It’s not often that you get a press release that so completely connects your main interests – wealth disparities and crafts – but I’ll be damned if that didn’t happen. Her name is Linda Sibio, her work is “Economics of Suffering: Part IV” and the place is the Craft Contemporary Museum on Wilshire. I don’t get up and going for almost anything on Sunday. Too many Sunday mornings wasted in service to the main systems of oppression: Region and Capitalism. But to see Linda Sibio speak, I was ready to hear her preach.
I stumbled into the exhibit a bit late, even if I did find perfect parking for my sweet Royal Enfield. I tried to just blend in, something that rarely lasts long.
Linda Sibio explores the psychological toll of rampant capitalism and diminishing resources on those most vulnerable – the mentally disabled, the elderly, people living in poverty, and other disenfranchised populations suffering from homelessness, hunger, racism, and violence. Totally my jam!
Linda Sibio says, “I am interested in how money controls the masses, and forces poverty on people. In this series of works I look at the psychological effects of forced poverty that causes people to age prematurely, have heart attacks at a younger age, and die early; and how low wages cause depression, suicide, and post-traumatic stress syndrome.” Did I ever tell you I worked at a teen suicide hotline for 7 years? This woman knows of more of what she speaks than many leading people in the field of Suicidology and I wish more people were listening to her.
I know I will be on Sunday, January 7th at 3pm when this goes full throttle with “Wall Street Guillotine” – a very rare performance by Linda Sibio at the Craft Contemporary Museum. This piece will draw parallels between forms of torture from the Holy Wars of the Middle Ages and our current wealth disparity, sooooo not recommended for children. Admission is free but requires registration.
Sibio’s exhibition includes large paintings, multimedia installations and interactive works, and other creations developed from her deep dive into the perceptions of the insane. She had straightjackets that you could cuff yourself to and roll around with you. She had a tribute to sewer workers, or as Triple X Records recording artists Spongehead would sing of in “Plumber’s Lament” – a river of shit. She had ink drawings which document the system of “glyphs” Sibio has constructed to form her own visual vocabulary. This is so fascinating and it really should all totally be in a book. (Are you familiar with “Hobo Symbols” because if so, you’d love this.)
What really spoke to my core was how she captures one of the most defining moments of our lives as human capital – when they monetized debt. Most things are somewhat finite like land or property. But debt, that’s infinite and why would you ever limit yourself? Debt is crippling, more crippling than cutting off a hand and that’s how Sibio shares of the evolution of punishment in regard to religion and capitalism and its primary function of control. Cutting a hand off might have seemed perfect punishment for being poor, but it was only a matter of time until they found a less directly obvious means to serve its function – crippling people into servitude through debt.
I was all in but the lady next to me, not so much. She started to say that you can regain wealth, but you can’t regrow your hand as I started shaking my head side to side. Our eyes met and then she said, “…no you can’t?” I know it’s hard to realize that capitalism controls human capital in a way that is just as crippling as losing a hand, but not understanding that pretty much defines privilege. People just do not get the value of any sort of inherited wealth, because it is huge. Take it from me. I got orphans on both side of my family. My Mom was orphaned and had everything taken from her during WII, and my Dad’s Mom was orphaned when her mother died and her father decided to just send her off and start a new family.
Inherited wealth is everything and generational wealth is being replaced with generational debt. So we’re really screwed. I think that’s a big reason why we don’t have national healthcare like every other decent country, medical debt is so easy to rack up. But things are different with Generation Z and I’m loving it. Kids don’t just get taught your rules, they have information, and they are talking with each other, and they really don’t like that shit sandwich everyone keeps serving.
Gen Z don’t want that debt, they don’t want that job you are stuck at because you have inescapable debt, or an unattainable dream based on someone else’s business model. They get that college was sold as a mandatory dream to sell debt and that gender is a construct used to oppress people and they ain’t into it. Why should they? It’s stupid. This country has a business model built on marry and reproduce and it’s been a really profitable for an ever-growing group of billionaires but not so much for the rest of us. And they are gonna use religion and whatever else they got to keep it that way. No wonder we’re all on meds and trying to prioritize self-care. It’s bullshit. The bootstraps mentality we are fed is a lie. Stop being guilted into that carp.
Don’t believe me? Do the math. If you worked every single day, making $5000/day, from the time it was claimed that Columbus sailed to America, you would still not be a billionaire, and you would still have less money than Jeff Bezos makes in a week. Basically if you earned $5,000 a week since 1492 you wouldn’t be a billionaire until 2054. You cannot become a billionaire without oppressing others. Period. No bootstraps are strong enough to pull that off.
So I’m getting into this exhibit, especially the ink drawings of her process and I wonder, was Sylvia Plath her Mom? Because I felt like I walked into the sequel to the “Bell Jar.” Having been diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of eighteen, Sibio has a philosophy she has termed “The Insanity Principle.” Sibio transforms what are considered symptoms of insanity—such as fragmented thinking, non-linear time sequencing, dismemberment, and delusions into art.
As most questions were about the physics of the art, I wanted to know about her, so I went straight for it. I wanted to hear about her mom. Why is Linda Sibio so far ahead of a lot of people in her willingness to say “f u” to oppression? Because this exhibit is really f’n brave in a way most people are too fearful to speak.
Well, her mom sold her out. She completely used up all the money the family had inherited, and she left Linda and her four siblings in care of the state. Kinda like how parents sold-out their daughters’ bodily autonomy in the 2016 election because they didn’t like the most qualified person to ever run for President. Because that’s what women did when they decided not to vote for the candidate who was actually interested in protecting women. Everything has a price, even your sweet baby’s girl ability to earn money and have access to life-saving l healthcare. But hey, gas prices are too damn high or did you see the border? Way to stay vigilant.
And speaking of relevance to current events, a triptych of large paintings explored the economic motivations for genocide and how world powers often turn a blind eye to, or even sanction, war and mass murder for access to land, resource extraction, and wealth generation. The one for Cambodia really caught my attention since I have been there, I was surprised to find out that she had not. It’s powerful beyond words.
But that wasn’t the only connection. I’ve worked in the nonprofit sector pretty much my whole career, my life is dedicated to helping the most vulnerable, and walking through this exhibit I felt like I was walking through a living rendition of a grant proposal. It was all there, the need, the causes, the roots, and it’s all tied together by financial oppression. That is the main source of suffering. That is what I have learned in life and the worst part, it is just going to keep getting worst.
I’ve been thinking a lot of the concept of leisure time. I always connect that with the 70s and I think probably because that’s when I was a kid. But really things changed in 1980 when Reagan was elected and Jimmy Carter became a one-term President, a lot was said about our county. It’s like when you put on the sunglasses in “They Live” and you see the signs about Money being your God. Jimmy Carter was about as Christlike as you could get for a President even down to the initials. And he was replaces by a divorced, Hollywood actor who’s campaign manager, Richard Wirthlin, completely changed elections.
Richard Who? You might recognize someone who worked for him and also led a successful campaign for a divorced, Hollywood reality star – Kellyanne Conway. (And if I met her I would have a million questions about Wirthlin.) The ‘80s came with a romanticized version of capitalism and started to transition the leisure time that we finally obtained after WWII with the invention of the modern teenager into side-hustle time. You know what you need to do to make more money so you can buy tiki and mid-century modern décor so you can pretend to know what leisure time is.
Linda’s work is incredible and I wanted to be her bestie. The intensity of the large scale works combined with the details of the ink drawings is a tough journey through survival. You’re walking through a mental funhouse of horror of how the mind is constantly moving in a state of dissonance as we try to make sense of all the conflicting truths of what others want from us and what we need. At one point we were talking about how f’d oppression is and she let out a bit of a scream. I screamed a “hell yeah” of support and instantly felt bonded. Sylvia Plath wrote: “There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.” I always feel like I’m screaming in the middle of the room, and NO ONE is listening to me. Plath also wrote, “To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream. I felt very still and empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.”
It’s hard to explain but why should I try when you can experience if for yourself. So just let’s all get together kick off the new year united in knowing you’re not crazy. You’re just a pawn in capitalism. So I hope you’ll join me on January 7th at 3pm at Craft Contemporary Museum on Wilshire for Linda Sibio’s performance piece to close-out her showing. I’m gonna fan girl over her.
I’ve been freely cutting and pasting from the press release because it’s damn good, so let me just do some more of that:
“Linda Sibio’s solo sonic art performance, Wall Street Guillotine, will further investigate themes in her solo exhibition, ”Economics of Suffering, Part IV, ” drawing parallels between forms of torture from the Holy Wars of the Middle Ages and our current wealth disparity. The event will be staged on January 7, 2024, at 3:00pm, which is also the closing date of the exhibit. The performance is not suitable for visitors under 18, but those under that age are allowed with parent/guardian at their discretion. The museum is located at 5814 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036 (323-937-4230).”
Admission is free but requires registration here.
For more information on the performance, please visit the website.
For more on the exhibition, please visit craftcontemporary.org/exhibitions/linda-sibio-economics-of-suffering-part-iv.
