Comedy of Purposes

In March of 2016, Lars Roeder began a series of performances and interactive installations that were designed to engage viewers as participants in each artistic experience. They have taken the forms of food carts, voting booths, books and vending machines, connecting themes of convenience, commodity, agency and identity with the public. Each work was created to interact with the audience, often times involving a piece of the work given away as a memento of that experience. In contemporary theory, artworks are defined by aesthetic interaction. Both the art and the viewer bring a unique set of circumstances that determine the outcomes of their mutual experience. Retaining these experiences on the part of the viewer is what connects the art to the whole of society. The accumulation of these performances was the exhibition, Comedy of Purposes, at the Islander Art Gallery in Corpus Christi, Texas. From April 7th to the 15th, 2017, the performances were presented, along with documentation and artifacts, to revisit the works of the previous year and reinterpret them beyond their original context. Amongst one another, the pieces established strong visual and aesthetic relationships. Their reflections as a group embraced the complexities of desire and value in art. The final exhibition became a performance in itself, with many moving parts to parody the idea of exhibiting events that have already happened. Yet, this process furthered the reach of the work, inscribing it with a whole new context beyond its original purpose. These intended functions critique the viewer’s perspective to clarify the relationship between art and life.