America Starts Here
Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler
1988, Broken glass, fiberglass replacement windows, and etched plexiglas panels in frames, two framed photographs, 126 x 552 inches overall, Courtesy of Mel Ziegler, Austin, Texas, From the exhibition: America Starts Here: Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler, Tang Museum, October 1 – December 30, 2005
Originally conceived for an exhibition in Philadelphia, America Starts Here displays Ericson and Ziegler’s interest in American history and use of mapping as a method of approaching their work. The title is a direct quotation of a tourist slogan used by the state of Pennsylvania during the 1980s, recalling the origins of the United States and the utopian ideals of the country’s founding fathers. Yet the piece itself encourages a view of American history more complex than the optimistic boosterism of the slogan.
To make America Starts Here, the artists removed broken windows and fiberglass replacement panels from the former National Licorice Company factory at 1301-19 Washington Avenue, Philadelphia, and replaced them with new windows. All of the broken panels are framed between sheets of glass sandblasted with the paths of well-known trails, canals, rivers, and railroads, or tracings of cracks found in architectural elements in the former and current national capital cities of Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, DC. The removed windows are displayed in the configuration found at the factory. Their lines echo the cracked features of two of Philadelphia’s most beloved tourist attractions, the Liberty Bell and the broken glass of Marcel Duchamp's The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass).
To make America Starts Here, the artists removed broken windows and fiberglass replacement panels from the former National Licorice Company factory at 1301-19 Washington Avenue, Philadelphia, and replaced them with new windows. All of the broken panels are framed between sheets of glass sandblasted with the paths of well-known trails, canals, rivers, and railroads, or tracings of cracks found in architectural elements in the former and current national capital cities of Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, DC. The removed windows are displayed in the configuration found at the factory. Their lines echo the cracked features of two of Philadelphia’s most beloved tourist attractions, the Liberty Bell and the broken glass of Marcel Duchamp's The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass).