Bud and Betty Micheels
student artist-in-residence grant

NATHAN CAREY 2009-10

The physical difficulty of labor is often linked with the success of the end result, usually an object. Traces of a masculine archetype of labor still remain in our society. This template is becoming less and less applicable to contemporary labor that puts an emphasis on delegation, computation, and synthesis for the purpose of creating an intangible end result. It is this transitional period that we as workers operate in, which causes our function to be intermediary and confusing.

My work investigates the departure from object-based labor and the status of human function within this transitional period. I have taken the Rubik’s Cube as an object, a puzzle, and a symbol of intelligence and combined it with a more sensorial masculine viewpoint of labor. Thus formally linking the strenuous activity to the tangible minimalist object.

Manipulating Untitled