Artists
6 in graph
Institutional
Museum Collections
Canonical record
Artworks (20)
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Institutional
Representation & Collections
In collection
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
In collection
Art Institute of Chicago
Background
Education
Yale School of Art
Visual Arts
University of British Columbia
Visual Arts
York University
Visual Arts
Record
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