FDIC Insured is collection of cast off investment guide books burned with the logos of the 300+ failed banks closed by FDIC during the great recession. The books were all purchased off the dollar racks at the Strand bookstore in New York City.

Since the beginning of the Great Recession the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has taken control of over 300 failed or failing banks. The government has bailed out, or brokered forced sales of a number of other major financial institutions. These emergency conversions are done in one weekend; on Friday the bank is alive, but at 6 PM it begins a massive autopsy, and by Monday morning all traces of the original bank are gone. It is operated under the name of a formal rival bank, many of the employees are gone, and the entire visual signage has changed. These logos and the failures the represent disappear from our memory, they disappear from the clutter of the visual landscape, they are even erased from the Internet and its many archives. This archive is a memorial to these banks, the failure of the system they are part of, and the failure of their aesthetics of hope and strength.

A walk-through of my show in Portland at PNCA’s Feldman Gallery. More photos here.

Chas Bowie wrote a really tight insightful essay for the show’s mini-catalogue entitled Total Money Makeover. Pacific Northwest College of Art’s UNTITLED magazine has just re-published the essay here. A choice snippet:

Monuments invariably testify to their own physicality as much as they do to the memory of the subjects they commemorate. Mandiberg’s installation of investment guides emblazoned with the logos of fallen banks is no different. The get-rich-quick volumes that comprise FDIC Insured were purchased from the dollar bins of Manhattan’s Strand bookstore, where they served as pitiful markers of their own failure. For every bank that the government bailed out or brokered into sale, Mandiberg laser-cut the fallen institution’s logo on the covers of tomes such as Nothing Down, The Business Bible, and Dress Like a Million. At more than 220 titles and counting, Mandiberg’s library of financial failure is built upon the promise of buying even when you have no money, trading when you have nothing to trade and profiting when you have nothing to provide.

The full essay is here

The Great Recession is an exhibition of new work exploring the psychic implications of this most recent burp by the American economy, late Capitalism, gold hoarding, and the end of an empire. Some of the works on display include FDIC Insured, a collection of 220+ cast off investment guide books laser engraved with the logos of all of the failed FDIC insured banks, Under the Floorboards, a video about hiding and hoarding, and 1 Million Iraqi Dinars secured in a Zero-Halliburton case.

The show opens April 1st at the Feldman Gallery at PNCA, and runs through the end of May. There will be an opening April 1st during First Thursday from 6-8. Location is: PNCA Main Campus Building, Feldman Gallery, 1241 NW Johnson St. RSVP on Facebook.

I will also be giving a lecture the night before, March 31st, from 630-8pm at The Lab at Museum of Contemporary Craft, 724 NW Davis St. RSVP on Facebook. Both events are free and open to the public.

My solo show “The Great Recession” at PNCA in Portland, OR is a little over one month out. The listing just appeared on the PNCA website. Now I just have to finish making the work! The biiiiig work is mostly done, but there are a number of smaller works that have to be made, or finished, or framed-just-so.

BTW, I am from PDX, so this is officially a homecoming…

Exciting!

Security Patterns is a studio visit installation of recent laser cut work. These sculptures and drawings are made from old books laser cut with poignant words, and drawings made from industrial patterns, all of which explore transformations in technology and their relationships to evolutions (or devolutions) in economies. Some choice examples include: two display bookshelves with an ever growing collection of 130+ investment guide books and get-rich-quick books (e.g. “Weath is a Choice” or “Investing by the Stars”) all laser engraved with the logos of failed FDIC Insured banks, A shrink wrapped bundle of 12 Yellow Pages that have been cut all the way through with the phrase “GOOGLE” and a dictionary with the phrase “OMG LOL” cut from its pages.

I have previously burned the OED, Atlases, and Phonebooks. I am interested in exploring books, especially expensive reference books, as a symbol of technological obsolecense and consumption culture. Once they were a huge symbol of prestige, now they are a sign of a era whose time has passed away. I burn them with word and symbols, as a way of commenting on their technological obsolescence, and simultaneously restoring their aura as precious objects.

More images on this blog post, or on James Wagner’s review of his studio visit

I actually got to see a real life failed bank! County Bank is, er… was on Market Street in San Francisco, a few blocks from the Embarcadero and Ferry Terminal.  Truly downtown in the midst of it.  And failed.

Date: Fri., October 23 + Sat., October 24, 2009 | 3–6PM
Location: Eyebeam, 540 W. 21st St., NYC
http://eyebeam.org/events/open-studios-fall-2009

Eyebeam is pleased to host Open Studios for its 2009 Senior Fellows, Resident Artists, and Student Residents at Eyebeam’s state-of-the-art design, research, and fabrication studio; showcasing video performance, wearable technologies, code and humor, party technology, and sustainablity design. This two-day presentation at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center will allow a rare, inside look at current research. Guided tours of artists’ work will be given every hour from 3–6PM.

I will be presenting recent laser cut sculptures and drawings: books laser cut with poignant words, and drawings made from industrial patterns. These explore transformations in technology and their relationships to evolutions (or devolutions) in economies.  If that sounds like a bunch of vague artspeak, let me describe three examples: two display bookshelves with an ever growing collection of 130+ investment guide books all laser engraved with the logos of failed FDIC Insured banks, A shrink wrapped bundle of 12 Yellow Pages that have been cut all the way through with the phrase “GOOGLE” and a dictionary inscribed with the phrase “OMG LOL.”

James Wagner and Barry Hoggard came to see my installation last Monday. James has written up his impressions. James says:

Mandiberg goes where no laser cutter has ever gone before. Some of the work physically and dramatically distinguishes important newly-established contemporary technologies from their aging or defunct antecedents (many of which could once have been described as cutting edge themselves), The result is a visual dialogue charged with the passage of time and composed in the empty spaces we see “written” in and on various kinds of reference books.

One piece, a work in progress (surprisingly, lasers take their time), is titled “We have never had a year of peace”. When finished it will comprise the three volumes of the “Encyclopedia of the Third World”, lying on their spines next to each other, open at a random page in the middle where the artist has deeply burned the name and year of every war fought by this peace-loving republic since 1890.

Another body of work consists of a wall display of cast-off volumes describing how to make money. Mandiberg has “whittled” with a laser into their hard front covers to describe the logos of, according to the artist, “all of the failed banks of the Great Recession”.

Not directly related to the re-worked dictionaries, encyclopedias, phone directories, or investment monographs are some breathtaking laser-cut drawings of the security patterns ordinarily found printed inside those familiar small mailing envelopes used by banks and similar institutions.

More here (tx James!)

I just put up an installation of work at Eyebeam for Studio Visits. This is work I have been producing over the last 6 months. The work is primarily old found books cut with the laser cutter, as well as some laser cut drawings.

The central piece against the wall is “FDIC Insured” a collection of 130+ cast off investment books from the Strand dollar racks, engraved with the logos of all of the failed banks of the Great Recession.

Along the left side is a piece called “Before and After.” I wanted to call it “Before and After President Reagan Lost His Memory” but that seemed a little overdetermined. So I just write it here. It is books from an 1982 and 1992 World Book enscribed with things that were (Free Love, Analog, Prisoner of War) and things that are (HIV/AIDS, Digital, Enemy Combatant.)

Sprinkled throughout are altered reference books. I like taking Dictionaries and turning them into memorials. It is kind of like putting an ironic inscription on a tombstone…

Along the right side of the wall are laser cut drawings of security patterns from the inside of security envelopes.

Eyebeam is currently closed to the public, but if you would like to see this installation you have two options. Contact me (myfirstname@mylastname.com) to set up a time to meet, or come by the Eyebeam Open Studios, which will be October 23rd and 24th from 3-6PM.