“MOLL MADNOSS”

JOSEPH KRASKA

JOHANNAH HERR

MARCH 3RD-APRIL 16TH

Elijah Wheat Showroom continues to instigate, agitate and resist with March's programming entitled “Moll Madnoss.” Opening, Friday March 3rd from 7pm-10pm featuring a premier of Joseph Kraska’s 7th episode of "Peppré Ann and Froends.” The artful video portrays a digitally complex SIMS-like virtual world that is ruled by Peppré’s festive yet demented consumer driven life, inside the ‘Moll.’

The Showroom will become a retail clothing environment with a collection of pre-owned professional garments for sale on racks.  Suites, dresses, blazers, button down shirts and more, will be available from homogenized franchises located throughout the USA (and abroad). Contemporary political statements on patches or lapel pins will be affixed with each purchase deriving from the flurry of witty protest signs from the Women’s March on January 21st, 2017. Some of which are: “I’m Not Ovary-Acting”, “Resistance Is Fertile”, “I <3 Naps But I Stay Woke”, “This IS What a Feminist Looks Like” and many more. Patches and lapel pins will be available for sale to iron-on or stich-on to one’s own garments as well. The ‘Moll’ will also proudly present prefabbed handmade caps by Johannah Herr stating: "NASTY", "CUNT" &  "FEMINIST" for purchase. Alongside the caps, a few of Johanna’s “Snuggies” printed with a complex pattern of teargas, rubber bullets and other weapons used by U.S.A. SWAT teams during peaceful protests for crowd control will be presented and “for sale”. Teaming up with our neighbors, DRTYSMMR, EWS strives to capture community on the Bushwick streets. Works of artful garments will also be available as “up-cycled” fast fashion from an enhanced ready-to-wear collection at the store, next door.  

The privately owned mall, opposed to the public gathering spaces of the town square, is an example of corporate capitalism at the center of a meeting space. Consumers and business owners come together in suburbia or massive structures to acknowledge this cultural phenomenon as central locations for the exchange of goods, albeit driving away from the main streets of villages where its inhabitants thrive between independently owned, neighborly exchanges. Thereby as arts writer, Alicia Eler, explains that its “Creating consumer experiences out of public spaces is indeed how Jerde [inventor/architect of the ‘Mall’] is best remembered; it is an aesthetic experience of the most mundane variety, and indeed his aim was to serve “the common man” rather than “the elite.” ...Somewhere in this shift people started mistaking culture for consumerism and vice versa.”

The American Mall's function in suburban society, (albeit also slowly disappearing) as a gathering space focuses on consumption opposed to political gatherings. Our freedom to assemble is quickly being challenged as peaceful protestors’ and protectors’ rights are currently being questioned and states such as ND, MI, LA and OH are working to make it illegal to (and other crazy notions) congregate without consumption. The act of wearing a political sign on one's clothing, whether professional are everyday, without assembly, makes everyday an individual silent protest. 

From the sales, 50 % of the proceeds of the clothing & patches will go to Lambda Legal-- a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and everyone living with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work.