Opening Reception: Friday, May 6, 5 – 9 pm

1708 Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition Single-Use Account by Elizabeth Orr. Central to the exhibition is an advertisement, written and produced by the artist and presented at 1708 as a multi-channel video and sculptural installation. Through the seductive visual language of luxury branding, this advertisement promotes a lifestyle that stridently values sustainability. The narrative imagines a society that objects to single-use containers, and is appalled by their blatant use as marketing tools. As an advertisement, the work analyzes capitalist endeavors that exploit and create revenue connected to ongoing, global environmental disasters. Single-Use Account elaborates on the range of emotions and actions over time when we are faced with choices that define our stance on sustainability.

Single-Use Account challenges distinctions between capitalist production (the camera operator) and the consumer (the actor). The shadow of a steadicam rig tracking the main character symbolizes the dynamic position of the prosumer (production by consumer) within our current neoliberal economy. In prosumer culture, the objectification of lifestyles (from which a brand’s main financial value is extracted) relies on the collective creation of content and endless aspirations to emulate and embody a brand’s image and ideals. This cycle of production and consumption of desire can shift ideologies and in this way, Orr’s advertisement approaches the limits between promotion and propaganda. However contradictory it may be to a lifestyle brand’s au courant, eco-friendly ethos, the over production and consumption of physical products remains a reality that has a direct impact on the health of the planet. A single-use cup emblazoned with a logo next to its green stamp of recyclability is a prime example of this dissonance between intention and action. The advertisement usurps prosumer logic to signal what collective action against the habits and conveniences of single-use containers could look like in the future.

Orr has designed components of the installation to be modular and reusable. In doing so she is ensuring that its future presentation, shipping, and use is sustainable. Foldable screens and loaned and refurbished projectors are placed on telescopic, collapsible stands. Sandbags weigh the entire installation to the floor as a jarring reference to the realities of climate change and the short link between single-use containers, reliance on non-renewable energy, and natural disasters. These utilitarian choices are also in-part a self-reflection. The artist and 1708 are fully aware of how contemporary art exhibitions rely on processes that are inherently wasteful, complicit in the use of disposable materials, and ultimately contributing to pollution in its many forms. In Single-Use Account Orr pairs the cool, seductive visuals of her advertisement with a sober, practical display apparatus to reveal a myriad of touchpoints between free markets, culture, excess, and activism.

Elizabeth Orr (1984, Los Angeles, CA, USA) Orr’s work has shown internationally including recent solo exhibitions: “Spirits in Rotations,” RPFA, Los Angeles, CA, 2020; “Vivid” Pylon, Dresden, NY, 2018; “Our Hallway is Surrounded,” Bodega, NY, NY, 2017. She has given talks at institutions internationally including Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, 2018; Bard College, 2018; Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, NL, 2017; Triangle Art Association, NY, NY, 2016; Swiss Institute, New York, NY, 2016 and Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, 2017. Her videos have screened with Art in General, NY, NY 2018; Caro Sposo, Paris, FR, 2018; Tranzit Display, Prague, CZ, 2018; Santarcangelo Festival; Santarcangelo di Romagna, Italy, 2017; Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, Georgia, 2015. Her video works have been commissioned by The Harvard Carpenter Center, Cambridge, MA, and MOCAtv, Los Angeles, CA. In 2018 she received a Public Affairs Grant Program, from the US Embassy and in 2016 she won the MAAF NYC award for her video MT RUSH (2016). She has taken part in various residency programs including EMPAC, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY), Shandaken (New York), Bemis Center (Omaha, Nebraska), Real Time & Space (Oakland, CA), and Recess (NY, NY). Orr manages the estate of her late father, artist Eric Orr (1939-1998) and is on the board of KAJE, Brooklyn, NY. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and graduated from the Bard MFA program with Honors in 2015.

Special Thanks to Micah Angelus, Roberta Colindrez, Emma Hedditch, Nicole Killian, the writing of Naomi Klein, Sky Murray, David Riley, and Lauryn Siegel.

Single-Use Account is supported in part by the Brand Federation.