Extra Value Meal: Sam Keller

“Extra Value Meal” is a brash combo of consumer culture nostalgia and capitalist critique. Like much of Keller’s oeuvre, the pieces in “Extra Value Meal” satirize familiar consumer icons to mock the ways capitalism structures our everyday lives.

Works like giant 6-pack rings, jumbo sized American cheese slices, and laser-etched Doritos play with the dimensions and iconography of commercial objects to make these both inescapable and absurd. Other works, such as Forced Auction, implicate the viewer further, using re-appropriated and distorted auction signs from the streets of Los Angeles to reveal how capitalism and conspicuous consumption warp notions of value.

Keller’s most iconic pieces are his Swarovski crystal encrusted soda and beer cans, which grant a luxurious, immortal life to a commonly discarded item. These transformed objects, car-flattened and gathered from roadways across New York and Los Angeles, become contemporary art objects that represent indulgence and consumption in a different light, with a unique sparkle. Widely loved and discussed, a recent piece saw stardom as a full page feature in Vogue’s August print issue.

“Extra Value Meal” opens in our middle room, in alignment with Jeffrey Swider Peltz’s “Static Flow”, opening in our grand gallery space.