American Dream is a work conceived as a response to, and comment on, the current crises of capitalism and our consumption driven society. The work looks back to the seductive beginnings of the new, suburban, consumerist revolution that now dominates western societies and continues to expand globally. We are currently experiencing a major crisis of the consumerist model, yet the seductive power of this model persists. A particular feature of Patrick Lowry’s work is the interest the artist has in various under-acknowledged forms of economic, political and cultural power. More specifically, underlying his work is the desire to highlight aspects of our urban environment that construct or maintain a submissive or controlled position of the user or consumer. Lowry observes these strategic power relations in both our surrounding architecture and the objects/machines of our contemporary man-made environment. Works such as Lifts (2010) and 24 Hour Cash (2011) - a facsimile of an ATM machine – through their detailed replication of real environments and objects, aim to mediate the viewer’s reaction to both the work and its real counterpart, and to encourage the questioning of its contexts and the viewer’s own relationships to it. These works, along with much of Lowry’s output, reflect the artist’s willingness to question the cracks in the consumerist model. According to a logic reminiscent of dioramas, the artist makes replicas of real environments. These are at the same time both seductive and a generator of conditioned behaviour.
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